Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Subject-verb agreement'

This thesis explores the mental representation of subject-verb agreement, and the factors that can affect the determination of agreement in language production. It reports nine experiments that used a task in which participants produced sentence completions for visually presented complex subjects such as “The greyhound which two lively rabbits were tempting”. Such completions typically agree with the head noun (greyhound) as in “A greyhound which two lively rabbits were tempting is jumping” but sometimes agree with the local noun (rabbits) as in “A greyhound which two lively rabbits were tempting are jumping”. The first experiments examined the value of the concept of markedness in subject verb number agreement to see whether it has explanatory power for languages like Slovene with more than two number values. Results from two experiments employing complex sentence preambles including a head noun post modified by a prepositional phrase or a relative clause (e.g., “The nudist(s) near the sand dune(s)”) show that Slovene number agreement differs from number agreement in languages with no dual, but that it is not possible to simply state that the singular is the least marked and the dual the most. I argue that using languages with more complex number systems allows greater insight into the processes of correct and erroneous subject-verb agreement, and shows that it is necessary to dissociate susceptibility to agreement from error-causing status. To conclude, the concept of markedness seems unable to explain my results. Semantic effects in agreement are then examined using two comparison experiments in English. Experiment 3 shows that although English has only a two value system, speakers are sensitive to semantic differences in number. Experiment 4 explores the possible influence of speakers’ native language three-value number system on their two-value second language system. It shows that native speakers of English are more sensitive to semantic number differences in English than Slovene speakers of English. Experiment 5 explores gender agreement in Slovene (which has three genders) and shows that there is a complex pattern of agreement. As with number, there is not just one number value which is problematic: neuter and masculine are most confusable, but masculine errors are also common when feminine agreement would be expected, thus suggesting that speakers revert to two different defaults, masculine and neuter. Finally, the results of four experiments examining number and gender agreement in coordinated phrases are presented. Agreement in such phrases may be resolved (i.e. the verb agrees with the whole subject) but may instead agree with one conjunct. Agreement with one conjunct is affected byword order (agreement with the nearest conjunct is most common), coordinator (e.g., single-conjunct agreement is more common after “or” than “and”) and the gender or number of the conjuncts (e.g., dual number is associated with single-conjunct agreement). Taken together, my results suggest that agreement is affected by a complex interplay of semantic and syntactic factors, and that the effects of a three-valued system are quite distinct from those of a two-valued system.

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O processamento da concordância de número sujeito-verbo na produção de sentenças por falantes do dialeto culto do português brasileiro é investigado. A dissertação focaliza os chamados erros de atração e seu principal objetivo é identificar os fatores que interferem no processamento da concordância e prover uma explicação psicolingüística que seja compatível com pressupostos do Programa Minimalista da Lingüística Gerativa. Mais especificamente, busca-se examinar: i) as condições que favorecem os erros e as propriedades sintáticas que levam um núcleo interveniente a ser tomado como o controlador da concordância; ii) a interferência de informação morfofonológica de número dos elementos que integram os modificadores do DP sujeito; iii) a interferência de informação semântica de número no estabelecimento da concordância. Ainda como objetivo específico busca-se distinguir em termos estruturais os DPs responsáveis pelos erros de atração daqueles que licenciam uma forma singular ou plural do verbo - as chamadas construções partitivas. Aplica-se uma tarefa psicolingüística envolvendo julgamento de gramaticalidade a fim de investigar diferenças de processamento da concordância entre as construções partitivas e os DPs complexos. A relevância dos tópicos investigados se deve ao fato de estes permitirem uma discussão mais ampla acerca da autonomia do formulador sintático. Parte-se de vasta revisão da literatura, na qual se reportam interferências sintáticas, semânticas e morfofonológicas no processamento da concordância em diferentes línguas. Explicações apresentadas por modelos de produção interativos e não-interativos são discutidas. Inclui-se ainda uma caracterização da concepção minimalista de língua, com o tratamento da concordância como processo de valoração de traços formais, e um modelo de produção de natureza serial, não-interativo, que incorpora um parser- monitorador funcionando paralelamente à formulação dos enunciados - modelo PMP (produção monitorada por parser). Em seguida, reportam-se 5 experimentos com falantes de português. Os resultados indicaram efeito de marcação e de distância linear entre o núcleo do sujeito e o verbo, com mais erros para núcleo do sujeito não-marcado (singular) e linearmente distante do verbo, e efeito de posição estrutural do núcleo interveniente, com maior incidência de erros para os núcleos hierarquicamente próximos do nó mais alto do DP sujeito e núcleos inseridos em PPs argumentos. Um efeito semântico de distributividade associado a efeito de marcação também foi obtido. Quanto a fatores morfofonológicos, a informação de número no determinante (e não no nome) mostrou-se crucial para a identificação do número do DP sujeito. É proposta uma versão ampliada e revista do modelo PMP que unifica explicações para os erros de concordância em termos de uma escala de acessibilidade da representação do DP sujeito pela memória de trabalho e que leva em consideração as expectativas do parser como possível fator de interferência em erros de atração. Essa interferência ocorreria após o parsing do primeiro DP e afetaria a codificação morfofonológica do verbo. Em suma, a tese aqui veiculada é a de que os erros de concordância não ocorrem na computação sintática e que o formulador sintático atua de forma autônoma.
The processing of subject-verb number agreement in sentence production by speakers of the standard dialect of the Brazilian Portuguese is investigated. The dissertation focuses on attraction errors and its main aim is to identify the factors that interfere in agreement processing and to provide a psycholinguistic account, which is compatible with assumptions of the Minimalist Program of Generative Linguistics. This work examines, in particular: i) the conditions that favor attraction errors and the syntactic properties which make an intervenient head to be considered as the agreement controller; ii) the role of morphophonological information on number provided by the DP subject modifiers; iii) the interference of conceptual number in agreement. Additionally, the work intends to distinguish, in structural terms, the DPs responsible for attraction errors from those DPs that allow a singular and a plural form of the verb - the so-called partitive constructions. A psycholinguistic procedure of grammaticality judgment is conducted in order to verify agreement processing differences between partitive constructions and complex DPS. The relevance of these topics is due to the fact that they enable a more comprehensive discussion on the autonomy of the syntactic formulator in language production. An extensive review of the existing literature was carried out and results are reported, concerning the interference from syntactic, semantic and morphophonological factors on agreement processing in different languages. Explanations provided by interactive and non-interactive models are discussed in this work. The minimalist conception of language is presented according to which agreement is described as a feature valuation process and a serial non-interactive production model is characterized, which incorporates a monitoring-parser that works in parallel with speech formulation - PMP model (parser monitored production). A total of 5 experiments with Portuguese speakers are reported. The results show an effect of markedness and linear distance between the subject and the verb, with more errors caused by non-marked (singular) subject heads that are linearly distant from the verb, and an effect of the structural position of the intervenient head, with a large number of errors for intervenient heads that are near to the upper phrasal marker of the DP and for heads which are inserted in PP arguments. A semantic effect of distributivity associated with an effect of markedness was also obtained. As far as morphphonological factors, number information of the determiner (and not of the noun) has shown to be critical to subject number identification. A revised and improved version of the PMP model is proposed that unifies possible explanations for agreement in terms of on an accessibility scale of the DP subject representation in the working memory and that takes into account parser predictions as a possible factor of interference in attraction errors. This interference would occur after the parsing of the DP and would affect the morphophonological encoding of the verb. In sum, the main argument of the thesis is that agreement errors do not occur in the syntactic computation and that the syntactic formulator works autonomously.

Persons with Swedish as their first language often find it hard to learn subject-verb agreement when studying English. In Swedish this grammatical difficulty does not exist and it is therefore hard to introduce to learners that have Swedish as their native language.This investigation is based on the texts of 28 ninth graders of whom four were interviewed. My interest was in finding out how the students reflect on their own written work with a focus on subject-verb agreement with a particular focus on the third person singular s.My study shows that the four interviewed students claim that they never reflect on grammar in their spontaneous writing and that they never consciously try to apply rules that they have studied in school through being offered grammatical explanations. Instead they make their grammatical choices intuitively, using their procedural knowledge.

We explore the language production process by eliciting subject-verb agreement errors. Participants were asked to create complete sentences from sentence beginnings such as The elf's/elves' house with the tiny window/windows and The statue in the eirs/elves' gardens. These are subject noun phrases containing a head noun and controller of agreement (statue), and two nonheads, a "local noun" (window(s)/garden(s)), and a possessor noun (elf's/elves'). Past research has shown that a plural nonhead noun (an "attractor") within a subject noun phrase triggers the production of verb agreement errors, and further, that the nearer the attractor to the head noun, the greater the interference. This effect can be interpreted in terms of relative hierarchical distance from the head noun, or via a processing window account, which claims that during production, there is a window in which the head and modifying material may be co-active, and an attractor must be active at the same time as the head to give rise to errors. Using possessors attached at different heights within the same window, we are able to empirically distinguish these accounts. Possessors also allow us to explore two additional issues. First, case marking of local nouns has been shown to reduce agreement errors in languages with "rich" inflectional systems, and we explore whether English speakers attend to case. Secondly, formal syntactic analyses differ regarding the structural position of the possessive marker, and we distinguish them empirically with the relative magnitude of errors produced by possessors and local nouns. Our results show that, across the board, plural possessors are significantly less disruptive to the agreement process than plural local nouns. Proximity to the head noun matters: a possessor directly modifying the head noun induce a significant number of errors, but a possessor within a modifying prepositional phrase did not, though the local noun did. These findings suggest that proximity to a head noun is independent of a "processing window" effect. They also support a noun phrase-internal, case-like analysis of the structural position of the possessive ending and show that even speakers of inflectionally impoverished languages like English are sensitive to morphophonological case-like marking.

Language is probably the greatest thing developed by mankind. Yet few have come to understand how it is acquired. I am one of them. I want to understand how it is acquired, and how students come to understand the important area of subject-verb agreement. The purpose of the research was to gain an understanding of local students whose mother tongue is Cantonese (L1), and what are the factors affecting their acquisition of subject-verb agreement in English. To a lesser degree, it is aimed at gaining an understanding of how language is acquired; to gain an understanding on how second language is acquired; and to gain an understanding of how grammar is acquired. The research was carried out as the author wanted to see if there was a reason why students could not understand subject-verb agreement in English. The author wanted to look at four main reasons. These included biological reasons, physiological reasons, developmental reason, and cultural reason. The research was conducted on children aged six to twelve from two main school streams (public and private) using a quantitative and qualitative survey. The quantitative survey included fifteen missing words, twenty statements, and five sentences to see if students could recognise if the statements were ungrammatical or grammatical. The qualitative survey was conducted with a group of primary four students (aged nine to ten) to gain an understanding of why certain answers were selected and what was the reasoning behind the decisions the participants made. From the researcher, it was discovered there was some level of first language interference, though to the exact degree it was questionable as it could not be determined quantifiably. It was evident from the YoE data that students new to English had the highest number of errors. It was also found that there was no absolute or definitive time or age when subject-verb agreement was evident. However, there was a sharp decrease in the number of errors at both schools at the age of eight. The results also show that culture does influence the learning of English as a second language in Hong Kong. It is not just because Cantonese has no Subject-verb agreement; it also extends to the teaching practices in the classroom and the culture of teaching through grammar. The problems this created became evident in the research.
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Education
Master
Master of Education

The study of Spanish in contact with Wayuunaiki has received limited attention in generative and variationist analyses. In particular, the possible influence of this indigenous language on some parts of the Spanish language has not been investigated or has been only briefly addressed. This dissertation aims to fill this existing gap by studying two morpho-syntactic variables: (i) the distribution of null and overt subjects (NOS) as portrayed by the Null Subject Parameter and overt subject personal pronoun (SPP) expression as traditionally researched in variationist studies, and (ii) the issue of subject-verb agreement within the theory of features. To carry out these studies, we collected spontaneous data from 27 Wayuunaiki-Spanish bilinguals and five Spanish monolingual speakers. This Spanish monolingual group served as the vernacular benchmark. The NOS and SPP expression are among the most studied topics in Hispanic linguistics, but they have never been systematically researched in Guajiro Spanish. By analyzing these issues in our dissertation, we want to contribute new data to their study and to the properties and factors affecting them, in order to widen the knowledge of how they function in this Spanish language contact situation. In the generative analysis of the null/overt subjects we investigate whether the distinction that occurs in Wayuunaiki between stative and active verbs and the participants’ proficiency in Spanish have an impact on the distribution of NOS in Guajiro Spanish. In the variationist study, a number of independent variables widely believed to constrain variable SPP expression are factored into the investigation to find out how they behave in this particular language contact situation. These variables include person/number, TAM, switch reference, priming effects, etc. The second research topic is subject-verb agreement. This is only investigated from the generative grammar perspective, specifically by employing the concept of features to explain the nature of the subject-verb mismatches produced by the Wayuunaiki dominant Wayuunaiki-Spanish bilinguals. We specifically investigate whether the Spanish conjugation system poses a problem to the bilingual speakers’ ability to produce the native Spanish verb forms vis-à-vis the monolingual cohort and whether this ability is shaped by the participants’ proficiency in Spanish. The results of the three studies contribute to the field of Hispanic linguistics from three different perspectives. The study of NOS adds a new dimension to the pro-drop parameter: the possible role that Wayuunaiki’s double conjugation may play in the distribution of null and overt subject pronouns in Guajiro Spanish. The variationist study provides new data on the topic of SPP expression in a variety of Spanish which, in this specific case, has as contact language an understudied indigenous language. The analysis of the subject-verb mismatches that occur in Guajiro Spanish allows us to differentiate between the status of null and overt subjects with respect to subject-verb agreement and to differentiate between this contact variety and the Colombian vernacular benchmark.

Whereas variability in Second Language (L2) learners' use of Subject-Verb (S-V) agreement is uncontroversial, there is little agreement as to the causes of this variability in both SLA and L2 processing research. Theories differ as to whether this variability is related to a syntactic deficit in the hierarchical feature checking system or to surface realization of inflectional morphology. The purpose of the study is to investigate whether the agreement checking system is impaired in L2 grammar, and what the sources of difficulty are, if this system is not impaired. To explore the above questions, this study investigates the extent to which L2 learners of English are sensitive to S- V agreement errors with thematic verbs and copulas. Proficient Persian speakers of L2 English (i.e., L2 learners) participated in three online speeded grammaticality judgment tasks. Experiment 1 tests whether L2 learners perform more efficiently in S- V agreement with copula be than with thematic verbs (i.e., the suppletive-affixal asymmetry). This has been robustly reported in Second Language Acquisition (SLA) research (e.g., Dulay & Burt, 1973; Lardiere, 1998a, b; Ionin & Wexler, 2002). The findings replicate those of the SLA research. These observations reveal that the agreement checking system is not impaired in L2 grammar; otherwise, L2 learners may not be able to check S- V agreement in copula be. The results also show that L2 learners are likely to have problems with both omission and commission errors. Yet, proficiency seems to be a strong predictor of native-like processing of S- V agreement. To tap into the agreement checking system empirically, experiments 2 and 3 examine the singular-plural mismatch asymmetry. This asymmetry refers to the occurrence of agreement attraction in singular subject-plural local noun configurations (e.g., The key to the cabinets) bu not the reverse pattern (e.g., The keys to the cabinet). This effect has robustly been confirmed in First Language (Ll) research (e.g., Bock & Cutting, 1992; Bock, et al., 1999; Pearlmutter, et al., 1999). Since agreement attraction occurs in the former configuration but not the latter, it has been suggested that the plural attract or in the former hierarchically percolates upwards to the head noun (the key) and overwrites its singular number leading to agreement attraction. In line with this robust effect, the results of experiments 2 and 3 reveal the effect of the mismatch asymmetry in both NSs and L2 learners. The results of these experiments are argued to be partially consistent with the Missing Surface Inflection Hypothesis (MSIH) (Prevost & White, 2000), which asserts that the agreement checking system is not impaired in L2 grammar. However, L2 learners' problems with commission errors do not seem to support the MSIH which considers missing inflection as the source of variability.

Swedish learners of English have problems in managing the subject-verb agreement rule (Källqvist and Petersson 2006, Estling Vannestål 2015). Studies show that extramural activities in English improve language acquisition and language production (Sundqvist 2009). The aim of the essay is to investigate whether extramural activities affect students’ ability to correctly apply the subject-verb agreement rule. A google questionnaire was handed out to 64 students in the course of English 5 in upper secondary school. The students were asked to answer questions about their extramural habits and to do a test on subject-verb agreement. The results indicate that students have knowledge of the subject-verb agreement rule to some extent and that extramural activities in English may possibly have some impact on the ability to correctly apply the subject-verb agreement rule. The results could also be due to the academic motivation. The results show that the difference across gender is negligible but that there is a slightly larger difference across preparatory programs and vocational programs.

The main purpose of this study is to increase the understanding of a third language’s possible effect on learners’ second language acquisition. There is research how a first language affects the acquisition of a second language and that research has shown that a first language does affect the learning of an additional language in different ways. Even though  it is proven that languages do influence each other in learning processes there is very little previous research that studies if and how a third language can be affected by or affect a learner’s second language. To investigate possible differences in error-making, the first research question is to investigate what kind of errors the students make. The most common errors that students make are when subject-verb agreement is noncontiguous. The second research question is to see if Swedish students who know Spanish make different errors in English subject-verb agreement than Swedish students who do not know Spanish. This study finds that there are slight differences in how Swedish students who know Spanish and students who do not know Spanish make errors with English subject-verb agreement. The difference is that the students who know Spanish make fewer errors with noncontiguous subject-verb agreement, especially in relative clauses and with coordinated verb phrases. The fact that these students make fewer errors with noncontiguous subject-verb agreement may be an indication that they have a greater understanding of this grammatical feature.
Lokalt ID: 2011vt4810

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n this research, we investigated the factors that concern to the verbal agreement of 3rd person plural in textual productions of students from 9th grade and the 3rd year of Secondary Education in two schools in the city of Juazeiro-BA, one public, located in a neighborhood, peripheral, and the other private, located next to the city center. The analysis was performed according to the Sociolinguistic Principles of Labov (LABOV, 1996, 1972). To do so, it analyzes the textual production of 78 pupils, on basis of two Textual Genres, being that 31 texts (13 Personal Reports and 18 Dissertative-Argumentative text) showed absence of verbal agreement. The 47 remaining texts (between personal account and Dissertative- Argumentative text) showed no occurrences of absence of verbal agreement. In general, the results showed us that, regardless of the level of schooling, or even to be a school whether public or private, the rate of non-verb agreement was still similar, as soon as in 08 productions of 9 year from public schools and 08 productions of the private school, totaling 16 productions and 08 productions of the 3rd grade of public school and 07 productions of the area, totaling 15 productions, presented deviations from the use of verbal agreement. We realized that the textual genre Personal Report was not so favorable to incidence of deviations of agreement, but the opinion texts, which is a kind of argumentation, the incidence of deviations of concordance was quite evident. However, it is perceived that many of these detours occur in structures verb-subject and with verbs that have less salience phonics as demonstrated by studies of Naro & Scherre (1997; 1999), Rodrigues (1987), Bortoni-Ricardo (1985).Thus, based on these data, we've developed and applied a sequence of activities on the verb-subject agreement, supported on the sociolinguistic principles, for which these students could better understand the relationship of agreement and, therefore, use them in more proficient way. Fact that has proved by comparison of the writings and the rewrites ones of thepupils, as well as by the reflection undertaken by the students during the exercises proposed in the didactic sequences.
Nesta pesquisa, investigamos os fatores que concernem à concordância verbal de 3a pessoa do plural nas produções textuais dos alunos do 9o ano do Ensino Fundamental e do 3o ano do Ensino Médio de duas escolas do município de Juazeiro-BA, sendo uma pública, localizada em um bairro periférico, e a outra privada, localizada próxima ao centro da cidade. A análise foi realizada segundo os princípios da Sociolinguística Laboviana (LABOV, 1996, 1972). Para tanto, analisam- se as produções textuais de 78 alunos, com base em dois gêneros textuais, sendo que 31 textos (13 Relatos Pessoais e 18 textos dissertativo-argumentativos) apresentaram ausência de concordância verbal. Os 47 textos restantes (entre Relato Pessoal e Texto Dissertativo-argumentativo) não apresentaram ocorrências de ausência de concordância verbal. De uma forma geral, os resultados nos mostraram que independente do nível de escolarização, ou ainda, de ser uma escola pública ou privada, o índice de não concordância verbal foi semelhante, uma vez que em 08 produções do 9o ano da escola pública e 08 produções da escola privada, totalizando 16 produções e 08 produções da 3a série da escola pública e 07 produções da privada, totalizando 15 produções, apresentaram desvios do uso de concordância verbal. Percebemos que o gênero relato pessoal não foi tão propício à incidência de desvios de concordância, mas no texto opinativo, que é um gênero da argumentação, a incidência de desvios de concordância foi bastante evidenciada. Porém, percebe-se que muitos desses desvios acontecem em estruturas verbo- sujeito e com verbos que apresentam menos saliência fônica como atestam pesquisas de Naro & Scherre (1997; 1999), Rodrigues (1987), Bortoni-Ricardo (1985). Assim, de posse desses dados, elaboramos e aplicamos uma sequência de atividades sobre a concordância verbo-sujeito, respaldadas nos princípios sociolinguísticos, para que esses alunos pudessem compreender melhor as relações de concordância e, portanto, utilizá-las de maneira mais proficiente. Fato que foi comprovado pela comparação entre as escritas e as reescritas dos alunos, assim como pela reflexão realizada pelos alunos durante as atividades da sequência didática.

Esta dissertação apresenta um estudo de natureza sincrônica e quantitativa da variação entre aplicação x não-aplicação da regra de concordância verbal de 3ª e 1ª pessoas do plural. Os dados são oriundos da variedade do português popular falada por pessoas idosas residentes na zona rural dos estados de São Paulo e Minas Gerais, na área correspondente às trilhas das bandeiras paulistas. A variação da concordância verbal de 3ª pessoa do plural constitui um fenômeno comum no português do Brasil e tem sido amplamente documentada pela literatura lingüística, a qual evidencia que formas como Eles fala x Eles falam podem ser encontradas na fala de pessoas de diversas regiões brasileiras e de diferentes graus de escolaridade. São poucos os estudos que tratam da variação da regra de concordância com sujeitos de 1ª pessoa do plural (Nós fala x Nós falamos), manifestada em variedades populares do português brasileiro. Adotando os pressupostos teórico-metodológicos da Sociolingüística e da Lingüística Funcional, nosso objetivo é descrever, analisar e explicar os padrões de concordância encontrados, buscando identificar os fatores lingüísticos (semânticos, gramaticais, discursivos) e sociais que condicionam a realização ou a não-realização da regra formal de concordância verbal.
This research presents a synchronic and quantitative study of the variation between application x non-application of the subject-verb agreement rule with the 3rd and 1st plural persons. The data were collected from Popular Portuguese spoken by elderly who live in the rural areas of São Paulo and Minas Gerais, in the regions that coincide with the historical route of the Bandeirantes (members of colonial exploratory expeditions). The variation of subject-verb agreement with the 3rd plural person is an ordinary phenomenon in Brazilian Portuguese, and it has been extensively documented by linguistic literature, which gives evidence that forms as Eles fala x Eles falam can be found in the speech of people of various Brazilian regions and of different education degrees. Few are the studies that deal with the variation of subject-verb agreement with the 1st plural person (Nós fala x Nós falamos), displayed in popular varieties of Brazilian Portuguese. Using the theories of Sociolinguistics and Functional Linguistics, our goal is to describe, analyze and explain the patterns of agreement found, searching for linguistic (semantic, grammatical, discursive) and social factors that condition the application or the non-application of the formal subject-verb agreement rule.

The characterization of the relationship between morphological and syntactic properties of sentences is central to current linguistic theories, for example, suggesting that morphological features play a central role in determining verb movement and the occurrence of null and expletive subjects. Given such a theory of competence, many questions arise about the role of these features in performance, such as: Is there a primary role for morpho-syntactic feature information in parsing sentences? How is feature checking accomplished and at what stage of the parse? The thesis addresses these questions with on and off-line studies of the comprehension of subject-verb agreement in English. Two general views are contrasted: (1) agreement information constrains initial parsing decisions (the “Structure Building” hypothesis) and (2) agreement is checked on structure which has been built using only major category information and structural parsing principles (the “Structure Evaluation” hypothesis). Evidence presented in this thesis, as well as previously reported results, are argued to support the Structure Evaluation hypothesis. A detailed statement of the checking process (the Structural Agreement Check) is developed within the Structure Evaluation approach. The SAC assumes (following previous work) that the nominal singular is underspecified and that feature checking is initiated at the verb. Evidence is presented that checking is enforced by passing agreement features through the links of the phrase structure tree between the subject and verb. Further evidence in favor of the Structure Evaluation hypothesis and the SAC will come from on- and off-line data in three previously uninvestigated domains: agreement with ambiguous Pseudo-partitive DPs, agreement with Pseudo-partitive and Coordinate DPs in verb-subject order constructions and agreement in more complex structural contexts (subject-verb agreement embedded in a filler-gap feature dependency and verb agreement in ambiguous subject relative clauses). In addition to providing a more detailed characterization of the role of agreement features and representation of the agreement relation in parsing, the results contribute to the analysis of the structure of Pseudo-partitive DPs and the Existential construction (as compared to other post-verbal subject constructions). Finally, it is shown in two case studies that the processing mechanisms proposed here may play a role in destabilizing perceivers' intuitions about grammaticality and possibly lead to language change.

Speakers frequently make subject-verb number agreement errors in the presence of a number-mismatching local noun (e.g., *The key to the rusty old cabinets are on the table). A series of two-choice response time (RT) experiments was used to test an account of these errors according to which a number attractor generally makes the speaker's representation of subject number less definitive, with errors arising probabilistically from a competitive decision process. As predicted by this account, the presence of a number attractor reliably slowed responding when the correct response was issued. Analysis of RT distributions showed that this slowing was not due to pronounced difficulty on a minority of trials, but instead was manifested on most trials. Error responses were not slowed compared to correct responses, suggesting that errors and correct responses emerged from a single decision process. The data patterns were modeled using the Ratcliff diffusion model (Ratcliff, 1978), which explicitly assumes that variability in response output is due to random trial-to-trial variability in a range of decision parameters. Exceptions to these data patterns were observed in the case of non-intervening attraction, suggesting that this phenomenon may have a distinct cause. The results are taken to argue against standard accounts of number attraction, according to which errors occur in specific instances in which the speaker's representation of subject number is defective.

This study develops a new approach to agreement variation in Standard Arabic (SA) and Rural Jordanian Arabic (RJA) based on the Probe-Goal framework of Chomsky (2000, 2001). The key patterns investigated are the variation in fullness of agreement in the SV and VS word orders, the relationship between agreement and clitic doubling, and the patterning of agreement with conjoined subjects. The thesis argues for a connection between agreement, clitic doubling, and word order. Full agreement on T (in person, number, and gender) causes the subject to move to [Spec, TP], deriving SV order. However, partial agreement on T (lacking person) creates only a partial copy of the subject in [Spec, TP]. This partial copy is realized as a pronominal clitic in some contexts (giving CLsVS word order) and as null pro in other contexts (giving VS word order). This approach enables a unified account of various differences in the patterning of agreement in SA and RJA. Turning to the more complex case of agreement with conjoined subjects, both varieties exhibit full resolved agreement with preverbal conjoined subjects. With postverbal conjoined subjects, however, there is variation: SA allows only partial agreement with the first conjunct while RJA allows partial agreement either with the first conjunct or with the entire conjoined phrase, depending on the features and the order of the conjoined nominals. The Probe-Goal framework augmented with Multiple Agree and the Continuity condition (Nevins 2007, 2011) will be employed to account for the choice between these two options in RJA. The more general theoretical conclusion is that the variation in agreement patterns is constrained by the internal hierarchical structure of φ-features on the probe. I propose that the probe has the same hierarchical structure as a pronoun (i.e. a DP). This proposal makes predictions about the range of possible variation in the features that are active in agreement and connects to broader issues such as the Pronominal Argument Hypothesis (Jelinek 1984) and the diachronic relationship between pronouns and agreement markers.
May 2017

MA (ELT)
Department of Engliish
Learning English as a second language by the South African learners of English First Additional Language (FAL) causes many challenges, such as committing errors in concord as there are differences between the learners’ mother tongue and the target language. Even at Grade 12 level, which is the exit point to institutions of higher learning or to the workplace, learners still display some deficiencies in the mastery of the English concord. This happens despite the fact that, in many South African schools, English is used as a medium of instruction and learnt as a First Additional Language (FAL) especially at high schools. Through the analysis of the written concord errors committed by the 72 of the 720 sampled Grade 12 English FAL learners in Vhembe District, the study answered to two questions which formed its cornerstone which are: what are the most common types of written concord/ subject-verb agreement errors which are committed by Grade 12 FAL learners and what are the causes thereof? The study employed both the quantitative and the qualitative methods to pursue the primary question. Learners responded to the questionnaires and the researcher also analysed their teacher-marked English FAL composition scripts with the focus on concord/subject-verb agreement usage. The findings were that concord/subject-verb agreement was a challenge to the majority of the participants. There was not even a single question which recorded a 100% correct entry. The question on collective nouns was found to be the hardest to the participants while comparatively, the singular indefinite pronoun question recorded the best results. The learners’ written compositions were also found to have been marred by concord/subject-verb agreement errors. In most instances, the learners had resorted to simple sentences avoiding the complex sentence construction as those would have required complicated application of concord/ subject-verb agreement usage. Based on the findings, the following recommendations were made: teaching of grammar should be intensified, and that teachers of English should be retrained even if it will be through the in-service programmes