Learning the passive in natural(istic) settings

1. Learning the passive in natural(istic) settings Katie Alcock, Ken Rimba, Manizha Tellaie, and Charles Newton Thanks to Kamil ud Deen

2. Learning language: passives • Jack ate the ice-cream • The ice-cream was eaten by Jack • Learned very late in English & other languages e.g. Hebrew

3. Different explanations - passive • Maturation: • Borer & Wexler (1987), Hebrew & English passives • At a certain point in childhood, particular parts of grammar come “online” • Passive at age 6 years • Differential maturation for adjectival and verbal passive • it is broken vs. John was kissed

4. Clues from other languages • Early passive acquisition • Bantu languages e.g. Sesotho – Demuth (1989) • Inuktitut - Crago & Allen (1996) • Frequency? • many more passives in these languages • Function of passive • e.g. for wh- questions – Sesotho – can’t say “who cooked the food?”, must say “the food was cooked by who?” • Easier construction • in Inuktitut passive agrees only with grammatical subject while actives agree with both subject and object

5. Study 1 – Bantu languages • Two Eastern Bantu languages • Kiswahili (2 dialects) • Kigiriama • Complex morphophonemics: • Affixes to indicate passive among other things ni- li- pig- wa 1S past hit passive “I was hit” • Passive not used for wh- questions obligatorily • Some use but optional • Passives, like in Inuktitut, agree with grammatical subject • Actives also with grammatical object, especially if it is a person • Passive very frequent in input

6. Study 1 - Data collection and sources • Recording of spontaneous speech samples • Children in own homes • Caregivers recorded • Three language groups • coastal Kiswahili, Nairobi Kiswahili (distinct dialect), Kigiriama (coastal) • 13 children in total • Nairobi children 1-11 data points per child • Coastal children 1 data point per child • Ages 1:9 to 3:3

7. Data analysis • Transcription of all child and adult speech • Coastal data - 10% checked by 2nd transcriber • Analysis of use of verbs and passives • On all verbs – not just where obligatory • Adults as well as children • Deen data – • All examples of passive in children • including which dated sample they appear in • Proportions for adults • do not have dated sample • Some examples of active verbs (in thesis text)

8. Analysis • Children’s linguistic maturity • Age • MLU morphemes? Words? • Verbal ratio • Longest utterance • Productive use • Bates et al.(1988) definition

9. Results • Proportion of verbs in passive = 0 to 19% by child • No sig. difference between languages • Youngest productive use 1;10 ye lipigwa / -taipiga (he was beaten / [he] will beat) • Correlation with age n.s. • Ditto with all measures of linguistic maturity • Significant correlation with input proportion of passives

10. Language differences

11. Child differences

12. Summary so far • Passive use early in 2 languages (3 dialects) • Structure similar to southern Bantu languages • Frequency also similar • Some differences in usage • Frequency of input crucial

13. Naturalistic exposure in English • English-speaking children learn passives in experimental situation (Brooks & Tomasello, 1999) • Our study • exposure to passives in home setting • not just input by linguists or experimenters

14. Hypotheses • Naturalistic exposure to passive will lead to production of passive • Even in very young children • Will be some transfer to material never heard in passive • Will be no overall effect on productive language • Focus of question will also affect production of passives

15. Methods – Exposure • Two books of similar length • Suitable stories written • Passivised – as many verbs as possible • Story A “Jack” (zoo story) – 19 pictures, 17 with reversible verbs • Story B “Puss” (animal story) – 18 pictures, all with reversible verbs • Parents asked to read book once a day for a week • Four conditions • Active-Active, Active-Passive, Passive-Active, Passive-Passive

16. Methods – Testing • Both books tested in lab • Children asked questions • Agent-focussed: what’s Jack doing? • Patient-focussed: what’s happening to the box? • or Neutral: what’s happening here? • 1/3 each, allocated to each book • Books reviewed in same order • though do not know order of reading at home • Children then asked to tell story in own words • Very little speech produced so not analysed

17. Participants • 40 children aged 29-38 mo • 21 boys, 19 girls • All from N. and E. London, recruited through local nurseries • All solely English-speaking families

18. Results • Age – no correlation with verbs/passives • Verbal ratio correlates with passives • No effect on number of utterances or on verbal ratio, however • More passives following exposure to passive

19. Group and book differences Group and book effects 0.8 Book A Book B 0.6 0.4 0.2 0.0 Group

20. Effect of book (A vs B) • Book B always tested second • so had heard patient-focussed questions even if no passive story. • Interaction between condition and book • Active A-Passive B children produce more passives on their trained book than Passive A-Active B • Have heard more patient-focussed questions by the time they get to testing on book B • But Passive A-Active B children produce more passives on non-trained book • Have produced more passives themselves when reach book B

21. Types of questions and passives • Patient-focused questions = more passives produced • But no effect on number of utterances or verbs • Interaction with condition • But only because floor effect in A-A group • Some children who never heard passives before produce a few in response to patient-focussed questions • Types of passives: full vs. truncated vs. attempts • No interaction either between condition and proportion of types of passives when include A-A • Interaction for other 3 conditions • P-P produce more full passives and fewer truncated

22. Conclusions • Hearing passives at home makes children produce them in the lab • Does not only apply to sentences they originally heard in passive • Although effect is stronger for these verbs • And effect increases through testing session

23. Discussion • Input is important • Structure in Bantu languages helps? • Very difficult to quantify how relatively “difficult” particular constructions are for children hearing different languages