Marking in discourse: “Birds of a feather”

Abstract

Subject/verb agreement and subject/predicate adjective agreement in spoken Brazilian Portuguese are subject to a parallel processing effect, such that marking leads to further marking and lack of marking leads to further lack of marking. For example, semantically plural verb tokens preceded by marked plural subjects in the same clause or other marked verb tokens with the same subject in the preceding discourse are more likely to be explicitly marked for plural than similar tokens preceded by unmarked subjects or verbs. This phenomenon is in direct contradiction to the principle of linguistic economy, since marking tends to occur precisely in those contexts in which it is most highly redundant and could therefore be discarded with no loss of information. Furthermore, the marking of successive plural tokens cannot be considered statistically independent events, since the outcome of previous marking decisions effects future marking. We propose that the parallel processing principle is a universal of language use.

Perseveration of subject expression across regional dialects of Spanish

“…Therefore, we do not claim to have found a final explanation. But we do claim to have found a psycholinguistic theory of language production which provides a coherent and reasoned account of our findings and which may also profitably apply to findings in other sociolinguistic research into perservations (Poplack 1980;Pereira Scherre 2001;Pereira Scherre & Naro 1991;and Weiner & Labov 1983).…”

“…Evidence supporting this answer may be found in multiple studies within variationist sociolinguistics and within spreading-activation research in psycholinguistics which find systematic effects for what researchers have identified as priming or persistence or perseverance or perseveration or, in even more colorful terms, a "birds of a feather" effect (Pereira Scherre & Naro 1991). It is unfortunate that such multiple terms exist.…”

“…Poplack's (1980Poplack's ( , 1981 seminal study of variable plural (s) in Puerto Rican Spanish may have been the first sociolinguistic research to identify perseveration. Pereira Scherre & Naro (1991) documented successive occurrences of agreement markers between subjects and verbs, or subjects and predicate adjectives in Brazilian Portuguese. They suggest that "presence of a zero plural marker on the last element of the subject leads preferentially to lack of plural markers of the verb, whereas the presence of -s favors plural marking of the verb" (1991: 28).…”

Sociolinguistic correlates of negative evaluation: Variable concord in Rio de Janeiro

“…Furthermore, subjects without a plural marker on the last element tend to trigger unmarked plural verbs. These effects have been described in detail in the relevant literature on Brazilian Portuguese for the last 30 years, in articles published in Language (Naro 1981), Language Variation and Change (Scherre and Naro 1991, 1992, Naro and Scherre 1996a, Scherre 2001) and in Selected Papers from NWAV 8 (Scherre 1981, Guy 1981, NWAV 23 (Naro and Scherre 1996b), NWAV 38 (Scherre and Naro 2010).…”

Number and indefinites

“…Second, irregular plurals can be bare singulars, but irregular plurals cannot ''delete'' their plural morpheme. SeeSchmitt and Munn (2002) andScherre and Naro (1991) for more details.7 We leave aside any differences that may exist between the indefinite articles in Romance and the English indefinite article.…”