NON REVESIBLE IN ACTIVE AND PASSIVE

INTRODUCTION

If we talk about active and passive sentences, of course this will not
be separated from linguistic complexity. According to reports, adults need
more time to understand passive sentences with active sentences.
According to (Olson and Filby, 1972), passive sentences are very rare in
casual conversations and even a little small using keywords in everyday
conversation. So all signs point to predictions that young people will find
passive sentences more difficult to understand than active sentences.
Schmitt (1968) investigated the understanding of deaf children and
passive sound production using multiple choice tests that involved
matching passive sentences that could be restored to images. He found that
deaf children were quite difficult to understand and produce passive
sentences until the age of 14 years, and even many 17-year-old children
still did not master this construction. The results of his analysis led him to
conclude that until elderly children who are deaf process passive sentences
as if they are active. For example; "The girl was pushed by the boy"
interpreted as “The girl pushing the boy ".

But in my writing now, I will discuss "Passive non-reversible".

Passive non-reversible is a passive sentence construction in which a
subject cannot be exchanged with an agent in a sentence and still leaves the
correct logical sentence. For non-revesible sentences, for example; (a). The
whole mainframe system was destroyed by a young hacker. And (b). A
young hacker was destroyed by the whole mainframe system.
So from the example sentence above we can conclude that there are
two sentences that have different meanings. For the first example is the
form of passive sentences, where the meaning of the first sentence can still

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be accepted by a child. But it is different from the second sentence, where
the second sentence cannot be accepted by a child because the second
sentence is non-reversible.

DISCUSSION

After I did the research, I took samples for children aged 8 to 10

years, where I used the theory of Slobin trying to apply from the age of 6 to
12 years. This study hypothesizes that there is a level of complexity of
sentences, determined by semantic and syntactic factors, and I try to apply
at the age of 8 to 10 years to understand active and passive (non-
reversible) sentences. I choose active and passive sentences because the
two sentence forms differ mainly in terms of structural forms but not in the
general meaning of the sentence. I gave the pictures and the childrens was
told to describe into the active sentence to passive sentence.

a) The farmer drives the tractor (Petani menggerakkan traktor).

b) The farmer is driven by a tractor (Traktor menggerakan
petani).

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a) The boy kicks the ball (Anak lelai itu mennedang bola).
b) The boy is kicked by the ball (Anak laki-laki itu ditendang
bola).

a) The girl rides the pony (Gadis itu mengendarai kuda poni.

b) The girl was driven by a pony (gadis itu dikendarai oleh kuda
poni).

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 a) The girl is watering flowers (Gadis itu sedang menyiram bunga).
b) The flowers are watering the girl (Bunganya meyiram gadis
itu).

From 4 pictures and sentences, it can be concluded that each first

sentence in each picture can still be understand by the childrens but
different with the second sentence, where childrens feel confused in the
second sentences because it is not able to be by children's common sense.
On the other hand, the meaning of the second sentence is very strange. So it
can be indicated by the sentences in the pictures above included in the
sentence that cannot be recovered (non-revesible).

In addition to making the data more accurate about how

childrens understand and produce passive sentences onto non-revesible,
then I try to have a direct conversations with the childrens ages 8 to 10
who fail to understand in the first stage in describing each pictures into
passive sentences that cannot be restored. In retrieving data I used a
random method to get more accurate results. For further explanations will
be explained below.

First correspondent conversation

Researcher : Hi Najwa, how are you today?

Najwa : Alhamdulillah, I'm fine.
Researcher : What do you go to school every day using?
Najwa : I ride a bicycle when I go to school every day.
Researcher : Can you tell us about your activities during school?
Najwa : At 7:00 a.m. I and my friends usually clean up the
rubbish in front of the class. After the bell rang at 7:30 a.m. I immediately
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got ready to enter the class to take lessons. During the lesson I and my
friends always focused on listening to what the teacher conveyed.
 In the first conversations, the researcher found that respondent
named Najwa used and produced active sentences more often than passive
sentences. Can be seen in the phrase "I ride a bicycle" and "I and my
friends usually clean up rubbish" it can be concluded that the first
respondent produces more active sentences than passive sentences in
conversation every day.

Second correspondent's conversation

Researcher : Can I borrow your pencil tami?

Tami : Sorry sir, my pencil is used by Rayhan.
Rayhan : Oh yes sir, I am using Tami’s pencil?
Researcher : Can I borrow and activate it?
Rayhan : Yes, it's very necessary, sir.

In the conversations above, we can find some passive sentences

produced by respondent named Tami. While respondent named Rayhan
are seen using active sentences. So this proves that respondents often
produce passive sentences because they often learn and practice forming
these sentences. I did this research when I was teaching in class with still
applying at the age of 8 to 10 years.

CONCLUSION

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 Thus in non-reversible passive construction, the subject cannot be
exchanged for key words that have meaning but are not real. Semantic and
syntactic factors greatly influence a person to enjoy active and passive
sentences. On the other hand, the childrens will not use non-reversible
because basically the childrens rarely use passive sentences in everyday
conversations.

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 REFERENCES

Elliot, Alison J. 1981. Child Language. Cambridge University Press

Turner, Elizabeth Ann and Ragnar, Rommetveit. (2016). The acquisition of
sentence voice and reversibility. Harvard University. 38(3)

Internet Source

https://www.ntid.rit.edu/sea/processes/passive/research/subtypes