When linearity prevails over hierarchy in syntax

Abstract

Hierarchical structure has been cherished as a grammatical universal. We use experimental methods to show where linear order is also a relevant syntactic relation. An identical methodology and design were used across six research sites on South Slavic languages. Experimental results show that in certain configurations, grammatical production can in fact favor linear order over hierarchical structure. However, these findings are limited to coordinate structures and distinct from the kind of production errors found with comparable configurations such as "attraction" errors. The results demonstrate that agreement morphology may be computed in a series of steps, one of which is partly independent from syntactic hierarchy.

Keywords: South Slavic languages; coordinated noun phrases; elicited language production; experimental syntax; syntactic agreement.