Figure 1. Design Experiment 1.

Each trial consisted of a color-coded prime (1a. or 1b.) and a grayscale target (2.). On baseline trials (1a. followed by 2.) primes were intransitive or locative sentences, so that we could measure the baseline frequency of using active and passive transitives. On transitive priming trials (1b. followed by 2.) we measured the syntactic priming effect for transitive sentences in four conditions. Transitive primes could be active (top row) or passive (bottom row). Furthermore, there could be no word repetition (left column) or word repetition (right column) between prime and target. The sentences participants produced responding to the pictures are inserted for clarity. (Consent for publication was obtained from the actors depicted in these stimuli.)