In:Language Acquisition in Romance Languages
Edited by Vicenç Torrens
[Bilingual Processing and Acquisition 18] 2024
► pp. 198–211
Chapter 8“Nobody” isn’t in time
On-line processing of Negative Concord Items in Italian and its implications for the delay of double negation readings in young children
Published online: 25 July 2024
https://doi.org/10.1075/bpa.18.08mos
https://doi.org/10.1075/bpa.18.08mos
Abstract
The paper presents novel findings on young children’s processing of Negative Concord Items (NCIs)
in Italian in preverbal position. This is a syntactic environment in which their interpretation is equivalent to the
English Negative pronouns “Nobody/Nothing”. Eye movements show that by the age of 5 children have little troubles in
accessing the correct interpretation of preverbal NCIs. However, their processing time lags behind positive universal
quantifiers used as controls. This result is discussed in relation to a documented overgeneralization of Negative
Concord in early grammars.
Keywords: negative concord, universal quantifiers, eye-tracking, Italian
Article outline
- 0.Introduction
- 1.A brief review of previous literature
- 2.The study
- 2.1Participants
- 2.2Method
- 2.3Materials
- 2.4Results
- 3.Discussion and conclusions
Notes References
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