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The Acquisition of English Passive Constructions by Mandarin Speakers: a Developmental Perspective

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The Acquisition of English Passive Constructions by Mandarin Speakers: a Developmental Perspective THE ACQUISITION OF ENGLISH PASSIVE CONSTRUCTIONS BY MANDARIN SPEAKERS: A DEVELOPMENTAL PERSPECTIVE Kenny Wang B.A. (I&T), B.A. (Hons. I) A thesis presented to the University of Western Sydney in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy January, 2010 © Kenny Wang 2010 To my son Jeremy 揚華, who is growing up to be a speaker of the “Pure Language” (Zephaniah 3:9). Acknowledgement It has been an exciting journey writing this thesis. I would not have been able to complete this thesis without the support of my supervisors, my colleagues, my family and other people. Firstly, I would like to thank my thesis supervisors, A/Prof. Sandra Hale, Dr. Bruno Di Biase, Dr. Satomi Kawaguchi, Dr. Michael Tyler and Dr. Ruying Qi. I am most deeply indebted to Dr. Bruno Di Biase and Dr. Satomi Kawaguchi for being my mentors right throughout my postgraduate studies. I have benefited immensely from their guidance, expertise, as well as their critical and encouraging comments. I wish to also express my sincerely gratitude to A/Prof. Sandra Hale and Dr. Michael Tyler for their guidance and their insightful comments; and Dr. Ruying Qi for her constant encouragement and support. My PhD study was made possible by the Australian Postgraduate Award and the financial support from the University of Western Sydney, for which I am very grateful. I am grateful to Dr. Yanyin Zhang for her constructive comments and for encouraging me to expand my BA Honours work into this PhD. I would like to also thank Dr. Jing Han and Ms. Jeni Ryde for their continuous support, inspiration and encouragement. I am also indebted to Professor Nancy Wright for her strong support as the head of the School of Humanities and Languages at UWS during my PhD candidature. Special thanks must also go to my fellow PhD students, Lucija Medojević and Tonya Agostini. I appreciate their moral support and the many hours of stimulating discussion that helped to clarify my thoughts. I am most fortunate to have worked with Lucija and Tonya. I would like to thank Mr. Owen Lowe, Ms. Margaret Coghlan, Miss Kaili Kelly Chen (陳凱莉), Mr. Wofy Lo, Miss Yiqing Zhu, and Mr. Yuan Lai (賴原) of the City Campus of the Soochow University, Taipei (東吳大學城中校區) for their kind assistance in helping me to recruit informants. I am also thankful for all of my informants. I wish to also thank my brother and my parents for always believing in me. Special thanks to my brother Andy for lending me his Microsoft MCSE NT Workstation 4.0 self-study book in 1999; I would not have done my PhD had it not been for that book. Lastly, I wish to express my special thanks to my wife Wendy. No words can ever truly describe how much I appreciate her thoughtfulness and understanding. Without her love and support, none of this would have been possible. 蕙安,我愛你! Statement of Authentication The work presented in this thesis is, to the best of my knowledge and belief, original except as acknowledged in the text. I hereby declare that I have not submitted this material, either in full or in part, for a degree at this or any other institution. _____________________________ Kenny Wang January, 2010 Table of Contents Chapter 1 Introduction........................................................................................ 1 1.1 Practical Implications of the Study .............................................................. 5 1.2 Theoretical Implications of the Study.......................................................... 6 1.3 Socio-economic Implications of the Study .................................................. 7 1.4 Thesis Outline .............................................................................................. 9 Chapter 2 Literature Review............................................................................. 11 2.1 Linguistic Analyses of Passives................................................................. 12 2.1.1 Typology – Syntax ............................................................................. 12 2.1.2 Typology – Morphology .................................................................... 13 2.1.3 Typology – Information Structure ..................................................... 14 2.1.4 Passive Voice in English and Mandarin............................................. 14 2.2 Syntactic Analyses of Passives .................................................................. 19 2.2.1 Passives in Transformational Grammar............................................. 20 2.2.2 Passives in LFG ................................................................................. 23 2.3 Semantic Analyses of Passives .................................................................. 29 2.3.1 Adversity-Felicity in Get-passives..................................................... 30 2.3.2 Adversity-Felicity in Bèi-Passives ..................................................... 33 2.3.3 Adversity-Felicity in Be-Passives ...................................................... 35 2.3.4 Summary of Section 2.1 - 2.3 ............................................................ 36 2.4 Passive Voice as a Discourse-pragmatics Strategy.................................... 37 2.4.1 Discourse Topicality .......................................................................... 38 2.4.2 Lexical Priming.................................................................................. 39 2.4.3 Saliency – Size and Colour ................................................................ 40 2.4.4 Perspective and Subject Assignment ................................................. 41 2.4.5 Animacy ............................................................................................. 42 2.4.6 Visual Attention and Subject Assignment ......................................... 44 2.4.7 Visual Attention and Starting Point ................................................... 50 2.4.8 Passives as Discourse Strategy in English and Mandarin.................. 53 2.4.9 Summary ............................................................................................ 54 2.5 Comprehension and Production of Passives .............................................. 54 2.5.1 Comprehension of English Passives .................................................. 56 2.5.1.1 Children’s Comprehension of Passives.......................................... 56 i 2.5.1.2 Adults’ Comprehension of Passives .............................................. 64 2.5.1.3 Summary ........................................................................................ 65 2.5.2 Production of English Passives.......................................................... 66 2.5.2.1 Children’s Acquisition of Passives ................................................ 66 2.5.2.2 Elderly Adults’ Production of Passives ......................................... 71 2.5.2.3 Summary ........................................................................................ 72 2.5.3 Passives in Atypical English Populations .......................................... 72 2.5.3.1 Children Who Stutter ..................................................................... 73 2.5.3.2 Children with Specific Language Impairment ............................... 73 2.5.3.3 Speakers with Down’s Syndrome .................................................. 77 2.5.3.4 Speakers with Broca’s Aphasia...................................................... 77 2.5.3.5 Speakers with Parkinson’s Disease................................................ 84 2.5.3.6 Speakers with Alzheimer’s Disease............................................... 87 2.5.3.7 Summary ........................................................................................ 89 2.5.4 Structural Priming Facilitates Processing of Passives ....................... 90 2.5.4.1 Cross-linguistic Structural Priming................................................ 95 2.5.4.2 Summary ........................................................................................ 96 2.5.5 Working Memory and Executive Functions ...................................... 96 2.6 Studies on Acquisition of English Passives by Mandarin Speakers ........ 101 2.6.1 Summary .......................................................................................... 107 2.7 Acquisition of Ditransitive Passives ........................................................ 108 2.8 Canonicity ................................................................................................ 109 2.8.1 Canonical Word Order ..................................................................... 110 2.8.2 Canonical Argument-Function Mapping ......................................... 114 2.9 Summary of Chapter 2 ............................................................................. 116 Chapter 3 Theoretical Framework................................................................. 118 3.1 Levelt’s Model of L1 Speech Production ................................................ 118 3.1.1 Revision of Levelt’s Model of Lexical Access................................ 123 3.1.2 Tomlin’s Adaptation of Levelt’s (1989) Model............................... 128 3.1.3 Adaptation of Levelt Model for Structural Priming......................... 129 3.2 A Brief Sketch of Lexical-Functional Grammar...................................... 130 3.2.1 A Brief Sketch of Lexical Mapping Theory .................................... 135 3.3 Production of Passive Sentences in Conceptualiser and Formulator....... 141 3.3.1 Generation of Passives by Native Speakers....................................
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