Conjunctions and Grammatical Agreement

In a second study involving both Lebanese Arabic and English speakers, a picture description task manipulated the position of the subject relative to the verb and revealed that singular verbs were much more frequent with postverbal (versus preverbal) subjects and that lexically plural nouns were stronger enforcers of plural agreement than conjoined singular subjects in both Lebanese Arabic and English. Adjacency also played a role, as plural nouns in furthest conjunct position did not enforce plural agreement in the same way as plural nouns that were linearly adjacent to the verb. These results indicate that notional information, lexical plurality, adjacency, and linear (surface) word order play significant roles in the computation and production of agreement. The results also shed light on the nature of closest conjunct agreement and on the number of stages involved in producing grammatical agreement.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Linguistics

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2015

Author dc:creator

• Lorimor, Heidi

Contributors dc:contributor

• Bock, J. Kathryn

• Psychology, Cognitive

Language dc:language

eng

Identifier

(MiAaPQ)AAI3290304

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/82643