Acquisition of passive sentences: a theoretical-experimental retrospective

Abstract

In this article, we discuss the late acquisition of passive sentences, focusing on studies in Brazilian Portuguese. Late acquisition of passive constructions is widely discussed in the literature, specially under the ‘Maratsos effect’: late acquisition of verbal passives with non-action verbs (e.g. hear, see, like, etc.). Two hypotheses are defended in the literature to explain this phenomenon: the hypothesis of maturation of language skills (BORER; WEXLER, 1987) and the hypothesis of the influence of language input (DEMUTH, 1989; DEMUTH et al., 2010). In this paper, we give an overview of both theoretical explanations about the delay in the acquisition of passives and discuss them on the basis of studies of acquisition in Brazilian Portuguese. We analyze the studies of Brazilian Portuguese concerning theoretical and experimental linguistic data, and conclude that they seem to bring evidence to believe that the maturational hypothesis provides a more sensible explanation for the acquisition of Brazilian Portuguese passives.

Keywords

• Aquisição tardia
• Passivas do português brasileiro
• Conhecimento sintático.