Problems in the Acquisition of Passive Constructions in Hindi-Urdu: A Psycholinguistic Approach

Abstract

This research paper addresses the challenges encountered by language learners in acquiring passive constructions in Hindi-Urdu. Since the notion of transformation, like passive construction, has a vital role in modelling the native speaker’s knowledge of language, this has been a hot topic since the time linguists tried incorporating meaning into the syntactic theory. It has nothing to say about the syntax-semantic interface but promises a responsible and revealing semantic program. ‘Aspects of the Theory of Syntax’, written by Noam Chomsky, shows some signs of fulfilling this promise in the near future. The notion of ‘kernel sentence’ in ‘Syntactic Structure’ was reincarnated as ‘Deep Structure’ in Aspects (1965) with a good deal of semantic obligation under this impression.  While creating a semantically responsible syntactic theory, it was observed that transformations, such as passive transformations, alter meaning in a quantifiable manner. This demanded a remodelling of Syntactic Structure’s model in the history of linguistics. This research paper derives similar insights and attempts to explain why passive constructions are more difficult to process than simple, active, and negative constructions in Hindi-Urdu. This research paper also provides the reasons behind the problems in acquiring passive constructions under certain theoretical concepts, such as Transformational Generative Grammar (TGG), Derivational Theory of Complexity (DTC), and Parallel Distributed Processing (PDP), among others. Ultimately, this research paper led to an investigation into how our working memory limits the amount of new linguistic information and the inherent difficulty in processing passive constructions compared to active ones.