I VERBI SINTAGMATICI IN PARLANTI DI ITALIANO L1, L2 E BILINGUI: UN’INDAGINE SPERIMENTALE

Abstract

The article investigates the use of Particle Verbs (PV) by different types of speakers: Italian L1 speakers, Italian L2 speakers with German mother tongue (L2ers) and bilingual speakers of Italian and Trentino dialects. After outlining the state of the art in the research on PV and the theoretical framework (section 1), the main differences, among PV in Italian, its dia- lects and Germanic languages, are highlighted (section 2). The differences are, as follows: the extension of the phenomenon, the semantic meanings, and the syntax of the construction. These three categories have been taken into account while performing the quantitative and qualitative analysis. The third section describes the experimental research, introduced by a paragraph outlining the research carried out on PVs and L2ers so far. The current study used a story-telling task to elicit semi-spontaneous data to analyze (methodology 3.1). The quantita- tive analysis pointed out a statistically significant difference of the use of PVs among the three groups (section 3.2), while, through the qualitative analysis, the emphasis has been put on the use of PVs according to their semantics and syntax (section 3.3). In the discussion (section 4), the findings are connected to the theoretical framework, confirming the hypothesis that multilingual competence plays a role in the frequency of use of these constructions.