Abstract
In Dutch, posture verbs like liggen ‘lie’ and staan ‘stand’ are obligatorily
used in locative constructions with inanimate subjects, classifying the spatial Figure-Ground relation. Prima facie, in this use,
posture verbs seem more like functional elements than like lexical verbs.
This paper investigates processing of Dutch posture verbs in a reference resolution task in the visual world
paradigm, to get more clarity on the nature of these verbs. We know that lexical verbs like rinkelen ‘ring’ cause
anticipatory looks towards a matching target referent like telefoon ‘telephone’; and that they suppress looks to
a phonological competitor like telescoop ‘telescope’. The functional property of grammatical gender on
determiners (de vs. het) is less robust in directing looks. When it comes to anticipating the
target referent, and suppressing looks to a phonological competitor, do posture verbs pattern with lexical verbs, or with
functional elements like grammatical gender?