The interplay of syntax and form in sentence production: A cross-linguistic study of form effects on agreement

Franck, Julie; Vigliocco, Gabriella; Antón-Méndez, Inés; Collina, Simona; Frauenfelder, Ulrich Hans

doi:10.1080/01690960701467993

Cited by 80 publications

(71 citation statements)

References 52 publications

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“…Although the model of syntactic structure used to account for our data deals with representational/configurational aspects of sentence structure, it is entirely compatible with feature-based psycholinguistic models of sentence formulation according to which features are copied from the agreement source to the target (e.g., Marking and Morphing model, Eberhard et al, 2005;Franck, Vigliocco, Antón-Méndez, Collina, & Frauenfelder, 2008). Our data and analyses further constrain these models by proposing a finer description of the hierarchical structure over which copying takes place.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 86%

Object interference in subject–verb agreement: The role of intermediate traces of movement

Franck

Soare

Frauenfelder

et al. 2010

Journal of Memory and Language

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a b s t r a c tThe research presented here uses theoretical constructs of formal syntax to account for performance data in agreement production. The phenomenon examined is object interference in French, i.e., incorrect agreement of the verb with the object. In the first experiment, interference is shown to occur in object relative clauses despite the absence of any surface intervention on the subject-verb relation (e.g., * John parle aux patientes que le medicament guérissent; * John speaks to the patients-P that the medicine-S cure-P). Critically, no interference is found in complement clauses, superficially identical to the relatives (e.g., John dit aux patientes que le medicament guérit; John tells the patients-P that the medicine-S cures-S). Experiments 1-4 tease apart the role, in interference, of three properties that distinguish relative clauses from complement clauses: argumenthood, participle agreement and movement. Results suggest that interference is caused by object movement, and more particularly by the intervention, on agreement, of the intermediate trace of the moved object postulated in theoretical syntax to account for independent phenomena.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 86%

Object interference in subject–verb agreement: The role of intermediate traces of movement

Franck

Soare

Frauenfelder

et al. 2010

Journal of Memory and Language

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“…This outcome does not seem to fit the model's postulation that conceptual factors (as well as morpho-phonological ones) affect the process of feature selection of both the head and the local noun. In fact, Franck et al (2008) explain the absence of conceptual factors induced by the local noun on the statistical grounds of the floor effect. However, in that case it is hard to explain the existence of the morpho-phonological effect induced by the local noun as reported above.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 96%

Symmetric and asymmetric patterns of attraction errors in producing subject–predicate agreement in Hebrew: An issue of morphological structure

Deutsch

Dank

2011

Language and Cognitive Processes

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A common characteristic of subjectÁpredicate agreement errors (usually termed attraction errors) in complex noun phrases is an asymmetrical pattern of error distribution, depending on the inflectional state of the nouns comprising the complex noun phrase. That is, attraction is most likely to occur when the head noun is the morphologically unmarked form and the local noun is a marked form. In the present study we investigated whether there is an asymmetrical pattern of distribution of agreement errors occurring in the course of producing subjectÁpredicate gender (Experiment 1) and number (Experiment 2) agreement in Hebrew, using the sentence-completion task for complex noun phrases. In Hebrew, masculine forms are usually morphologically unmarked, whereas feminine forms are morphologically marked. Similarly, there are specific suffixes for marking plurality. Despite the apparent structural resemblance between number and gender marking in Hebrew, linguists suggest that whereas number involves inflectional processes, singular masculine as well as feminine nominal inanimate forms in Hebrew contain a complex derivational structure without inflectional suffixes. The results revealed that whereas producing gender agreement exhibited a symmetrical pattern of distribution of errors, the frequency of number attraction revealed an asymmetrical pattern, in which attraction was observed only when a singular unmarked head noun was followed by a morphologically marked plural form. The results are discussed in connection with the distinction between inflectional and derivational structures and their relevance to the process of computing agreement in the marking and morphing model (Eberhard, Cutting, & Bock, 2005).

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“…However, in the production of possessive pronouns, Spanish/French-English bilinguals produced more errors and showed larger "gender attraction effects" 2 than Greek-English bilinguals and English monolinguals. These results indicated that the gender of a local noun could interfere with agreement processes and result in noun-adjective (*El reloj de la aldea es vieja 'The clock of the hamlet is old') 3 (Franck, Vigliocco, Antón-Méndez, & Collina, 2008) or antecedent-pronoun (*The waitress chases his son) 4 (Meyer & Bock, 1999) gender agreement errors (Santesteban, Foucart, Pickering, & Branigan, 2010).…”

Section: Previous Research On the Acquisition Of L2 Gender Agreementmentioning

confidence: 92%

Gender agreement in L3 English by Basque/Spanish bilinguals

Agirre

Mayo²

2013

LAB

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This study investigates knowledge of the nominal agreement domain in L3 English by Basque/Spanish bilinguals. Gender agreement has been claimed to be an interpretable feature in English and could be claimed to be so for Basque, whereas Spanish shows uninterpretable gender agreement. Under current representational and computational accounts posited to explain variability in L2 learner production, interpretable features are acquirable. The participants in the present study (n=34) were Basque/Spanish bilinguals of two proficiency levels in English (intermediate and advanced) and a control group of English native speakers (n=17). They completed two oral production tasks (elicitation and picture narration tasks). Results from both tasks indicate that Basque/Spanish bilinguals seem to have acquired gender agreement in L3 English but still have production problems which could be explained on the basis of linguistic features (animacy) and gender attraction effects of the Spanish head noun as well as the different proficiency levels.

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The interplay of syntax and form in sentence production: A cross-linguistic study of form effects on agreement

Cited by 80 publications

References 52 publications

Object interference in subject–verb agreement: The role of intermediate traces of movement

Object interference in subject–verb agreement: The role of intermediate traces of movement

Symmetric and asymmetric patterns of attraction errors in producing subject–predicate agreement in Hebrew: An issue of morphological structure

Gender agreement in L3 English by Basque/Spanish bilinguals

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