Hierarchical structure and memory mechanisms in agreement attraction

PLoS One. 2020 May 19;15(5):e0232163. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0232163. eCollection 2020.

Abstract

Speakers occasionally produce verbs that agree with an element that is not the subject, a so-called 'attractor'; likewise, comprehenders occasionally fail to notice agreement errors when the verb agrees with the attractor. Cross-linguistic studies converge in showing that attraction is modulated by the hierarchical position of the attractor in the sentence structure. We report two experiments exploring the link between structural position and memory representations in attraction. The method used is innovative in two respects: we used jabberwocky materials to control for semantic influences and focus on structural agreement processing, and we used a Speed-Accuracy Trade-off (SAT) design combined with a memory probe recognition task, as classically used in list memorization tasks. SAT enabled the joint measurement of retrieval speed and retrieval accuracy of subjects and attractors in sentences that typically elicit attraction errors. Experiment 1 first established that attraction arises in jabberwocky sentences, to a similar extent and showing structure-dependency effects, as in natural sentences. Experiment 2 showed a close alignment between the attraction profiles found in Experiment 1 and memory parameters. Results support a content-addressable architecture of memory representations for sentences in which nouns' accessibility depends on their syntactic position, while subjects are kept in the focus of attention.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Adult
  • Female
  • Humans
  • Male
  • Memory*
  • Speech*
  • Young Adult

Grants and funding

The research was funded by the Fonds National Suisse de la Recherche (International Short Visit) to J. Franck. http://www.snf.ch/fr/Pages/default.aspx The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.