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On the development of the expression of causativity: a syntactic hypothesis*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 September 2008

Rosa Attié Figueira
Affiliation:
State University of Campinas

Abstract

Previous studies on the acquisition of causative verbs have analysed the deviations noticed in children's speech as resulting from the child's overgeneralized hypothesis about the morphological configuration of causative verbs. These studies are based on one type of deviation – the use of a non-causative verb for a causative verb. In this paper, longitudinal data are presented on the development of the lexical expression of causativity by one child learning Portuguese as her first language. Not only are non-causatives used for causatives, but causatives are also used for non-causatives. The latter type of deviation provides evidence for an analysis according to which the child takes into account the syntactic structure where causative verbs occur.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1984

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