Number vs. Gender: investigating agreement errors in Spanish

Number vs. Gender:
investigating agreement errors in Spanish
Polinsky Lab Meeting
November 7, 2012
Thursday, November 8, 12
1
AGREEMENT
} Person
} Number
} Gender
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2
TYPES OF FEATURES
} are
all feature equal?
} gender
} Plural
vs. number
vs. singular
} Masculine
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vs. feminine vs. neuter
3
MISTAKES IN AGREEMENT
} ATTRACTION MISTAKES
[DPPL [DPSG]] VPL
[DPPL [DPSG]] VSG
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4
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
6
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
9
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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10
LORIMOR ET AL (2008)
Number attraction in Russian:
} Lower rates
} Distributivity has a weaker effect than in English
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11
LORIMOR ET AL (2008)
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12
LORIMOR ET AL (2008)
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13
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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15
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
16
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
17
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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19
Spanish Agreement Errors:
experimental background and design
Polinsky Lab Meeting
November 7, 2012
Thursday, November 8, 12
20
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
23
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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