The development of Light-'do' Verb Constructions in Italian

This contribution presents the results of a study of the development of Light 'do' Verb Constructions in Italian based on naturalistic data. The claim is that there exists a Light Verb pivot schema that accounts for new productive formations and that this pattern is learnt by young children because it constitutes a labeling technique for naming new events, activities and situations. The findings of this research support two hypotheses of language acquisition. The results are based on analysis of longitudinal transcriptions of adult children interactions contained in the CHILDES databank (MacWhinney 2000).