Invalid Syntax: NooJ Assisted Automatic Detection of Errors in Auxiliaries and Past Participles in Italian

The work targets two areas of Italian morphosyntax: auxiliary selection (AS) and past participle agreement (PPA). In selecting such inflectional morphemes, learners of Italian commit frequent errors, even after a long period of constant study. We aim to enclose AS and PPA within the boundaries of NLP in order that a tool can be developed with a twofold purpose: first, it helps experts to build specific computer drills regarding AS and PPA; second, it assists self-taught learners in verifying whether their periphrastic sentences in Italian are well-turned. This area of Computer-Assisted Language Learning is currently poorly investigated. Further research might substantiate the importance of a field which is aimed at facilitating the study of a foreign language and simultaneously stimulate advances in NLP.