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Abstract:
Most theories of language processing assume that there is no
interaction between phonological and grammatical coding mechanisms.
In language production, this implies that the construction of
subject-verb agreement should be independent of the way grammatical
information is phonologically realized. We tested this hypothesis
in three experiments that elicited number agreement errors, using a
sentence fragment repetition and completion task (cf. Bock &
Miller, 1991). Sentence fragments were noun phrases such as the
German phrase "die Fahrt durch die Sluchten" (the ride through the
canyons), containing a singular subject noun (Fahrt) and a plural
local noun (Sluchten). Agreement errors were more likely to occur
when the local noun and subject noun mismatch in number
("attraction"), but this effect interacted with the homophony of
case-marking in German and with the homophony of number marking in
Dutch. In two experiments in German, attraction was stronger when
case of the local noun was ambiguous between nominative and
accusative. A third experiment manipulated the singular-plural
homophony of the determiner of the subject noun in Dutch. This
yielded another effect of the transparency of number marking,
increasing the incidence of attraction to the number of the local
noun. We conclude that interaction between phonological and
grammatical encoding affects the implementation of agreement and
discuss three possible mechanisms for these effects.
Bock, J. K., & Miller, C. A. (1991). Broken agreement.
Cognitive Psychology, 23, 45-93.
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