Number vs. Gender: investigating agreement errors in Spanish Polinsky Lab Meeting November 7, 2012
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AGREEMENT } Person } Number } Gender
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TYPES OF FEATURES } are
all feature equal?
} gender } Plural
vs. number
vs. singular
} Masculine
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vs. feminine vs. neuter
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MISTAKES IN AGREEMENT } ATTRACTION MISTAKES
[DPPL [DPSG]] VPL [DPPL [DPSG]] VSG
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NUMBER ATTRACTION (1)The
key to the cabinets were on the table.
(2)The
keys to the cabinet was on the table.
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NUMBER ATTRACTION Alcocer & Philips (2009): } Plural
intervener is more likely to trigger agreement mistakes in English
} Cross-linguistic
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differences
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NUMBER ATTRACTION: SPANISH Alcocer & Philips (2009): Auxiliary-V agreement } Grammatical items are more likely to be judged ungrammatical with pl attractors
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NUMBER ATTRACTION: SPANISH Main verb agreement: no effect of number on grammatical and ungrammatical items
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GENDER ATTRACTION } Gender
vs. Number?
} Gender
is an inherent property of nouns
} Number
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is an acquired property of nouns/verbs
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GENDER ATTRACTION } Lorimor
Russian
et al (2008): gender and number attraction in
RUSSIAN: } 2 numbers } 3 genders VERBAL AGREEMENT: } Number (always) } Gender (past singular)
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LORIMOR ET AL (2008) Number attraction in Russian: } Lower rates } Distributivity has a weaker effect than in English
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LORIMOR ET AL (2008)
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LORIMOR ET AL (2008)
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GENDER ATTRACTION } What
gender has more effect on agreement?
} What
gender is a better attractor and why?
Spanish: masculine vs. feminine Slovak/Russian: masculine vs. feminine vs. neuter
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GENDER ATTRACTION IN SLOVAK Badecker & Kuminiak (2007): } Low
rate of gender agreement errors
} Neuter
–Masculine>> Masculine-Neuter
} Masculine-Feminine>>Feminine-Masculine } Neuter-Feminine==Neuter-Masculine
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BADECKER & KUMINIAK (2007) MARKEDNESS } Not
a uniform scale (e.g., Fem>Masc>Neut)
} Feminine } Both
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is more marked than Masculine
Feminine and Masculine are more marked than Neuter
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GENDER ATTRACTION IN RUSSIAN Malko & Slioussar (2012): } Replicated } No
Badecker & Kuminiak (2007)’s experiments
agreement errors in the pilot study (6 subjects)
} Changed
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the design to get more errors
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MALKO & SLIOUSSAR (2012) Masc-Fem>> Fem-Masc Masc-Neut vs. Neut-Masc =no significant difference Fem-Neut vs. Neut-Fem=no data (future research)
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GENDER } not
uniform category
} Inflectional
vs. derivational
Spanish: (1)libr-o
vs. cas-a (2)secretari-o vs. secretari-a
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Spanish Agreement Errors: experimental background and design Polinsky Lab Meeting November 7, 2012
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Bock, Carreiras & Meseguer (2012) • Attraction • In a subject noun-phrase like The key to the cabinets, plurality in the local noun (cabinets) can cause the verb to become plural.
The key to the cabinets were lost. • The grammatical number of the local noun displaces the singular number favored by the head noun (key). • Attraction occurs almost exclusively with grammatically plural local nouns, and as a consequence of their grammatical rather than their notional plurality.
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Bock, Carreiras & Meseguer (2012) • Distributivity • The same attribute or object type is distributed over multiple tokens of an object • The phrase the picture on the postcards can be used when referring to a picture that is displayed on several postcards
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Bock, Carreiras & Meseguer (2012) • To test 23
K. Bock et al. / Journal of Memory and Language 66 (2012) 17–37
• How do attraction and distributivity affect speaker errors in production?
Table 1 Examples of the four versions of the experimental preambles in English and Spanish for two item types (nondistributive and distributive construals of singular– plural preambles). Distributivity of singular/plural version
Experimental condition
Example preambles
Nondistributive
Singular/singular Singular/plural Plural/plural Plural/singular
English examples The author of the novel The author of the novels The authors of the novels The authors of the novel
Distributive
Singular/singular Singular/plural Plural/plural Plural/singular
The The The The
Nondistributive
Singular/singular Singular/plural Plural/plural Plural/singular
Spanish examples La autora de la novela La autora de las novelas Las autoras de las novelas Las autoras de la novela
Distributive
Singular/singular Singular/plural Plural/plural Plural/singular
La etiqueta de la botella La etiqueta de las botellas Las etiquetas de las botellas Las etiquetas de la botella
The 64 experimental preambles in Spanish were those by 8, Vigliocco, Butterworth, et al. (1996), apart from Thursday,used November 12
label on the bottle label on the bottles labels on the bottles labels on the bottle
bles in the same sequential positions, with four fillers leading off the list. The four versions of every experimental
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mismatching heads and local nouns. Distributivity influenced the incidence of number-inconsistent responses in the singular–plural condition, as expected. Distributive preambles elicited more plural verbs than non-distributive preambles (.13 ! .06). There was a slightly larger effect of distributivity in English than in Spanish, with distributive-nondistributive differences for plural responses in English and Spanish of .09 and .06, respectively.
Bock, Carreiras & Meseguer (2012)
V m su je je Th re co ob ti 11 So ex 8. n li sp n ex 89 ex
• Results • More errors in singular-plural condition than in any other • This effect is driven by distributivity • No significant difference between English and Spanish responses • People make number agreement errors in production. Fig. 1. Proportions of number-inconsistent verbs produced in English and Spanish sentence completions in Experiment 1. (Error bars represent halfwidths of 95% confidence intervals for pairwise contrasts between condition means.)
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de Th co ab th m be u
fi li su Se ca be h of n h 24
What about gender? • Speakers produce number agreement errors. • How do speakers treat these errors in comprehension? • How do speakers deal with gender agreement errors? • Do they behave the same as number errors? • English is a poor language to test.
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Spanish • Both gender and number agreement: • el cuaderno cerrado, los cuadernos cerrados • la libreta cerrada, las libretas cerradas • Rather than getting people to produce agreement errors of various kinds, we can see how they respond to them in comprehension.
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Questions we are asking • Are errors in gender agreement more egregious than errors in number agreement? • Which values for gender (M vs. F) and number (SG vs. PL) are more sensitive to errors? • How do heritage speakers compare to native speaker controls?
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Spanish • Experiment: Auditory presentation of stimuli
(SUBJECT) VERB NP1 PREP NP2 ADVERB PRED Los estudiantes dejaron el cuaderno en el escritorio cuidosamente cerrado “The students left the notebook on the desk carefully closed” • Manipulate: • Gender of NP1 (M or F) • Gender of NP2 (M or F) • Number of PRED (SG or PL) • Gender of PRED (M or F)
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Sample Item
NP1 M M M M M M M M F F F F F F F F
NP2 M M M M F F F F M M M M F F F F
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PRED M M F F M M F F M M F F M M F F
PRED SG PL SG PL SG PL SG PL SG PL SG PL SG PL SG F
Los estudiantes dejaron el cuaderno en el escritorio cuidadosamente cerrado. Los estudiantes dejaron el cuaderno en el escritorio cuidadosamente cerrados Los estudiantes dejaron el cuaderno en el escritorio cuidadosamente cerrada Los estudiantes dejaron el cuaderno en el escritorio cuidadosamente cerradas Los estudiantes dejaron el cuaderno en la estantería cuidadosamente cerrado Los estudiantes dejaron el cuaderno en la estantería cuidadosamente cerrados Los estudiantes dejaron el cuaderno en la estantería cuidadosamente cerrada Los estudiantes dejaron el cuaderno en la estantería cuidadosamente cerradas Los estudiantes dejaron la libreta en el escritorio cuidadosamente cerrado Los estudiantes dejaron la libreta en el escritorio cuidadosamente cerrados Los estudiantes dejaron la libreta en el escritorio cuidadosamente cerrada Los estudiantes dejaron la libreta en el escritorio cuidadosamente cerradas Los estudiantes dejaron la libreta en la estantería cuidadosamente cerrado Los estudiantes dejaron la libreta en la estantería cuidadosamente cerrados Los estudiantes dejaron la libreta en la estantería cuidadosamente cerrada Los estudiantes dejaron la libreta en la estantería cuidadosamente cerradas
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Sample Item
NP1 M M M M M M M M F F F F F F F F
NP2 M M M M F F F F M M M M F F F F
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PRED M M F F M M F F M M F F M M F F
PRED SG PL SG PL SG PL SG PL SG PL SG PL SG PL SG F
Los estudiantes dejaron el cuaderno en el escritorio cuidadosamente cerrado. Los estudiantes dejaron el cuaderno en el escritorio cuidadosamente cerrados Los estudiantes dejaron el cuaderno en el escritorio cuidadosamente cerrada Los estudiantes dejaron el cuaderno en el escritorio cuidadosamente cerradas Los estudiantes dejaron el cuaderno en la estantería cuidadosamente cerrado Los estudiantes dejaron el cuaderno en la estantería cuidadosamente cerrados Los estudiantes dejaron el cuaderno en la estantería cuidadosamente cerrada Los estudiantes dejaron el cuaderno en la estantería cuidadosamente cerradas Los estudiantes dejaron la libreta en el escritorio cuidadosamente cerrado Los estudiantes dejaron la libreta en el escritorio cuidadosamente cerrados Los estudiantes dejaron la libreta en el escritorio cuidadosamente cerrada Los estudiantes dejaron la libreta en el escritorio cuidadosamente cerradas Los estudiantes dejaron la libreta en la estantería cuidadosamente cerrado Los estudiantes dejaron la libreta en la estantería cuidadosamente cerrados Los estudiantes dejaron la libreta en la estantería cuidadosamente cerrada Los estudiantes dejaron la libreta en la estantería cuidadosamente cerradas
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Predictions • Assuming a presuppositional system for gender (as has been assumed for number; Sauerland et al. (2003)): • Values for gender, M or F, pattern with values for number, SG or PL. • With number, SG is semantically marked, i.e., it has a stronger meaning. • In gender systems, F appears to be semantically marked. • We would expect parallels in behavior between feminine gender and singular number, at least in their interaction with the other possible features for gender and number.
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Predictions • If, however, we find systematic differences in behavior between number and gender agreement: • We have evidence in favor of viewing these features (i.e., number and gender) as of distinct types (cf. the Agreement Hierarchy of Harley and Ritter). • Minimally, we would have a basis for claiming that whatever system handles grammatical number is not the system handling grammatical gender.
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Predictions • Main effect of number mismatch (mismatch conditions rated worse than match conditions) • Main effect of gender mismatch (mismatch conditions rated worse than match conditions) • Interaction between attractor gender and gender mismatch (when the attractor agrees in gender with the adjective in cases of mismatch, sentences rated less bad) • Interaction between gender and number mismatch (???) • Assuming a difference in feature type between gender and number: number effect less severe than gender effect (???) • Effect of nativeness (mismatches rated lower). Interactions (???)
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Follow-ups • Introduce a number manipulation into the experimental design. • Different values of number for the head and attractor nouns. • Look at inflectional gender (as opposed to inherent gender). • abogado/a “attorney”, panadero/a “baker”, peluquero/a “barber”, etc. • Assuming that we don't find sufficient parallels in behavior between number and inherent gender in Expt. 1, in the case of inflectional gender we might expect the patterns to look more familiar to those from number agreement.
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Thank you!
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