Conjunctions and Grammatical Agreement

Abstract

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.