Language encodes into morphology part of the information present in the referential world.
Some features are marked in the great majority of languages, such as the numerosity of the
referents that is encoded in morphological Number. Other features do not surface as
frequently in morphological markings, yet they are pervasive in natural languages. This is
the case of animacy, that can ground Gender systems as well as constrain the surfacing of
Number. The diffusion of numerosity and animacy could mirror their biological salience at …

Methods. 20 nouns for each Type were selected: animate nouns with interpretable Gender
(Anim_g, gatto-'cat'), animate nouns with semantically uninterpretable Gender (Anim_i,
ghepardo-'cheetah'), inanimate nouns (Inanim, divano–'couch'). Each noun was presented
in two conditions of Number, namely singular and plural, for a total of 120 experimental
trials. Othographic length and frequency of the nouns were controlled. 220 fillers were
added. 36 Italian native speakers performed a phrase-completion task. Noun phrases …