Attraction Ppt

8/8/2019 Attraction Ppt

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AGREEMENT IN ATTRACTION

J. Carlos Acua Faria


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() there are at least two different levels at whichagreement must work, calling on two different kinds ofinformation. Speakers begin with messages, whichembody the conceptual relationships they intend tocommunicate. The specific embodiments of conceptswithin messages are collectively called notions,comprising intended referents, ideas, states of affairs,and relationships among them. These notionalcomponents of messages carry features of theconcepts that they instantiate, but in order to becommunicated, they have to undergo linguistic codingas words standing in particular structural relationshipsto one another. Agreement may involve the notional

features of messages, or the linguistic features ofwords and structures, or more likely both. (Bock et al.2001: 84)


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Under the assumption of a tight connection

between grammar and processor (anassumption which is rarely made ever since

the pioneering days of the derivational theory

of complexity, but which seems to us to be

the null hypothesis), the different derivational

steps assumed in linguistics should betraceable in linguistic performance, and for

our concerns here, in the way speakers err

when producing agreement. (Franck, Lasso,Frauenfelder & Rizzi 2006: 179)


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*The key to the cabinets are in the

kitchen

the aberrant outcome of a normal resolutionprocess, a kind of spurious resolution between

conflicting number specifications (Bock et. al

2001: 85-86; cfr. Corbett 1983).

proximity concord(Jespersen 1924; Kimball and

Aissen 1971; Quirk et al. 1985; Francis 1986; denDikken 2001: Huddleston & Pullum 2002: 500 ff.;

see Bock & Miller 1991 for review).


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(1) ?Its part of ones linguistic competence to be able to control and

interpret variations of word-order and grammatical structure of the kindthat are exemplified in the sentences cited above. (grammatically

judgement in original). (Huddleston & Pullum (2002: 500-01)

(2) *The time for fun and games are over.

(3) *The readiness of our conventional forces are at an all-time low.

(4) *I dont think it much matters where the final reinterment of these

men are.

(5) *The learning skills people have entering college is less than it

should be. (Bock & Miller 1991):

the illiteracy level of our children are appalling (George Bush,Washington, 23 January 2004)


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Eberhard et al. (2005): when the complex NP

contains a singular head and a plural modifier(as in the key to the cabinets), there are as

many as 13% of agreement mistakes on the

verb in English. This points to an

architecturally-driven propensity


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(6a) The key to the cabinets (IS LARGE)

(6b) The keys to the cabinet (*ARE LARGE)

Seminal work led by Bock in the early 1990sset this experimental agenda in motion

(Bock& Miller 1991; Bock & Cutting 1992;

Bock, Cutting & Eberhard 1992; and Bock &

Eberhard 1993).


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INITIAL FINDINGS 1. Asymmetry: [sg + pl], but not [pl + sg].

2. Distributivity:

The bridge to the islands vs

The key to the cabinets


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INITIAL FINDINGS 3. Phrasal modifiers vs clausal modifiers: more

att with phrases.

(the same encoding cycle (Bock 1991; see also

Nicol 1995).

4. Short vs long postmodifier: no effects.


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INITIAL FINDINGS 5. Palpability of local noun reference:

The idea was that the number of a relatively concrete

local noun may hold more sway over the judged number of

an abstract subject (as in the speech of the authors) than arelatively abstract local noun does over the judged number

of a concrete subject (as in the mountain of the nomads)

(Bock & Miller 1991: 66) No effects


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INITIAL CONCLUSIONS An inflectional account of agreement: feature

inheritance, copying or percolation (Gazdar etal. 1985; Chomsky 1981): a controller which

possesses inherent features passes them on

to a target to establish an agreement relation.

This is done in a formally encapsulated

manner that is strongly reminiscent of cyclicphases. Meaning waits.


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Further evidence 1. pseudo-plurals did not affect attraction rates (so the player

on the course did not attract (despite the local noun lookinglike a plural) but the player on the courts did);

2. regulars (boys) and irregulars (men) attracted

approximately the same;

3. collectives like armyorfleetdid not attract whereas

ordinarily-inflected nouns like soldiers or ships did (Bock &Eberhard 1993).


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Early corrections 1 1. Distributivity:

First, Vigliocco, Butterworth, & Semenza (1995) showed that

Italian attraction patterns were sensitive to the distributivity

of the preambles. Then, Vigliocco, Butterworth, & Garrett(1996) compared English to Spanish and found that Spanish

behaved like Italian, while English remained unaffected by

semantics.


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Early corrections 1 Another theory: unification

with rich morphology, the two constituents that participate

in an agreement relation may specify only partial

information about a single linguistic object (Kay 1985;Barlow 1988, 1993; Pollard & Sag 1988). Unification then

occurs when compatible featural information on two sites

becomes merged (Shieber 1986; De Smedt 1990). On thisview, features are not copied or moved, but simply partially

shared.


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Early corrections 1 Unlike English, Spanish and Italian have verbs which contain such

partial information directly and can therefore directly connect to

conceptual structure without any kind of mediation or control.Hence the semantic (distributivity) effects.

Vigliocco, Hartsuiker, Jarema, & Kolk (1996) obtained the samepattern of results in French and Dutch, also two richly-inflectedlanguages.

Recall that a problem for directional theories of agreement is thatsometimes the targets of agreement exhibit marking even when itis absent from the source. For instance, in French one saysje suisheureuxvsje suis hereuse (I am happy) depending on the sex ofthe referent of the subject pronoun, via a direct appeal topragmatics (asje does not mark gender).


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Early corrections 2 Eberhard (1997): imageability in English.

Humphreys and Bock (1999; cited in Bock et al. 2001: 87)

found that plural verbs are used more frequently after subject

NPs such as The gang on the motorcycles than after otherssuch as The gang near the motorcycles. This is because the

former puts gang members into a one-to-one relationship

with motorcycles, thereby emphasizing their multiplicity.


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Alos the initial conclusions about form

biasses had to be revised

Franck, Vigliocco, & Nicol (2002) on NPs

containing three nouns, as in (7)-(8):

(7) *The computer with the programs of the experiment are

broken

(8) *The computer with the program of the experiments are

broken.

NO LINEAR PROXIMITY


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Form biasses Vigliocco & Nicol (1998):

(9) *Are the helicopter for the flights safe?

(10) *The helicopter for the flights are safe.

suggest that attraction is computed on a hierarchicalstructure rather than on the final surface order. That is,they suggest that it occurs in a grammatical encodingphase before words are linearised (Franck et al. 2002;

Franck et al. 2006). This basically accords with Bock &Millers (1991) findings (the encapsulated, formal,inflectional account).


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So,

1. the overall distributivity of the phrase (semantics)

counts,

2. but the collectivity of local nouns (semantics) does not

(as collectives do not attract).

3. inflectional morphology counts (soldiers vs army),

4. but so does supra-phrasal attraction (and even supra-

clausal, as attraction also affects NP-pronoun co-indexings;Bock et al. 1999).

As can be seen, experimental data soon showed what

linguistic theory had long found out on its own: namely,that agreement is particularly sensitive to both semantic

and formal regulation simultaneously.


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REMEMBER THE GRAMMAR

THE STAFF WANT A HIGHER SALARY

A LOT OF PEOPLE ARE UNHAPPY

TWENTY DOLLARS IS TO MUCH

EGGS AND BACON IS MAY FAVOURITE MEAL

NURSELY WE: we seem a bit displeased with

ourselftoday; see Joseph, 1979; also Harley

and Ritter, 2002:507),


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Los chicos (3rd person) somos (1st person)unos idiotas

But:

More than one person comes/*come usually

Votre Majest (fem) partira quand elle (fem)

voudra Your majesty will leave whenever she wants


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YOU CAN

T BLAME

ON THE BRITS!


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Two current views Marking & Morphing (Bock et al. 2001;

Eberhard et al. 2005; Bock et al. 2006). Reconciliation aligns morphological number

and phrase number.

Then control: copying on the verb

*the label on the bottles ARE

*the baby on the blankets ARE


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M&M 1. collectives dont attract.

2. summation plurals (scissors, binolulars) do.

3. Invariant plurals attract less: scissors

(notionally singlular-like) and suds (notionallyplural-like)

Markedness: activation boost.


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Maximal Input Vigliocco & Franck 2001; Vigliocco &

Hartsuiker 2002. a level of processing is not completely isolated from

interference from neighbouring levels, so grammatical

encoding (the second level) may be affected by theprevious conceptualisation stage and even by the

subsequent phonological encoding stage if circumstances

make that advantageous for processing (models differ in

how much interference they allow).


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Maximal Input Arbitrary and semantic gender; Vigliocco and

Franck (1999)

agreement of gender between the subject andthe predicate


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Conflicting evidence Hupet et al. (1998) and Thornton &

MacDonald (2003) have found semanticeffects by manipulating the plausibility of the

verb relative to the two nouns in complex NP.

the album by the classical composers . . . BE

praised

the album by the classical composers . . . BEplayed


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Conflicting evidence 1. Local noun can exercise semantic influence

2. effects are obtained at the verb


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ATTRACTION IN COMPREHENSION attraction in grammatical sentences

Pearlmutter at al. (1999); Thornton &MacDonald (2003)

Longer RTs at the verb


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Acua-Faria et al. (submitted).

Number and gender 1.disruption, as in production, in cases of mismatch;

2. no asymmetry;

3. the fastest possible reaction times for number (even forfirst pass and first fixation duration), in contradistinction tothe data from English, where only regression measures

yielded differential results (Pearlmutter et al. 1999); 4. Also surprisingly fast RTs for gender registered at the verb,

that is, at a location prior to the actual co-indexation site;

5. no semantic, distributivity effects, using the same materials

with which Vigliocco et al. (1996) obtained such effects inproduction for the same language.


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No markedness Morphological richness

Form precedes meaning in comp.

Spanish has very rich dets


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Co-indexation speed Acua-faria (2009): E.R.P. Research, epicenes,

perception predicates in rich inflection languages

form clues are privileged by parsers which may dealwith them at a rate of some ten or so per second.

M&M: since gender tends to the arbitrary in Spanish, it

is difficult to see how gender effects may arise in asystem (designed with semantically grounded English-style number in mind) where morphing interacts with a

previous marking stage based on the conceptualfeatures of the message. Can the feminine in mesa(table) be grounded in marking/meaning? I


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Co-indexation speed only blind copying operations of the kind that

have recently been discarded seem to offer anyhope of accommodating fast (indeed pro-active)gender co-indexation bindings in the Romancelanguages in comprehension (Hawkins (1994,2004). Notice that this takes us back again to twofactors that interact opportunistically:morphology (the Romance languages) and the

direction of encoding (comprehension vsproduction).


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No distributivity Vigliocco et al. (1996) did find robust

plausibility effects. So? Berg (1998): 1. the richer the morphology the

stronger the encapsulation of agreement

operations from the interference of

conceptual properties of the message; 2. what

comes first: form or meaning.


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No distributiviy Lorimor, Bock, Zalkind, Sheyman & Beard

(2008) on Russian Foote & Bock (forthcoming) on Mexican and

Dominican.

(For instance, syllable-final s is now reduced or weakened

(or simply elided), and this can eliminate distinctions between

the second and third person singular forms in almost all

tenses and moods. Furthermore, syllable-final n can also beweakened or elided, making it difficult to distinguish between

third person singular and plural forms (see Lunn 2002). The

morphology of number on determiners and adjectives is also

being lost. Similar to Andalusian Spanish)


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Sum In sum, the varying cross-linguistic levels of semantic affectedness/encapsulation cannot be

predicted by any theory (linguistic or psycholinguistic) which does not incorporate the role and sizeof morphology and the direction of encoding as essential parameters. The filtering of meaningeffects by an exuberant morphology (measured, for instance, as the magnitude of distributivity

effects) is congruent with the fact that morphological transparency boosts the signal and sopromotes accuracy. It also automatises the creation of phrasal packages even at the risk of gardenpaths.

Since agreement is not the only form of clause-building, languages which have less of it mustcompensate for their attrition by making use of more direct conceptual influence.

Since having a rich or a poor morphology is a matter of degree, the perennial tug-of-war betweensemantics and encapsulation in agreement with its typical cross-linguistic specificities- is naturallyaccounted for. Both processing and the grammatizalisation of processing routines must necessarilybe conveniently opportunistic. This logic applies both cross-linguistically and intra-linguistically (asit also depends on the direction of encoding).

A clear general prediction is that notional effects should be stronger in English-style languages thanin Spanish-style ones. Another is that they should be less strong in comprehension than inproduction even in the same language.


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