Morphological processing in L2 Italian: Evidence from a masked priming study

The present paper explores the processing of morphologically complex words in L2 Italian by means of as series of masked priming experiments associated with a LDT. We manipulated deadjectival nominalizations in -ità (e.g. velocità < veloce) and in -ezza (e.g. bellezza < bello), that differ in terms of numerosity, productivity (Rainer, 2004) and on surface frequency. Morphological priming effects were evaluated relative to both orthographic and identity conditions and the data revealed significant morphological priming effects emerging for words ending with the most productive suffix (-ità) and having a high surface frequency in Italian. Our data on derivation suggest that similarly to native speakers, L2 learners are sensitive to morphological information, but they integrate it progressively through L2 learning process.