Research on subject-verb agreement production in SVO languages has shown that objects moved pre-verbally sometimes trigger
In sentence production, a large body of research has been devoted to identifying the properties of a phenomenon called
It has been suggested that the hierarchical position of the intervening element modulates the strength of attraction (
The possible role of syntactic structure in attraction was suggested early on in the attraction literature. Bock and Cutting (
Initial evidence for the more specific role of c-command came from observations in French showing that the pre-verbal accusative clitic ((1a) below) generates stronger attraction than the dative clitic (1b) and the subject modifier (1c), the latter two generating similar levels of attraction (
(1)
a.
*Le
the.
professeur
teacher.
les
them.
lisent.
read.
‘The teacher reads them.’
b.
*Le
the.
costume
costume.
leur
to-them.
conviennent.
suit.
‘The costume suits them.’
c.
*Le
the.
professeur
teacher.
des
of-the.
élèves
students.
lisent.
read.
‘The teacher of the students reads.’
Franck et al. (
Although that model is primarily concerned with identifying the representational (configurational) conditions under which attraction arises and is modulated, Franck et al. (
Let us now examine how this framework captures the data from Franck et al. (
(2) | a. | The intervention of the accusative clitic by c-command |
[ TP subject [ T … [ AgrOP acc clitic … [ vP <subject> … [ v <acc clitic>]]]]] | ||
b. | The intervention of the dative clitic by precedence | |
[ TP subject [ T … [ AgrOP [PP P [ dative clitic]] … [ vP <subject> … [ v [pp P [ <dative clitic>]]]]]]] |
Additional evidence in support of the role of c-command comes from another set of results in French showing that the head of a moved complex object generates more attraction (as in 3a) than its complement (as in 3b,
(3)
a.
*Quelles
which.
patientes
patients.
du
of the.
médecin
doctor.
dis-tu
say-you
que
that
le
the.
juriste
lawyer.
défendent ?
defend.
‘Which patients of the doctor do you say that the lawyer defends?’
b.
*Le
the.
médecin
doctor.
de
of
quelles
which.
patientes
patients.
dis-tu
say-you
que
that
le
the.
juriste
lawyer.
défendent ?
defend.
‘The doctor of which patients do you say that the lawyer defends?’
However, three sets of empirical evidence were argued to question the role of hierarchical structure in attraction. The first set comes from work by Gillespie & Pearlmutter (
(4)
a.
*Karin
Karen
zegt
says
dat
that
het
the
meisje
girl.
de
the
kransen
garlands.
winnen.
win.
‘Karen says that the girl wins the garlands.’
b.
*Karin
Karen
zegt
says
dat
that
het
the
meisje
girl.
met
with
de
the
kransen
garlands.
winnen.
win.
‘Karen says that the girl with the garlands wins.’
In sum, although various experimental reports support the hypothesis that syntactic structure, and more specifically hierarchical depth and c-command, play a significant role in modulating attraction, some sets of empirical evidence question that conclusion. With regard to the data provided by Gillespie & Pearlmutter (
We discuss here the analysis of two related properties of Persian that are relevant to our study, namely its word order and the position of the accusative and dative objects. The underlying position of the object is generally a matter of debate in any SOV language including Persian. Kayne (
(5)
a.
Hasan
Hasan
be
to
Maryam
Maryam.
ketaab
book.
daad.
gave
‘Hasan gave a book to Maryam.’
b.
Hasan
Hasan
ketaab-raa
book-
be
to
Maryam
Maryam.
daad.
gave
‘Hasan gave the book to Maryam.’
Whereas the non-RA marked accusative object follows the dative object (5a), the -RA marked accusative object undergoes object shift to a higher position above the dative object, as in (5b). We assume that the -RA marked accusative object moves to a vP peripheral position in the spec of a functional projection (such as AgrOP) while the non-RA marked accusative object remains within vP. The hierarchical position of the -RA marked accusative object is illustrated in (6) schematically. At the point of the derivation when T establishes an Agree relation with the subject in SpecvP, the -RA marked accusative object occupies a position that c-commands the subject in the spec vP position after it is dislocated to the spec AgrOP outside vP. In contrast, the dative object occupies a lower position in the structure, crucially embedded inside a PP, and thus intervening only by precedence.
(6) | [TP T … [AgrOP acc object -RA … [vP subject … [<acc object> V ]]]] |
Persian also allows objects to move to the front of the sentence in structures like topicalization, giving rise to the OSV word order. This is exemplified in (7) in which the -RA marked object is topicalized and thus occurs in the initial position before the subject in the linear order.
(7)
Ketaab-raa
Book-
Hasan
Hasan
xarid.
bought
‘As for the book, Hasan bought it.’
With respect to the derivation of the accusative object in (7), it should be noted that the RA-marked object moves to the spec ArgOP first and then undergoes movement to a higher position, namely the spec Top(ic)P in the left periphery, thus occurring in the clause-initial position (see Mirdamadi 2018 for more details on object movement including wh-movement in Persian). In (7), intervention by the accusative object on Agree is thus the same as in SOV structures because the further movement of the object to the front of the sentence only takes place after the Agree relation has been established.
An experiment was designed in Persian to explore the role of c-command in attraction in Persian. We contrasted attraction from accusative objects to that of dative objects in canonical SOV as well as in OSV structures involving object movement. If c-command plays a special role in attraction, we expect to replicate the French data from Franck et al. (
We used the two-choice response time paradigm with rapid serial visual presentation developed by Staub (
Forty Persian native speakers participated in this experiment (age range: 21–37, mean: 26). They were each paid 10 CHF for their participation in the experiment. The study was approved by the Ethics committee of the Faculté de Psychologie at the University of Geneva, and participants signed a consent form before taking part in the experiment.
Three variables were manipulated in a 2*2*2 design, involving as variables: Number Match between the subject and the object (Match vs. Mismatch), Object Type (Accusative vs. Dative), and Movement (SOV vs. OSV). The number feature of the subject NP remained singular throughout the experimental items; the object was singular in the match conditions and was plural in the mismatch conditions. Accusative objects all had the suffix -RA while dative objects were introduced by the preposition
The experimental items involved 32 item sets with 8 conditions each, giving rise to a total of 256 experimental sentences divided into 8 between-participant lists, such that each participant received 4 items per experimental condition. There were also 64 filler items consisting of various other structures involving clefts, raising constructions and normal declarative SOV sentences. Since all test items had singular subjects, 48 filler items had a plural subject while 16 had a singular one, such that each list had the same number of singular and plural target verb responses. Examples of the experimental items are provided in Table (
Examples of the experimental items in the 8 experimental conditions.
ACC | SOV |
Parastaar nurse. chand taa/ye several. mariz-raa patient- did/didand saw. ‘The nurse saw several/a patient(s).’ |
DAT | SOV |
Parastaar nurse. be to chand taa/ye several. mariz patient. komak help kard/kardand did. ‘The nurse helped several/a patient(s).’ |
ACC | OSV |
Chand taa/ye several. mariz-raa patient- parastaar nurse. did/didand saw. ‘The nurse saw several/a patient(s).’ |
DAT | OSV |
Be to chand taa/ye several. mariz patient. parastaar nurse. komak kard/kardand help did. ‘The nurse helped several/a patient(s).’ |
The experiment was carried out through E-prime, using a forced-choice paradigm with RSVP. Words appeared one word at the time in the center of the screen for 250 ms, with 400 ms interval between each item. At the verb, the two verb forms (singular and plural) were displayed to the left and to the right of the screen (singular to the left, plural to the right), and remained until participants selected their responses. There was no time pressure during the verb selection stage, but participants were instructed to make their responses as accurately and as fast as possible. Before the experimental task started, participants were provided with 16 practice items to help them become fully familiarized with the experimental task. Participants’ accuracy and their response time (RT) were measured at the verb selection stage.
The effect of Number Match, Object Type and Movement and their interactions on accuracy proportions and RTs were analyzed by way of mixed-effects logistic regressions (to fit accuracy) and linear mixed-effects models (to fit response times), using the lme4 package in R (
The whole data set consisting of 1280 data points was analyzed without excluding any responses. RTs were analyzed on trials for which participants gave a correct answer and log-transformed to normalize residuals. P-values were calculated by way of the Satterthwaites’s approximation to degrees of freedom with the lmerTest package (
Mean proportion and standard errors of accuracy scores in the 8 experimental conditions.
Mean RTs and standard errors for correct responses in the 8 experimental conditions.
In this study, we compared attraction errors induced by the accusative object versus the dative object in Persian. The attraction errors induced by these two object types were compared in the canonical SOV word order as well as in the OSV word order in which there was an object movement to the clause-initial position. The main findings can be summarized as follows: (1) we found stronger attraction, manifest in terms of higher sensitivity to the presence of a plural object, with the accusative object than with the dative object, and (2) we found stronger attraction with fronted objects in the OSV word order than with preverbal objects in the canonical SOV word order. We discuss these two findings in turn.
The stronger attraction with the accusative object than the dative object corroborates the prediction of the hypothesis that intervention by c-command on the Agree relation between the subject and the verb perturbs the system more than intervention by precedence. We have followed much of the literature on Persian syntax in assuming that the -RA marked accusative undergoes movement to a position outside vP, e.g. the spec AgrOP position, from which it c-commands the base position of the subject in spec vP. Unlike the -RA marked accusative, the dative object is embedded inside a PP such that it only linearly precedes the subject but does not c-command it. This finding, together with the report in French that preverbal clitic accusatives trigger more attraction than preverbal clitic datives (
Our results also showed stronger attraction in OSV compared to SOV, despite the fact that the two structures display the same configuration of object intervention in terms of c-command. A possible explanation for this observation lies in assumptions about the mechanism underlying attraction. Adapting the Feature Selection and Feature Copy model of Franck et al. (2008), and capitalizing on Badecker & Kuminiak (
How does this model account for the higher attraction rate we found in OSV compared to SOV structures? We propose that beyond linguistic cues, distributional cues may also play a role in subject retrieval. Subjects typically occupy the first position in Persian sentences. The sentence-first position of the object in OSV may thus provide a misleading cue leading the system to select the object as agreement controller. Recall that the model presented here assumes that attraction arises due to erroneous controller selection, in a structure that is otherwise correctly built. However, another possibility would be that attraction arises due to erroneous structure building, i.e. a structure in which the attractor erroneously occupies the subject position (along the lines of the model of
Besides accuracy, our results also provide interesting data with respect to the timing of verb selection. First, we found longer RTs with OSV than SOV, a result that was expected given the well-known penalty due to the processing of sentences involving object movement (e.g., Traxler, Morris & Seely 2002). Second, we found that number mismatch affected RTs in sentences with accusative objects, but also in sentences with dative objects. In the accusative condition, the longer RTs with number mismatching accusatives aligns well with the increased error rate reported in that condition: the two measures converge in showing that number mismatch creates increased difficulty. In contrast, the number mismatch effect found in RTs for datives does not align with the accuracy measure, which is insensitive to it. One first possibility is that the globally faster RTs found in match conditions simply reflect the fact that participants are careless in these contexts that do not require appropriate structure building or controller selection (since both nouns are singular, the verb will necessarily be singular). Another possibility is that a different mechanism from the one we assumed underlies attraction. The
In any case, the model would need to account for why the mismatch effect appears both in accuracy and RTs for accusatives, but only in RTs for datives, suggesting that accusatives trigger stronger interference than datives. Although in its initial version, Marking and Morphing assumed that only features from the subject phrase had the potential to influence the Morphing process (e.g.,
We also found longer RTs for selecting the correct verb form in sentences with dative objects compared to those with accusative objects in OSV sentences involving movement. Importantly, RTs showed no interaction between Number Match and Object type, i.e., longer RTs were found for datives both in number match and in number mismatch conditions. This indicates that the increased RTs found for datives are not related to the process of number agreement itself, but to some other factor. We explored the potential role of the verbs’ internal structure to delineate why RTs were longer in datives as compared to accusatives. Simple verbs and light verbs were used in our experimental materials: while the former are made of a single word (e.g.,
To sum up, Persian offered an interesting test case allowing us to explore, within minimal pair conditions, the role of c-command in attraction. Our results replicated previous findings in French in showing that agreement is a structure-dependent process sensitive to the structural hierarchy. Our finding that occasional performance errors are enhanced when the attractor is in a position of c-command to the subject in its base position, compared to when it linearly precedes it, attests to the fundamentally grammar-based nature of the processes underlying attraction. We proposed that attraction arises due to the erroneous identification of the attractor as being the agreement controller, i.e., the subject, and argued that this process of controller selection operates on the basis of subject cues. In this framework, our finding that a c-commanding object triggers more attraction than a preceding object is explained by the fact that c-command is a pointer to subjects, which provides a misleading cue to the process of controller selection. We argued that the process of agreement not only operates under the guidance of linguistic information, but also under the guidance of distributional information, like for example the fact that subjects often occupy the first position in the sentence. The globally higher attraction rate we found for OSV compared to SOV could also be caused by the higher similarity of the object to the subject in OSV compared to the object in SOV, due to its sentence-initial position. The experiment reported here is a first-stab attempt to study attraction phenomena in Persian. Therefore, further experimental and theoretical work is needed in this particular domain, which we hope to pursue in the near future.
The additional file for this article can be found as follows:
List of experimental items. DOI:
The study was approved by the Ethics committee of the Faculté de Psychologie at the University of Geneva, and participants signed a consent form before taking part in the experiment.
We wish to thank Luigi Rizzi, Ur Shlonsky, Whit Tabor, and Sandra Villata for enriching discussions on this work. Nevertheless, we take complete responsibility for the content of the paper.
The research was funded by the project
The authors have no competing interests to declare.