1

The logic of agreementBoban Arsenijević, University of Potsdam / University of Niš

Agreement Across Borders, University of Zadar, June 14-16th 2015

2

Conjunct agreement in B/C/S

• Even if you did not before aab, by now you all know everything about it. Still, briefly.• Conjunction of plurals of mixed gender allows for closest

conjunct agreement, highest conjunct agreement and resolved (default) agreement.• Intra-speaker variation in combinations of F and N: all three

genders on the verb, F, N, M (for more, Marušič et al. 2015).• Indeterministic? Optional? Non-syntactic?

3

Example for a triple optionality

• A conjunction of FPl and NPl nouns triggers plural agreement with any of the three gender values on the verb.

(1) Olovke i penkala su pal-e/-a/-i na pod. pens.F and fnt-pens.N AuxPlfallen-FPl/NPl/MPl on floor ’Pens and fountain-pens have fallen on the floor.’• Inter- and intra-speaker variation.• Similar to patterns of single conjunct agreement in other

languages (Benmamoun et al. 2009, Bhatt & Walkow 2014).

4

This talk, background and issues

• The research so far has only tackled conjoined plural subjects (gender agreement much stricter with conjoined singulars).• How does gender agree when its members are singular

(disjunction, conjunction with negative concord)?• How does number agree in coordination of singulars? • Do other features of the members of coordination,

conjunction used and the verb influence agreement?

5

This talk, aims

• Present an analysis in terms of the availability of multiple structures for coordinated subjects, yielding different semantic and pragmatic effects.• Experimentally test this proposal, in combination with the

hypothesis of multi-component agreement where- the syntactic component is deterministic and - the optionality emerges at the interfaces (Polinsky 2014).• Shed light on some relevant syntactic, semantic and

phonological factors and loci of flexibility at the interfaces.

6

Sketch of the analysis

• Two axes of structural ambiguity:1. phrasal, or elided clausal coordination, where the latter is only available

postverbally (Polinsky 2014).2. a semantically agreeing pronoun at the top of the phrasal coordination

(Postal 1966, Torrego 2014, generalized to coordination).• Ellipsis yields agreement with the Highest member of coordination.• Pronoun can bear values of number and gender, or be unspecified.• Features like [agent] or [old] on a pronoun unspecified for gender may

(?!) trigger copying from the highest member of coordination.• Unspecified pronouns at PF lead to Last Resort agreement (Closest).

7

Resolved and semantic agreement

• The literature refers to semantic agreement Corbett (2008), and to the resolution of the features of the &P, when the conjuncts are of mixed gender (e.g. Bošković 2009).•What is the syntactic operation that resolves agreement and

turns the conjunction of singulars into a plural?• Kučerova (2015): minimal search of CI at Transfer.• Not just LF, but as far as CI?! Feedback: from CI to syntax?!• Syntactic features at CI? A translation algorithm from concepts

to syntactic features?

8

Resolved agreement through a pronoun• Resolved agreement is an instance of semantic agreement.• Semantic agreement universally involves a zero pronoun, generated

fully or partially specified for relevant features (pronouns well known to primarily agree semantically, Corbett 2008).• &P has no nominal features, apart from N/n.• Optionality in Numeration (specification of the pronoun).• Any pronoun is syntactically fine: all degradation is at LF (e.g. Pl pronoun

+ distributive, F pronoun + a non-F referent). • Distributive coordination provides two potential referents: the group

formed by the coordination and an individual member.

9

Agreement possibilities

Syntax (pronoun), resolved or highest: PF, closest: DP

Numeration [&P A & B] v-B Copied in Syntax or

Pro.M &P (if unspecified) v-A [&P A & B] Pro.ØA

A Clausal + ellipsis:

& B [V-A A] & [V-B B]

10

AlgorithmPronoun specified for F

F must be interpreted

Copy HIGHEST

Copy CLOSEST

(other) PF computations

LF computations

YES

YES

NO

NO

11

Examples

(2) Pristal-i/-e su lađe i čamci. docked.MPl/FPl are ship.FPl and boat.MPl

specified pronoun:1. [pristal-MPl su [proMPl [lađe i čamci ]]]

unspecified pronoun, highest in syntax:2. [pristal-FPl su [proØPlFPl [lađFPl i

čamci ]]] unspecified pronoun, closest at PF:

3. [pristal-e su [lađe i čamci ]](agreement of the pronoun determined between Highest and

Closest by features like Ag, Anim, D)

12

LF degradation

• Degradation at LF emerges when the structure spelled out1. involve (marked) features mismatched with the referents,

2. treat semantically interpretable features as uninterpretable or vice versa (e.g. gender, animacy, Izraz uvodi novog referenta / novi referent),3. match an unexpected or contextually rejected interpretation, e.g. in respect of argument structure, distributive vs. collective interpretations, information structure etc.

13

Illustration: gender and animacy

• Speakers tend to move back and forth from fully accepting to rejecting sentences of the following type:

(4) Olovke i pera su udarali u monitor.pensFPl and fnt_pen.NPl AuxPl hit.MPl in

screen'Pens and fountain pens were hitting against the screen.'

• The reason seems to be that any gender feature combined with the marked number have a strong, interpretable variant, which triggers a presupposition of animacy, and a weak, purely formal variant, without such an effect.

14

Illustration: plurality of the referent

• Subjects built as a disjunction of singulars are degraded irrespective of the agreement pattern.

(5) Sveska i/?ili pismo su pali na podnotebook.FSg and/or letter.NSg AuxPl

fallen.MPl on floor. 'The/a notebook and/or the/a letter fell on the floor.‘

• Effect of the unavailability of a collective interpretation in disjunction.

15

Collective readings

• Available with affirmative conjunction (Conj) and with conjunction in negative contexts without negative concord (NegConj).• Unavailable with negative concord conjunction (NCConj) and

disjunction (Disj).(6) Nisu se sreli krmača i/*ni prase.

NegAuxPlM Refl met pig.FSg and/n-and piglet.NSg ‘A/the pig and a/the piglet didn’t meet / haven’t met.’

16

Acceptability judgments experiment (Exp1)• 96 stimuli, each consisting of a context sentence and a critical

sentence: (question:) Why did they employ Jovana, Dragana and Marko? (answer:) Jovana, Dragana and Marko are supposed to work at the counter.• 5 degrees Likert scale.• All examples in the form <v F, F & M>, i.e. <M, F & F v>

(two F to compensate for the default status of M).• The problem of neuter stimuli (no animate plurals).

17

Exp1

• 70 participants (45 female, 25 male)• Instructed to judge the acceptability of the second sentence

in an imagined dialog after the first sentence was uttered.• Google Forms. • 4 different orders of the stimuli clustered by the type of

coordination.

18

Conditions

• Type of coordination (conjunction (Conj), conjunction without NC in a negative clause (NegConj), conjunction with NC in a negative clause (NCConj) and disjunction (Disj)).• Ordering between the subject and the agreeing verb (SV, VS).• Animacy (animate vs. inanimate)• Information structure (old vs. new).• Type of agreement (for number and gender together:

resolved, highest, closest, highest_closest, lowest_farthest)

19

Agreement pattern

• Coordination of singulars – expected dominance of R, HC as the second highest option; unclear expectations for H, C.• Indeed, R is by far the best judged strategy, R = 4.15.• HC is the next best strategy, HC = 2.543.• C is better than H, H = 1.412, C = 1.742.• P = 0.000 for all combinations.• (All statistical analyses in both experiments are single factor

ANOVA.)

20

Agreement patterns(Resolved, Highes+Closest, Closest, Highest)

R HC C H0

0.5

1

1.5

2

2.5

3

3.5

4

4.5______

?______

??______

*

21

In light of the proposed analysis

• Coordination always involves a plural referent, hence a plural pronoun is a universal option: generalization of R.• The plural referent involved is not always the actual

participant in the eventuality (Dist: Disj, NCConj).• In such cases, R is degraded at LF.• This degradation results in a limited improvement of Single.• HC is the strongest Single option as it has three possible

structural counterparts (ellipsis, H, C).

22

Type of coordination

• Conj and NegConj form collective referents (their potential distributive interpretation is secondary), and the plural referent of the coordination is exhaustively an argument of the verb. • Disj and NCConj are only distributive: no collective participation

in eventualities, and no pluractionality are entailed.• Expected: the absence of the collective/pluractional

interpretation degrades R, improves the status of Single.• Confirmed.

23

Results, R, Single in Coll vs. Dist

• Resolved agreement better in Coll:RColl = 4.429, RDist = 3.762p = 0.000

• Single conjunct agreement betterin Dist:SingColl = 1.684, SingDist = 1.893p = 0.000

• 1.893 better than expected forcoordinated singulars. RColl RDist SingleColl SingleDist

0

0.5

1

1.5

2

2.5

3

3.5

4

4.5

5

24

In light of the proposed analysis

• Dominance of R with singular members of coordination is not a consequence of competition and/or computation of syntactic features, but of the semantics of the resulting expression (LF effect).• If the expression has plural reference (Conj, NegConj), the

structure with a plural pronoun (i.e. R in Exp1) is the only option acceptable.• If the expression does not entail a plural participant (Disj,

NCConj), Single gains in acceptability (DistHC = 2.699).

25

Information structure

• Coordinated structures are typically used to specify a subset from a larger, open or closed, set of alternatives ( new).

(8) a. New: Who broke the window? b. Old: What did Mary, Sue and John do?• Expected: new information coordinated subjects better than

old information coordinated subjects.• Partially confirmed: New is better than Old, but…

26

Information structure per agreement type

•H is better in Old than in New.HNew = 1.35654 HOld = 1.467091 p < 0.0489• C is better in New than in Old.CNew = 1.940594 COld = 1.571125 p = 0.000 • No significant difference

for R and HC.New Old CNew COld HNew HOld

0

0.5

1

1.5

2

2.5

3

27

In light of the proposed analysis

• HC consequence of mutual cancelation of H and C?• R exhibits a ceiling effect? (still Old better than New)

RNew = 4.082, ROld = 4.179, p < 0.1• LF favors full specification for Old subjects.• Full specification is R or H, but R exhibits the ceiling effect

(note that for H, p is just below the significance threshold).• New subjects are more tolerable for unspecified pronouns.

28

Word order

• Ellipsis typically targets the copy on the right.• VS is, and SV is not a typical result of elided clausal

coordination.(9) a. V S & V S = VS&S b. S V & S V = SV&S S&SV• As one way to get Single is via elided clausal coordination,

Single is expected to be better in VS.• Note that VS includes the farthest lowest pattern (FL) which

reflects negatively on the overall acceptability of Single in VS.

29

Results, R, Single in SV vs. VS

• Resolved agreement better in SV:RSV = 4.229, RVS = 4.081p < 0.011

• Single conjunct agreement betterin VS:SingleSV = 1.570, SingleVS = 1.958p = 0.000

• 1.958 quite high for coordinated singulars, with FL included.

RSV RVS SingleSV SingleVS0

0.5

1

1.5

2

2.5

3

3.5

4

4.5

30

Animacy

• Animate referents have semantic gender.• Expected: animacy strengthens the degradation effects.• Confirmed!• Anim = 2.410, Inan = 2.717, p = 0.000• Inanimacy has a repairing effect.•Much stronger effect in HC and C (p < 10-12) than in R (p <

0.014) or in H (p < 0.001)

31

In light of the proposed analysis

• Confirms that the semantic gender of the referent matters for the acceptability of the pattern of agreement.• Complies with the degradation at the interface: the lower

acceptability of the examples with animate subjects reflects an incomplete LF match between the formal features on the verb and the semantic gender of the referent(s) of the coordinated subject.• R and H provide LF with a partial match, while a complete

lack of specification at LF (=C) yields a complete mismatch.

32

Strength of the semantic conditions

• In its worst conditions Anim+Dist, R reaches as low as 3.596.• In its favorable conditions Inan+Dist, HC reaches as high as 3.571.• HC in InanDist is about as good as R in AnimDist.(10)a. Knjigu su kupili Jelena, Jovana ili Janko.

book are bought.Pl J.F J.F or J.M ‘Jelena, Jovana or Janko bought the/a book.’

b. U sobi je bila stolica, fotelja ili orman. In room is been.MPl chair.F softchair.F or

cupboard.M ‘There was a chair, a softchair or a cupboard in the room.’

33

Preliminary conclusions

• Coordinated subjects may trigger Single agreement if the participant in the eventuality denoted by the VP is (possibly) Sg (cf. HC in Dist+Inan).• Semantic properties of coordinated subjects, in particular

the availability of a collective interpretation, animacy and discourse-familiarity, favor agreement before PF.• This supports the analysis proposed, and can hardly be

captured by analyses limited to syntactic computations.

34

Production experiment (Exp2)

• Like in Willer-Gold et al. (this morning), a sequence of model sentences with MSg subjects, and coordinated substitute subjects; 38 participants from southern Serbia.

Model: A/the boy.MSg attended a concert. Substitute: Jovana, Dragana or Marko (attended a concert)•Modification: Single in number also targeted, i.e. disjunction

and singulars included.• Examples in the form <F and N> and <F, F, N and N>.

35

Conditions

• Agentivity (subject is agent, Ag NAg).• Size of coordination, i.e. the number of its members (2, 4).• Type of coordination (Conj, Disj).• Ordering (SV, VS).• Number value of the members of coordination (Sg, Pl).• Dependent variable: number of produced instances per type

of agreement.• Indistinguishable: H and C, i.e. HC and FL in number.

36

Agreement type, aggregates

NumPl NumSg GenR GenHC GenC GenH GenFL0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

37

Agreement type Sg only, Exp2, compared with Exp1

R HC C H0

0.5

1

1.5

2

2.5

3

3.5

4

4.5

NumPl NumSg GenR GenHC GenC GenH GenFL0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

38

Agentivity, agreement types

• Gender H is better in Ag than in NAgHAg = 48.122% vs. HNAg = 21.053%p < 0.006• Gender C is worse in Ag than in NAg

CAg = 11.278% vs. CNAg = 50.945% p < 0.021• No significant difference for R or HC.• Ag supports syntactic agreement?

GenHAg GenHNAg GenCAg GenCNAg0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

39

Agentivity, error rates

•Modified, incomplete or unintelligable responses.• 13% error rate in Ag.• 5.26% error rate in NAg.• Suggests Ag introduces

additional processing complexity.• H more demanding too?

Ag NAg0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

40

In light of the proposed analysis

• Assuming C takes place at PF, and H in syntax, Ag prefers that the features of the verb are valued before PF.• Hence for a pronoun unspecified for gender, agentivity takes

part in deciding between H and C.• In VS, the ambiguity of HC between syntactic agreement,

phonological agreement and ellipsis cancels the effect of Ag.• The effect of Ag on agreement types corresponds with an

additional processing load.

41

Size of coordination

• In VS, farthest lowest (FL) is available in 2, not in 4.FL in 2 = 3.22%, FL in 4 = 0%

• This strongly supports models in which C is a linear PF process (Marušič et al. 2014) rather than a hierarchical, syntactic process (Bošković 2009, Murphy & Puškar yesterday).

42

Type of coordination, Conj vs. Disj

• No effect whatsoever, in any condition: on the whole, on R, Single, H, C or HC, in Pl only, in Sg only.• Strong contrast with Exp1.• Split between judgments and production?• Tendency of participants to ask to correct their agreement

pattern after producing a full fledged sentence.• Explained if the Conj vs Disj effect in Exp1 is LF degradation,

and in fast production LF belongs to ‘postproduction’.

43

Ordering, SV vs. VS

• In accordance with Exp1.

• R is stronger in SV than in VSRSV = 70.760, RVS = 88.246%p < 0.007.

• Single stronger in VS than in SVSingleSV = 7.545%, SingleVS = 19.005% p < 0.007

RVS RSV SIngleVS SingleSV0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

44

In light of the analysis

• The strength of the HC pattern seems responsible for the decrease of R and increase of Single in VS, compared to SV (recall that Single in VS also includes the FL pattern, which has a low frequency of occurrence).• These results are predicted by the analysis proposed, in

which HC covers three structural agreement patterns: ellipsis, H and C.

45

Value of number on the members

• In Pl, Gender is Single >> R SinglePl = 81.689%, RPl = 11.842%P = 0.000 • In Sg, no significant difference

in Gender between R and Single or between H and C (again different from Exp1).• In Sg, Pl >> Sg in Number

RSg = 77.192%, SingleSg = 19.589%p = 0.000 GenR/Pl GenSingle/

PlNumPl/Sg NumSg/Sg

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

46

NumR NumHC GenR GenHC GenC GenH GenFL0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

NumPl NumSg GenR GenHC GenC GenH GenFL0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

Types of agreement in Pl vs. Sg: non-identity of Num degrades Single Gen Types of agreement in Pl Types of agreement in Sg

47

Mutual attraction

•When the value of Num may differ on the verb and on a single member of coordination (i.e. in Sg), Single in gender is produced less.• Plural agreement in Num inhibits Single because it targets a

constituent specified for Sg in Num?• Strong tendency, but far from absolute.

48

Mixed patterns

• In Exp1, only patterns matching the type of agreement for Gen and Num were offered.• Exp2 showed that mixed patterns are produced as well.• In Sg examples, R in Num and any of the four Single options in Gen.(11)Jutros su stigle knjiga i pismo.

this_morning AuxPl arrived.FPl book.FSg andletter.NSg ‘A book and a letter arrived this morning.’• Very strong: cca. 42% R+HC (dominant), 19% R+H, 8% R+C.• Explanation: different way and amount of interpretable situations?

49

Conclusions – the analysis

• Experimental data are compatible with a deterministic syntax and support the analysis proposed, recapitulated.• One option is ellipsis, leading to H.• Formation of plural referents (phrasal coordination) introduces a

pronoun which specified or unspecified for the relevant features.• Number, and, when interpretable (animacy), gender too, must

match the relevant properties of the referent.• Otherwise, especially when supported by other features (Ag, Def), H

is yielded when the pronoun agrees in gender (local to the pronoun), or C when it does not.

50

General conclusions

• Closest agreement is linear.• Selection of the type of agreement is influenced by syntactic /

semantic properties, such as collectivity, animacy or agentivity.• Number and gender undergo agreement separately, and with

different distribution over the different patterns, but do show a moderate interaction.• Additional experiments needed to discriminate between the

pronoun strategy and the R/C/H strategy for Number (coordination of Sg and Pl with the same or different gender)• …and many other issues.

51

THANK YOU

52

Types of agreement in Pl vs. Sg, percentages (assuming max attraction of Num by Gen)

Types of agreement in Pl Types of agreement in Sg

NumR

NumHCNumC

NumH

NumFLGenR

GenHCGenC

GenHGenFL

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

NumR

NumHCNumC

NumH

NumFLGenR

GenHCGenC

GenHGenFL

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

53

Agreement type in Sg only, with a distribution Exp2, compared with Exp1

NumR

NumHCNumC

NumH

NumFLGenR

GenHCGenC

GenHGenFL

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

R HC C H0

0.5

1

1.5

2

2.5

3

3.5

4

4.5