CHILDRENS PASSIVE - A VIEW FROM THE BY-PHRASE

This article argues that children's difficulty with passive constructi ons is related to properties of the by-phrase. Specifically, we argue that children are in full control of all aspects of the passive constr uction except for the ability to transmit the external theta-role of t he predicate to the by-phrase; we thus reject Borer and Wexler's (1987 ) claim regarding the maturation of A-chains. Our conclusion is dictat ed by the results of an experiment we conducted, and supported by data already present in the literature.