Processing light verb constructions

Wittenberg, Eva; Piñango, Maria Mercedes

doi:10.1075/ml.6.3.03wit

Article published In: The Mental Lexicon
Vol. 6:3 (2011) ► pp.393–413

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Processing light verb constructions

Eva Wittenberg | Tufts University

Maria Mercedes Piñango | Yale University

Published online: 5 December 2011

https://doi.org/10.1075/ml.6.3.03wit

Henry gave Elsa a kissgivekissgivea kiss

We test two approaches to light verb constructions: (1) joint predication in light verb constructions is stored as pre-specified, and their high frequency predicts less processing cost. (2) Joint predication in light verb constructions is built in real-time. The entailed extra-syntactic composition predicts greater cost.

Results from a cross-modal lexical decision task show delayed, higher reaction times for light verb constructions, supporting (2), which is consistent with a linguistic architecture that has partly autonomous lexico-semantic storage and processing.

Keywords: light verb construction, processing, semantic composition, syntactic composition, linguistic architecture, argument structure, cross-modal lexical decision

Cited by (13)

Cited by 13 other publications

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Wittenberg, Eva, Martin Paczynski, Heike Wiese, Ray Jackendoff & Gina Kuperberg

2014. The difference between “giving a rose” and “giving a kiss”: Sustained neural activity to the light verb construction. Journal of Memory and Language 73 ► pp. 31 ff.

[no author supplied]

2018. He Gave My Nose a Kick or He Kicked My Nose? Argument Structure Alternations and Event Construal. In Current Topics in Language [Psychology of Learning and Motivation, 68], ► pp. 337 ff.

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