Some Aspects and and Case Studies about Teaching Italian Complex-Clause Syntax to Slovenian Learners

Abstract

The paper presents some results about the mastery of complex-clause syntax among Slovenian high-school students who learn Italian as a foreign language. The author starts from the premise that the mastery of syntax is an objective to be achieved at the receptive and, to a degree, also at the productive level. Hence, what knowledge mostly secondary school leavers have developed is shown according to various groups of learners. Different types of knowledge were tested: intuitive comprehension, metalinguistic knowledge and the productive knowledge of complex syntactic structures. The results seem to imply that a considerable lack of appropriate knowledge has been identified, in particular at the productive level. It is here where problems arise, since for Slovenian learners the syntax of Italian complex clauses is objectively difficult. It presupposes the speaker’s ability to master the system and use of tenses, which are perceived as particularly hard to learn.