TY - JOUR
T1 - Experiencer troubles
T2 - a reappraisal of the predicate-based asymmetry in child passives
AU - Aravind, Athulya
AU - Koring, Loes
N1 - Copyright the Author(s) 2022. Version archived for private and non-commercial use with the permission of the author/s and according to publisher conditions. For further rights please contact the publisher.
PY - 2023
Y1 - 2023
N2 - Children’s understanding of passives of certain mental state predicates appears to lag behind passives of so-called actional predicates, an asymmetry that has posed a major empirical challenge for theories of passive acquisition. This paper argues against the dominant view in the literature that treats the predicate-based asymmetry as theoretically irrelevant. We instead propose a novel account that locates the problem in the syntax of experiencer constructions. Synthesizing theoretical and developmental evidence, we build a case for an early misanalysis of transitive subject-experiencer constructions as unaccusatives–structures that, by design, cannot passivize.
AB - Children’s understanding of passives of certain mental state predicates appears to lag behind passives of so-called actional predicates, an asymmetry that has posed a major empirical challenge for theories of passive acquisition. This paper argues against the dominant view in the literature that treats the predicate-based asymmetry as theoretically irrelevant. We instead propose a novel account that locates the problem in the syntax of experiencer constructions. Synthesizing theoretical and developmental evidence, we build a case for an early misanalysis of transitive subject-experiencer constructions as unaccusatives–structures that, by design, cannot passivize.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85139929996&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1080/10489223.2022.2115373
DO - 10.1080/10489223.2022.2115373
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85139929996
SN - 1048-9223
VL - 30
SP - 76
EP - 100
JO - Language Acquisition
JF - Language Acquisition
IS - 1
ER -