All accounts of language acquisition agree that, by around age 4, children’s knowledge of grammatical constructions is abstract, rather than tied solely to individual lexical items. The aim of the present research was to investigate, focusing on the passive, whether children’s and adults’ performance is additionally semantically constrained, varying according to the distance between the semantics of the verb and those of the construction. In a forced‐choice pointing study (Experiment 1), both 4‐ to 6‐year olds (N = 60) and adults (N = 60) showed support for the prediction of this semantic construction prototype account of an interaction such that the observed disadvantage for passives as compared to actives (i.e., fewer correct points/longer reaction time) was greater for experiencer‐theme verbs than for agent‐patient and theme‐experiencer verbs (e.g., Bob was seen/hit/frightened by Wendy). Similarly, in a production/priming study (Experiment 2), both 4‐ to 6‐year olds (N = 60) and adults (N = 60) produced fewer passives for experiencer‐theme verbs than for agent‐patient/theme‐experiencer verbs. We conclude that these findings are difficult to explain under accounts based on the notion of A(rgument) movement or of a monostratal, semantics‐free, level of syntax, and instead necessitate some form of semantic construction prototype account.

中文翻译：

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句法表示既抽象又受语义约束：来自儿童和成人对英语被动语态的理解和产生/启动的证据。

所有关于语言习得的叙述都同意，到 4 岁左右，儿童对语法结构的知识是抽象的，而不仅仅是与单个词汇相关。本研究的目的是调查，重点是被动语态，儿童和成人的表现是否受到额外的语义约束，根据动词语义和结构语义之间的距离而变化。在一项强制选择指向研究（实验 1）中，4 到 6 岁的儿童（N  = 60）和成年人（N  = 60）都支持这种语义构建原型的预测考虑到一种交互作用，与主动语相比，被动语态的观察到的劣势（即，更少的正确点/更长的反应时间）对于体验者主题动词比代理-患者和主题-体验者动词（例如，Bob was seen/被温蒂击中/害怕）。类似地，在生产/启动研究（实验 2）中，4 到 6 岁的儿童（N  = 60）和成人（N  = 60）对体验者主题动词产生的被动语态比对代理-患者/主题-体验者少动词。我们得出的结论是，这些发现在基于 A（rgument）运动或单层、无语义、语法级别的概念的帐户下难以解释，而是需要某种形式的语义构造原型帐户。