This experiment investigates the acquisition of (true) light verb constructions (in the sense of Kearns 1988/2002) as well as other constructions that involve a light verb in Cypriot Greek. Focusing on the acquisition of the light verb kamno ‘do/make’, this study aims to identify (i) whether light verb constructions are more frequent in Cypriot Greek than in Standard Modern Greek, (ii) what the age of acquisition is for true light verb constructions, and (iii) how sensitive to (light verb) priming children of different ages are in a picture-based elicitation task; in addition, this research tests whether adults can be sensitive enough to priming so as to reproduce light verb constructions that are inexistent in Cypriot Greek.
Index Terms. acquisition, Cypriot Greek, lightverbhood, priming