GRAMMATICAL GENDER IS ON THE TIP OF ITALIAN TONGUES

To correctly produce words, speakers must have access to three broad c lasses of information: lexical semantics, syntax and sound structure. The relevant information must be organized in ways that permit rapid a nd accurate retrieval of specific lexical targets. Current models of l anguage production do this by a two-stage process: The first stage inc orporates lexical meanings and syntax, and the second, sound structure . We used studies of the tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon (i.e., the condi tion ill which a speaker cannot produce a well-known word) to evaluate this organization, and in so doing, we provide the first clear experi mental evidence for a lexical stage that includes syntax and is distin ct from both sound structure and the conceptual correlates of syntacti c features.