Aspect Processing in Italian: an Eye-Tracking Study

Abstract

Aspect Processing in Italian: An Eye-Tracking Study

This thesis aims at investigating the processing of imperfective and perfective aspect in Italian, as part of a larger cross-linguistic project on aspect processing in Russian, English and Spanish (Minor, 2023). Using a visual-world eye-tracking paradigm, the experiment aimed at investigating whether an image of an ongoing event picture is more likely to be associated with a sentence using imperfective aspect and conversely, whether a sentence using the perfective aspect is more likely to be associated with a completed event.

Method: A total of 30 Italian native speakers took part in the experiment, remotely accessing it from their own computer. The experiment involved 24 experimental items (and 24 filler items). Each trial consisted of an auditorily preamble in the past imperfect tense followed by a short sentence in a SVO structure in either the imperfect aspect (imperfetto) or the perfect (passato remote) along with visual display simultaneously depicting the 2 versions of the same event, one ongoing (imperfective) and one completed (perfective). They were shown side by side so that participants could look at them simultaneously. Participants were instructed to choose the picture that best described the event corresponding to the sentence. Both eye-tracking and behavioural responses were collected. To investigate potential regional influences on aspect processing in Italian, participants were asked from which part of Italy they came from.

Results: Figure 1 represents the looks to target (correct) in the Imperfective condition, which are dependent on the time from the onset of the verb (starting at 500ms). Figure 2 shows the same results for the target Perfective condition. The blue line is the offset of the verb, and the green line is the offset of the sentence. For Imperfective targets (Figure 1) participants’ eye-gazes converged on the target picture soon after the offset of the verb. In the Perfective condition, participants’ eye-gazes converged on the target only after the offset of the sentence, while at the offset of the verb their fixation were directed more on the competitor than to the target picture. Figure 3 shows the overall looks to the target picture, indicating that participants show a preference for the target picture. Accuracy was above chance for both imperfective and perfective aspect, but accuracy in the imperfective condition was significantly higher than in the perfective condition (98% vs. 70%).

Discussion: The study's findings indicated that participants exhibited a tendency to direct their gaze towards target images corresponding to the aspect of verbs they heard, however, the outcomes concerning the Perfective aspect revealed that participants predominantly selected the target image post-sentence offset, suggesting a delayed decision-making process. To examine the factors contributing to this difference, specifically whether regional linguistic differences with respect to exposure and use of the passato remoto as a perfect tense, I conducted a follow-up event description study using the same set of stimuli with Italian speakers from different regions of Italy (North vs. Centre and South). Additional factors contributing to the time-course of processing the perfective versions of the pictures may also be due to item specific differences in visually depicting ongoing vs. completed events with static images.