How Known Constructions Influence the Acquisition of Other Constructions: The German Passive and Future Constructions

This article suggests evidence for and reasons why prior acquisition may either facilitate or inhibit

which contain a lexical verb with either the auxiliary sein “to be” or werden “to become,” and are

should be acquired earlier, faster, and unusually rapidly. An inhibited construction should show an extended

the sein- before the werden-passive. The former was supported by his prior acquisition of the sein copula,

werden-future extremely slowly due to the hindrance of a semantically identical construction. These results

learning mechanisms.