The retrieval of syntactic and semantic information in the production of verbs.
In Italian, there are two aspectual auxiliaries: essere (to be) and avere (to have). According to the syntactic hypothesis, aspectual auxiliary assignment in Italian is a syntactic phenomenon. Using the picture-word interference paradigm, Experiment 1 tested the predictions of this view. Results failed to support the syntactic hypothesis but could be explained within a semantic framework: A verb's thematic grid is involved in aspectual auxiliary assignment. Experiment 2 tested this hypothesis. The findings corroborated the predictions. The evidence is interpreted as suggesting the involvement of thematic information in the assignment of the aspectual auxiliary during the production of Italian verbs.
Tabossi
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University of Trieste, Italy. tabossi@univ.trieste.it
Collina
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Sanz
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D006801:Humans; D008037:Linguistics; D011930:Reaction Time; D012660:Semantics; D014705:Verbal Behavior; D014825:Vocabulary