Pares léxicos en el léxico disponible de estudiantes italianos

The application of lexical availability studies to the field of psycholinguistics continues to produce interesting outcomes. Recent research, in fact, employs data from this kind of studies in order to qualitatively analyze the lexical-semantic relations that informants establish between words. Our study analyze a type of minimal clusters or lexical pairs, such as perro-gato or carne-pescado, in two semantic areas (Alimentos y bebidas and Animales). In doing so, it seeks to contribute to current discussion by proposing new data to show that words will be organized in more structured semantic networks as proficiency of foreign students increases. This hypothesis is based on recent studies on lexical acquisition. Our study analyzes the lexical pairs established by Italian students of Spanish, distributed in two groups according to their academic level, and employs data collected from their available words.