Conjunct Agreement and Gender in South Slavic: From Theory to Experiments to Theory

Abstract

Agreement with coordinated subjects in Slavic languages has recently seen a rapid increase in theoretical and experimental approaches, contributing to a wider theoretical discussion on the locus of agreement in grammar (cf. Marušič et al. 2007, Bošković 2009, Marušič et al. 2015). In this paper, we revisit the theoretical predictions proposed for conjunction agreement in a group of South Slavic languages, with a special focus on gender agreement. The paper is based on two experiments involving speakers of Bosnian/ Croatian/ Serbian (B/C/S) and Slovenian (Slov). Experiment 1 is an elicited production experiment investigating preverbal conjunct agreement, while Experiment 2 investigates postverbal conjunct agreement. The data provide experimental evidence discriminating between syntax proper and distributed agreement models in terms of their ability to account for preverbal Highest-Conjunct agreement, and present the need for a distinction between Default agreement (which has a fixed number and gender, independent of the value of each conjunct) and Resolved agreement (which computes number and gender based on the values of each conjunct, and must resolve potential conflicts). Focusing on the variability in gender agreement ratio across nine combinations, the experimental results for B/C/S and Slov morphosyntax challenge the notion of Gender markedness generally posited for South Slavic languages.

Elided Clausal Conjunction Is Not the Only Source of Closest‐Conjunct Agreement: A Picture‐Matching Study

“…In this article, we reported on two experiments conducted on these languages with the aim of testing whether the underlying‐biclausal hypothesis applies universally to CCA patterns and, more particularly, whether it applies to Slovenian and B/C/S, which have been used to motivate complex agreement mechanisms to yield CCA (Willer‐Gold et al. , Murphy & Puškar ). The results of our experiments reject the conjunction‐reduction hypothesis as the only source of CCA as far as these languages are concerned.…”

“…Although previous literature (e.g., Bošković ) has occasionally raised doubts about the availability of first‐conjunct agreement in sentences like (2a), Willer‐Gold et al. () experimentally collect and statistically confirm such patterns. Henceforth, last‐conjunct agreement with preverbal subjects and first‐conjunct agreement with postverbal subjects will be referred to as closest‐conjunct agreement (CCA).…”

“…Slovenian and Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian (B/C/S) are languages in which preverbal subjects trigger both types of single‐conjunct agreement, while with postverbal subjects first‐conjunct agreement is dominant and last‐conjunct agreement is clearly degraded, even if not fully absent (Willer‐Gold et al. , Arsenijević & Mitić ,b). Consider (2a), where the preverbal subject licenses first‐conjunct agreement (neuter plural), last‐conjunct agreement (feminine plural), and a default or resolved gender value (masculine plural), and compare the postverbal subject in (2b): here last‐conjunct agreement is strongly degraded, and there is a significantly lower rate of production of the default agreement (Willer‐Gold et al.…”

“…Consider (2a), where the preverbal subject licenses first‐conjunct agreement (neuter plural), last‐conjunct agreement (feminine plural), and a default or resolved gender value (masculine plural), and compare the postverbal subject in (2b): here last‐conjunct agreement is strongly degraded, and there is a significantly lower rate of production of the default agreement (Willer‐Gold et al. argue that in fact resolved agreement is not available when the subject follows the verb, i.e., with postverbal subjects).…”

“…Although CCA in South Slavic has motivated a number of modifications to the theory of agreement (e.g., Bošković , Willer‐Gold et al. , Murphy & Puškar ), one of the analyses of CCA that keeps coming back involves clausal conjunction followed by a type of ellipsis. This is referred to as conjunction reduction.…”