Lexical conditions in syntactic knowledge : auxiliary selection in native and non-native grammars of Italian
This study has both a theoretical and a methodological dimension. Theoretically, it is concerned with variation and indeterminacy in linguistic acceptability judgments. Methodologically, it involves the application of a rigorous procedure for the elicitation of judgment data that is sensitive to informants' variable or indeterminate intuitions. The theoretical focus is on the linguistic intuitions of native and non-native speakers of Italian about a number of grammatical phenomena related to the choice between the auxiliaries ESSERE ('be') and AVERE ('have') with non-transitive (unaccusative and unergative) verbs. It is argued that a purely syntactic account of unaccusativity is insufficient to capture the variation exhibited by these verbs. In particular, it is claimed that the unmarked selection of ESSERE with unaccusatives and of AVERE with unergatives in the present perfect tense is sensitive not only to a hierarchy of syntactic configurations (as assumed by the Government-Binding version of the Unaccusativity Hypothesis) but also to lexical hierarchies that subdivide the range of unaccusative and unergative verbs along semantic dimensions. Such hierarchies distinguish 'core', or prototypical, types of
Sorace, Antonella
Lexical conditions in syntactic knowledge : auxiliary selection in native and non-native grammars of Italian. This study has both a theoretical and a methodological dimension. Theoretically, it is concerned with variation and indeterminacy in linguistic acceptability judgments. Methodologically, it involves the application of a rigorous procedure for the elicitation of judgment data that is sensitive to informants' variable or indeterminate intuitions. The theoretical focus is on the linguistic intuitions of native and non-native speakers of Italian about a number of grammatical phenomena related to the choice between the auxiliaries ESSERE ('be') and AVERE ('have') with non-transitive (unaccusative and unergative) verbs. It is argued that a purely syntactic account of unaccusativity is insufficient to capture the variation exhibited by these verbs. In particular, it is claimed that the unmarked selection of ESSERE with unaccusatives and of AVERE with unergatives in the present perfect tense is sensitive not only to a hierarchy of syntactic configurations (as assumed by the Government-Binding version of the Unaccusativity Hypothesis) but also to lexical hierarchies that subdivide the range of unaccusative and unergative verbs along semantic dimensions. Such hierarchies distinguish 'core', or prototypical, types of
lexical condition syntactic knowledge auxiliary selection native_non native grammar italian study theoretical_methodological dimension theoretically concerned variation indeterminacy linguistic acceptability judgment methodologically involve application rigorous procedure elicitation judgment data sensitive informant variable indeterminate intuition theoretical focus linguistic intuition native_non native_speaker italian number grammatical phenomenon relate choice auxiliary have non transitive unaccusative unergative verb argue purely syntactic account insufficient capture variation exhibit verb particular claim unmarked selection present perfect tense sensitive hierarchy syntactic configuration assume government_binding version hypothesis also lexical hierarchy subdivide range unaccusative unergative verb along semantic dimension hierarchy distinguish core prototypical type