Cette thèse présente une réflexion sur quatre formes passives anglaises et françaises : les passifs canoniques en BE Ven et ETRE Vé et leurs concurrents respectifs en GET Ven et SE FAIRE Ver. Dans une perspective constructionnelle, ce travail consiste en un nouvel examen de leurs propriétés sémantiques et fonctionnelles. A partir de l’étude d’un corpus de 1235 énoncés en BE Ven, ETRE Vé, GET Ven et SE FAIRE Ver extraits d’articles scientifiques, d’articles de presse et de sites Internet [blogs, forums, etc.], on a pu montrer que ces quatre formes possèdent un sens qui n’est pas entièrement prévisible à partir de leurs éléments [grammaticaux et lexicaux] constitutifs et sont conventionnellement attachées à des fonctions pragmatico-discursives spécifiques. Par conséquent, elles ne sont pas de simples agencements syntaxiques mais des « constructions », au sens où les Grammaires de Construction l’entendent, c’est-à-dire des appariements conventionnels entre une forme, un sens et des fonctions. D’autre part, l’analyse a révélé que GET Ven et SE FAIRE Ver expriment un sens différent de celui de BE Ven et ETRE Vé, qui est lié à des fonctions différentes dans les domaines de l’organisation de l’information et de la relation interpersonnelle établie en discours et explique leur affinité avec des types de discours interactionnels et expressifs, par opposition aux discours factuels impersonnels associés aux passifs canoniques. Enfin, on a montré que les deux constructions passives françaises étaient soumises à des contraintes syntaxiques et sémantiques plus strictes que les constructions homologues anglaises. / This dissertation explores four English and French passive constructions : the canonical passives in BE Ven and ETRE Vé, and their alternatives, respectively, in GET Ven and SE FAIRE Ver. From a constructional perspective, this study investigates their semantic and functional-pragmatic properties. Based on the examination of a corpus of 1235 occurrences of BE Ven, ETRE Vé, GET Ven and SE FAIRE Ver taken from scientific articles, news reports and websites [blogs, forums, etc.], it shows that the four syntactic structures are associated with a meaning which is not entirely predictable from their [grammatical and lexical] constituents, as well as specific discourse-pragmatic functions. Consequently, they qualify as « constructions », in the constructional sense of the term, that is, conventional form-meaning-function pairings. GET Ven and SE FAIRE Ver have been shown to express a different meaning than BE Ven and ETRE Vé which motivates different discourse pragmatic functions and accounts for why they are found in different discourse types, namely interactional and expressive registers, as opposed to factual and impersonal ones for the canonical passives. Finally, both French constructions are shown to be tied to more rigid syntactic and semantic constraints than their English counterparts.

The use of passive constructions by Swedish children has never been systematically investigated before. The main purpose of this study is to investigate Swedish-speaking children’s use of passive forms in narratives elicited using the Multilingual AssessmentInstrument for Narratives (MAIN). The participants were divided into three main categories based on age and linguistic background: 72 monolingual Swedish-speaking children aged between 4-6 years, 20 monolingual Swedish-speaking adults, and 100 multilingual Swedish-Turkish-speaking children aged between 4-7 years who are growing up in Sweden. The participants were recruited through the project BiLI-TAS VR2013-1309 ”Språkstörning eller typisk språkutveckling?” at Uppsala university. The observed passive constructions were categorized and analyzed in quantity and quality in relation to age and linguistic background. The results showed a difference in quantity of passive constructions between children and adults, as well as between monolingual and multilingual peers. The total occurrence for passives was 16 among monolingual children, 11 among monolingual adults, and 10 among multilingual children. In general, younger children and multilingual participants produced fewer passives than adults and older monolingual children, although 6- and 7-year old multilingual children produced more passives than the 4- and 5-year old monolingual children. A few multilingual children were also produced passive constructions in active contexts, which did not occur among the monolingual participants. The large number of deponent verbs (which are morphologically but not functionally equivalent to passives) shows that children are familiar with the structure of the morphologic passive. The choice between morphologic or periphrastic passive seems to be influenced by the context. More research needs to be done to increase our knowledge how the passive construction develops in Swedish.

As construções passivas no Português Brasileiro e no Espanhol apresentam tanto tendências comuns, quanto assimetrias. Este trabalho tem o propósito de investigar os efeitos desse fenômeno na aquisição/aprendizagem de Espanhol por estudantes brasileiros. Inicialmente, propõe-se uma descrição das construções passivas nas duas línguas. Em seguida, faz-se uma análise contrastiva dessas construções no Português Brasileiro e no Espanhol. Finalmente, investiga-se o comportamento das construções passivas (sobretudo as perifrásticas e as lexicais) na produção escrita de brasileiros aprendizes de Espanhol língua estrangeira. Os resultados obtidos na análise dos corpora sugerem algumas hipóteses sobre os fatores que possivelmente influenciam a preferência dos aprendizes por determinadas construções em detrimento de outras / Passive constructions in Brazilian Portuguese and Spanish present both common tendencies and assimetries. The aim of this project is to investigate the effects of such phenomenon on Spanish acquisition/learning process by brazilian students. Initially, a description of passive constructions is proposed for both languages. After that, a contrastive analysis is made of those constructions in Brazilian Portuguese and Spanish. Finally, the behavior of passive constructions is analyzed in the written production of brazilian students who learn Spanish as a foreign language. Results from corpora analysis suggest some hypotheses on the factors which possibly influence learners\' choices for certain constructions to the detriment of others

As construções passivas no Português Brasileiro e no Espanhol apresentam tanto tendências comuns, quanto assimetrias. Este trabalho tem o propósito de investigar os efeitos desse fenômeno na aquisição/aprendizagem de Espanhol por estudantes brasileiros. Inicialmente, propõe-se uma descrição das construções passivas nas duas línguas. Em seguida, faz-se uma análise contrastiva dessas construções no Português Brasileiro e no Espanhol. Finalmente, investiga-se o comportamento das construções passivas (sobretudo as perifrásticas e as lexicais) na produção escrita de brasileiros aprendizes de Espanhol língua estrangeira. Os resultados obtidos na análise dos corpora sugerem algumas hipóteses sobre os fatores que possivelmente influenciam a preferência dos aprendizes por determinadas construções em detrimento de outras / Passive constructions in Brazilian Portuguese and Spanish present both common tendencies and assimetries. The aim of this project is to investigate the effects of such phenomenon on Spanish acquisition/learning process by brazilian students. Initially, a description of passive constructions is proposed for both languages. After that, a contrastive analysis is made of those constructions in Brazilian Portuguese and Spanish. Finally, the behavior of passive constructions is analyzed in the written production of brazilian students who learn Spanish as a foreign language. Results from corpora analysis suggest some hypotheses on the factors which possibly influence learners\' choices for certain constructions to the detriment of others

Por sincretismo passivo-reflexivo pode-se compreender a ocorrência de uma mesma marca morfológica em construções reflexivas, passivas e anticausativas. O fenômeno, bastante comum entre as línguas, tem sido tratado pela Teoria Gerativa, principalmente, de duas formas diferentes: por um lado, diz-se que o sincretismo passivo-reflexivo é consequência de uma propriedade sintática em comum compartilhada pelos contextos de inserção e, por outro, que - na verdade - os contextos em que o morfema se insere compartilham de uma mesma representação semântica. Do que se tem visto, ambas as formas de abordar o fenômeno são problemáticas: as explicações que fornecem, além de apresentarem alguns problemas teóricos, não se aplicam a tantas línguas quanto o esperado. Essas abordagens também tem levado pouco em conta importantes observações da linguística comparativa, que vem lidando com fenômenos dessa natureza desde o final dos anos 60. Esta tese investiga o sincretismo em questão em um grupo abrangente de línguas e une suas observações com conclusões da tipologia linguística e teoria gerativa, buscando desvendar duas questões, fundamentalmente: (i) por que o fenômeno é tão comum entre as línguas e (ii) qual o estatuto da marca compartilhada. Essas perguntas puderam ser respondidas levando em conta contribuições clássicas da linguística como a primeira definição de verbos anticausativos (Nedjalkov & Silnickij, 1969) e o estudo dos tipos de alternâncias de valência. Por outro lado, o modelo da Morfologia Distribuída (Halle & Marantz, 1993), desenvolvimento recente da Teoria Gerativa, possibilitou uma abordagem mais transparente da relação entre morfologia e sintaxe, permitindo melhor compreensão dos ambientes estruturais em que ocorre o sincretismo. O fenômeno é considerado um caso de sobreaplicação de anáforas, no sentido de Heinat (2006), na estrutura sintática. Essa sobreaplicação só é possível dadas algumas condições, sendo a principal delas a dependência morfológica da marca sincrética. Essa dependência morfológica é derivada ou durante a derivação sintática, ou após a inserção de material fonológico, conforme prevê a Morfologia Distribuída. As diferentes distribuições que o sincretismo apresenta entre as línguas podem ser explicadas por propriedades sintáticas da língua, assim como pelo momento da derivação em que a anáfora torna-se morfologicamente dependente, o que também diferencia clíticos/pronomes fracos de afixos. / The Passive-Reflexive Syncretism is a term describing the sharing of the same morphological marking in Reflexive, Passive and Anticausative Constructions. The phenomenon is widely seen across languages and Works within the Generative Framework have been attempting to account to it in basically two ways: (i) by understanding the syncretism as a consequence of a common syntactical property among the contexts sharing the morpheme or (ii) by understanding it as a consequence of a common semantic representation among these contexts. It is shown that both approaches are problematic in theoretical and empirical means. Besides this, they have not been taking into account important insights from comparative linguistics, which has been dealing with these phenomena since the end of the 60\'s. The present thesis investigates the syncretism in depth, taking into account a significant number of languages and linking its observations with contributions from Linguistic Typology and Generative Theory, in an attempt to address two fundamental questions: (i) Why this syncretism is so common across languages? (ii) What is the status of the shared marking. These questions could be answered by taking into account classical definitions in linguistics, such as the first definition of anticausative verbs (Nedjalkov & Silnickij, 1969) and the definitions for the different valency alternations. On the other hand, the Distributed Morphology development from Generative Grammar (Halle & Marantz, 1993) allowed for a transparent approach towards the relation between morphology and syntax, contributing to a better understanding of the structural environments involved in the syncretism. The phenomenon is considered a case of superaplication of anaphors, in Heinat\'s (2006) sense, in the syntactic structure. This superaplication is only possible given some conditions, being the main one the Morphological Dependency of the syncretic marking. This dependency is derived either during syntactic derivation or after the insertion of phonological content, as told by the Distributed Morphology\'s view on the Architecture of Grammar. The different distributions shown by the syncretism across languages can be explained by both syntactic properties of the language and the moments described above, when the anaphor becomes morphological dependent, which also helps differentiating clitics/weak pronouns from affixes.

Por sincretismo passivo-reflexivo pode-se compreender a ocorrência de uma mesma marca morfológica em construções reflexivas, passivas e anticausativas. O fenômeno, bastante comum entre as línguas, tem sido tratado pela Teoria Gerativa, principalmente, de duas formas diferentes: por um lado, diz-se que o sincretismo passivo-reflexivo é consequência de uma propriedade sintática em comum compartilhada pelos contextos de inserção e, por outro, que - na verdade - os contextos em que o morfema se insere compartilham de uma mesma representação semântica. Do que se tem visto, ambas as formas de abordar o fenômeno são problemáticas: as explicações que fornecem, além de apresentarem alguns problemas teóricos, não se aplicam a tantas línguas quanto o esperado. Essas abordagens também tem levado pouco em conta importantes observações da linguística comparativa, que vem lidando com fenômenos dessa natureza desde o final dos anos 60. Esta tese investiga o sincretismo em questão em um grupo abrangente de línguas e une suas observações com conclusões da tipologia linguística e teoria gerativa, buscando desvendar duas questões, fundamentalmente: (i) por que o fenômeno é tão comum entre as línguas e (ii) qual o estatuto da marca compartilhada. Essas perguntas puderam ser respondidas levando em conta contribuições clássicas da linguística como a primeira definição de verbos anticausativos (Nedjalkov & Silnickij, 1969) e o estudo dos tipos de alternâncias de valência. Por outro lado, o modelo da Morfologia Distribuída (Halle & Marantz, 1993), desenvolvimento recente da Teoria Gerativa, possibilitou uma abordagem mais transparente da relação entre morfologia e sintaxe, permitindo melhor compreensão dos ambientes estruturais em que ocorre o sincretismo. O fenômeno é considerado um caso de sobreaplicação de anáforas, no sentido de Heinat (2006), na estrutura sintática. Essa sobreaplicação só é possível dadas algumas condições, sendo a principal delas a dependência morfológica da marca sincrética. Essa dependência morfológica é derivada ou durante a derivação sintática, ou após a inserção de material fonológico, conforme prevê a Morfologia Distribuída. As diferentes distribuições que o sincretismo apresenta entre as línguas podem ser explicadas por propriedades sintáticas da língua, assim como pelo momento da derivação em que a anáfora torna-se morfologicamente dependente, o que também diferencia clíticos/pronomes fracos de afixos. / The Passive-Reflexive Syncretism is a term describing the sharing of the same morphological marking in Reflexive, Passive and Anticausative Constructions. The phenomenon is widely seen across languages and Works within the Generative Framework have been attempting to account to it in basically two ways: (i) by understanding the syncretism as a consequence of a common syntactical property among the contexts sharing the morpheme or (ii) by understanding it as a consequence of a common semantic representation among these contexts. It is shown that both approaches are problematic in theoretical and empirical means. Besides this, they have not been taking into account important insights from comparative linguistics, which has been dealing with these phenomena since the end of the 60\'s. The present thesis investigates the syncretism in depth, taking into account a significant number of languages and linking its observations with contributions from Linguistic Typology and Generative Theory, in an attempt to address two fundamental questions: (i) Why this syncretism is so common across languages? (ii) What is the status of the shared marking. These questions could be answered by taking into account classical definitions in linguistics, such as the first definition of anticausative verbs (Nedjalkov & Silnickij, 1969) and the definitions for the different valency alternations. On the other hand, the Distributed Morphology development from Generative Grammar (Halle & Marantz, 1993) allowed for a transparent approach towards the relation between morphology and syntax, contributing to a better understanding of the structural environments involved in the syncretism. The phenomenon is considered a case of superaplication of anaphors, in Heinat\'s (2006) sense, in the syntactic structure. This superaplication is only possible given some conditions, being the main one the Morphological Dependency of the syncretic marking. This dependency is derived either during syntactic derivation or after the insertion of phonological content, as told by the Distributed Morphology\'s view on the Architecture of Grammar. The different distributions shown by the syncretism across languages can be explained by both syntactic properties of the language and the moments described above, when the anaphor becomes morphological dependent, which also helps differentiating clitics/weak pronouns from affixes.

Revision of thesis (Ph.D.)-Lund University, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references and index.

Thesis (MA)--Stellenbosch University, 2011. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: When English as a second language (L2) is learnt via classroom instruction, the extent to which learners become proficient depends, in part, on the education system in place and, more specifically, on the methods of instruction. This study set out to compare the efficacy of two focus-on-form methods of L2 instruction, namely enhanced input and traditional teacher-centred instruction, in teaching one typically problematic aspect of English grammar for L2 learners, namely the use of the passive form. The participants comprised two groups of grade 11 Afrikaans-speaking learners in a secondary, Afrikaans-English parallel medium school in the southern region of Gauteng, South Africa. One day before the onset of instruction on the English passive, all potential participants completed a pre-test to assess their existing knowledge of the English passive, in order to allow the members of one group to be paired with the members of the other group. Eight pairs could be found; a total of 16 learners thus participated in the study. Both groups then received 14 lessons (7 hours in total) on the English passive: The Enhanced group received (written) input enhancement in groups, whereas the Traditional group as a whole did copying exercises and received explanations on the formation of the passive structure. Participants wrote a post-test immediately after the end of the instruction period and a delayed post-test nine weeks later. The results of the immediate and delayed post-tests did not indicate a significant difference between the two groups; neither did the learners’ scores improve significantly from the pre-test to the post-tests. Reasons for this lack of improvement are suggested. Classroom observation indicated that learners in the Enhanced group enthusiastically participated in the activities, whereas the Traditional group appeared to be bored after a few lessons. The study also set out to ascertain whether different methods of assessment on the English passive lead to different test marks. It seemed that assessment tasks requiring little writing (such as multiple choice questions) result in higher marks than tasks requiring learners to formulate answers on their own. Although this was a small-scale study, the results suggest that under better circumstances (e.g., more time for instruction and a larger group of participants) it might be useful to conduct similar types of studies to test the effects of enhanced input and/or assessment methods when South African schools change from Outcomes Based Education to the new Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statement system in 2012. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Wanneer Engels as tweede taal (T2) deur middel van die klaskameronderrig aangeleer word, hang die vaardigheid wat die leerder verwerf gedeeltelik af van die opvoedkundige sisteem waarbinne T2- onderrig geskied en, meer spesifiek, van die metodes van onderrig wat gebruik word. Die doel van hierdie studie was om die effektiwiteit van twee fokus-op-vorm-metodes van T2-onderrig met mekaar te vergelyk, naamlik verrykte toevoer en tradisionele onderwysergesentreerde onderrig, in die onderrig van een tipies problematiese aspek van die Engelse grammatika, naamlik die gebruik van die passiefvorm. Die deelnemers het bestaan uit twee groepe Afrikaanssprekende graad 11- leerders in ‘n sekondêre, Afrikaans-Engels parallel-medium skool in Suid-Gauteng. Alle deelnemers het een dag voor die aanvang van die onderrig oor Engelse passiefvorme ‘n voortoets afgelê sodat hul bestaande kennis aangaande sulke vorme gemeet kon word. Op grond van hul toetsresultate is die lede van die een groep daarna met die lede van die ander groepe afgepaar. Agt pare is geïdentifiseer; in totaal was daar dus 16 deelnemers. Beide groepe het 14 klasse (7 ure in totaal) se onderrig oor die Engelse passiefkonstruksie ontvang: Die Verrykte groep het geskrewe toevoer in groepsverband ontvang, terwyl die Tradisionele groep verduidelikings oor die vorming van die passief asook afskryf-oefeninge ontvang het. Deelnemers het onmiddellik ná die 14 klasse ‘n na-toets geskryf en nege weke ná instruksie ‘n uitgestelde na-toets. Die resultate van die onmiddellike en uitgestelde na-toets het nie beduidende verskille tussen die groepe aangedui nie. Die leerders se uitslae het ook nie beduidende verskille tussen die onmiddellike- en uitgestelde na-toets getoon nie. Redes vir die gebrek aan meetbare vordering word aangevoer. Klaskamer-observasie het egter getoon dat leerders wat die verrykte toevoer ontvang het, meer entoesiasties aan klaskameraktiwiteite deelgeneem het teenoor die groep wat tradisioneel onderrig is en verveeld voorgekom het. Die studie het ook gepoog om te bepaal of verskillende assesseringsmetodes vir Engelse passiewe lei tot verskillende toetsuitslae. Dit het voorgekom asof assesseringstake wat minimale skryfwerk vereis het (bv. veelvuldige keuse-vrae) tot beter resultate gelei het as die vrae wat van leerders verwag het om self antwoorde te formuleer. Alhoewel die studie van beperkte omvang was, is daar aanduidings dat dit – onder meer geskikte toestande (bv. meer tyd vir instruksie en groter deelnemergroepe) – nuttig sal wees om soortgelyke studies oor verrykte toevoer en/of verskillende assesseringsmetodes uit te voer, veral wanneer Suid-Afrikaanse skole in 2012 van Uitkomsgebaseerde Onderrig na die Assessment Policy Statement-sisteem toe verander.