Subject, topic and Sesotho passive.
Counter to findings in English, German and Hebrew, recent acquisition studies have shown that the passive is acquired early in several non-Indo-European languages. In an attempt to explain this phenomenon, this paper addresses certain typological phenomena which influence the early acquisition of passives in Sesotho, a southern Bantu language. After outlining the structure of the Sesotho passive and its syntactic and discourse functions, I examine Sesotho-speaking children's spontaneous use of passives, showing that the acquisition of passives in Sesotho is closely linked to the fact that Sesotho subjects must be discourse topics. I conclude that a detailed examination of how passive constructions interact with other components of a given linguistic system is critical for developing a coherent and universally applicable theory of how passives are acquired.
Demuth
K
K
Department of Cognitive and Linguistic Sciences, Brown University, Providence, RI 02912.
D002675:Child, Preschool; D003431:Cross-Cultural Comparison; D006801:Humans; D007804:Language Development; D008037:Linguistics; D011582:Psychological Theory