The acquisition of voice and transitivity alternations in Greek as native and second language

Abstract

This paper investigates the acquisition of Greek voice morphology in relation to transitivity alternations. 'Non-active' voice morphology is found in reflexive, anti-causative and passive structures. The role of the non-active morpheme is to 'check' a thematic feature of the verb, internal or external. Developmentally, the study addresses hypotheses proposed for the acquisition of transitivity alternations (Borer & Wexler 1987, Borer 2004), based on comprehension and production data from Greek L1, as well as L1 Turkish speakers with Greek L2. Results show that L1 and L2 learners can 'read' non-active morphology as passive or reflexive, indicating that it is syntactically computed. The differences between learners and native controls concern use of non-syntactic constraints on an otherwise target-like grammatical system (Borer 2004). hypothesis (Grimshaw 1981, Pinker 1984, Randall et al 2004), and the Syntactic Bootstrapping Hypothesis (Gleitman 1990, Borer 2004), prioritizes syntax over lexical semantics. The two hypotheses are based on alternative syntactic analyses of argument structure representations. Earlier accounts proposed that information on argument structure is included in the lexical entry. Lexical information dictates the way syntax will project

Middle-passive voice in Albanian and Greek

“…Here we will briefly review some work on Greek and Albanian in recent approaches. With respect to Greek, Tsimpli (2005) argues that reflexives are syntactically formed through a mechanism that associates the two argument slots (theta roles) with a single DP; passive and anticausative readings, on the other hand, are not syntactically distinguished with respect to each other, and their disambiguation arises as a combination of semantic and pragmatic factors. Only the readings of middlepassive voice are considered, not its morphology.…”

“…'the baby') and not amenable to a reflexive reading (as far as we know babies lack the ability to wash themselves). So, which reading is derived will depend on the interaction of semantic and pragmatic factors, as argued by Tsimpli (2005). The various readings are disambiguated if a 'by'-phrase is present, since in this case the external argument takes the form of an oblique argument and the reflexive and anticausative readings are excluded.…”

The acquisition of transitivity alternations in Greek: Does frequency count?

“…In line with Borer's (2004) analysis, Tsimpli (2006) examines transitivity alternations marked through voice morphology in children acquiring Greek as L1 or L2. It is argued that monolingual Greek children show sensitivity to voice morphology from age 3.…”

“…Haspelmath, 1993 for a different view). Based on previous empirical evidence (Tsimpli, 2006), it has been shown that the animacy of the sentence subject, as well as lexical properties of the verb interact with voice morphology in that preferences for one of the possible readings, e.g. reflexive, passive, anticausative can be explained in relation to these factors.…”

‘Critical’ aspects of language: complex syntax and morphology

“…Along similar lines, Tsimpli (2006) argues for the early acquisition of ergative, reflexive and passive structures in Greek. The claim is that (non-active) Voice morphology in Greek, unlike English, is underspecified with respect to whether the thematic feature it saturates is external or internal.…”