The general aim of this study is to investigate the syntactic features of verbs
in acquisition. The analysis of overt subject distribution along verb classes in
Italian spontaneous speech (Lorusso,Caprin &Guasti 2005) shows that overt
subjects are distributed differently depending on the syntactic class of the verbs.
Unaccusatives are produced preferentially with a post verbal overt subject,
while unergatives and transitives with a null subject or a preverbal subject. This
pattern of distribution strongly suggests that for informative or syntactic reasons
children distinguish between verb classes. The VP projections in Italian also
encode lexical aspectual information, such as telicity, depending on the
presence of a quantified direct object (van Hout 1998). If children correctly
attribute to the VPs an aspectual analysis they are supposed to have no problem
to use aspectual marked morphology. In order to understand the characteristic
of the l-syntax of verbs produced by children we performed two experiments
about comprehension / production of verbs presenting perfective morphology.
Children had to produce and comprehend perfective morphology applied to
configurationally telic or atelic predicates (Lorusso 2005). The results show that
children do not correctly analyse the perfective morphology with atelic
predicates till a late stage, while they show no problems with telic predicates
with an overt quantified object.
The general hypothesis we make is that children since earliest stages
systematically use and acquire an adult-like l-syntax for different verb classes
like the analysis of spontaneous speech confirms. Nevertheless, children do not
use the aspectual perfective morphology in an adult like fashion along verb
classes. This is linked to the fact that at syntax-semantics interface children are
not able to use the structural information since earliest stages. We suggest that
the acquisition of VP features responsible of the acquisition of such an interface
relation proceeds in a step by step fashion.
