Processing argument structure complexity in Basque-Spanish bilinguals

Abstract

Previous research on argument structure (AS) has shown that verb processing costs scale with the number of arguments and as a result of non-canonical thematic mapping. The Basque language has unique AS: Basque unergatives and transitives select transitive auxiliary and ergative subject case markings, while unaccusatives are syntactically less complex. We studied the contribution of these syntactic factors in seventy-one, simultaneous Basque-Spanish bilinguals, measuring their performance on unergative, unaccusatives, and transitive verbs in a lexical decision and a sentence production task. We observed no differences between verb groups in the lexical decision task. In the production task, Basque unergatives elicited more ungrammatical sentences, while Spanish unaccusatives, in line with previous findings, elicited longer speech onset times. Our results indicate that AS processing can differ across languages, calling for further cross-linguistic investigation.