English Particle Verbs Prime Double Object Constructions in Production

Abstract We report on a production priming experiment (N=238) in which particle verb constructions (Ana lifted up Hsu) prime double object constructions (Ana gave Hsu the book). This result is expected under syntactic models that take the two constructions to share abstract structure, including Small Clause approaches in the tradition of Kayne 1984, 1985. The result is not expressed by models positing no shared structure between the constructions, including common versions of complex predicate approaches to particle verb constructions and applicative approaches to double object constructions.