Dative Clitics as Arguments and Adjuncts: A Developmental Perspective on Sentence Processing in Italian Children, Adolescents, and Adults

This study investigates the processing of Italian verb constructions containing preverbal dative clitics that function either as arguments or as adjuncts, adopting a developmental perspective across Italian-speaking children, adolescents, and adults. In a self-paced reading experiment, adults and fourteen-year-old adolescents read trivalent verbs selecting a dative argument (‘Martina mi ha prestato una bicicletta.’; Eng.: ‘Martina lent me a bicycle.’) faster than bivalent verbs licensing a benefactive dative (‘Martina mi ha riparato una bicicletta.’; Eng.: ‘Martina repaired me a bicycle), in line with the Argument Structure Hypothesis, which predicts lower processing costs for lexically selected arguments than for syntactically computed adjuncts. In contrast, eleven-year-old children showed no processing differences between the two constructions. A second experiment using eye- tracking with ten-year-old children replicated this null effect, indicating that the absence of sensitivity to the argument–adjunct distinction at this age is not due to methodological factors. Instead, the findings suggest a developmental trajectory, with adult-like processing emerging only in early adolescence. Children’s performance appears to be influenced by grammatical competence rather than by verb argument structure per se. Overall, the results highlight the role of grammatical maturation in real-time syntactic processing.