Neurolinguistic and psycholinguistic approaches to studying tense, aspect, and unaccusativity

The experimental investigation of grammatical aspect was the heart and soul of this PhD project. Nevertheless, since aspect is semantically related to tense as they both convey temporal information in the sentence, we compared the processing of tense and aspect. Furthermore, we experimentally explored the interplay between aspect and unaccusativity for the linguistic literature suggests an inherent link between perfectivity and unaccusativity. In essence, the concepts of tense, aspect, and unaccusativity were described linguistically and studied experimentally in the four chapters of the thesis. In Chapter 1, we provided a theoretical description of tense, aspect, and unaccusativity. We discussed tense and aspect realization and distribution in Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian (BCS) with cross-linguistic comparisons to English. We defined the syntax and semantics of unaccusative verbs as well as the interplay between perfective aspect and unaccusativity. In the end of the chapter, we formulated three research questions that our three experiments were designed to answer:1. Do native speakers recognize tense and aspect violations in BCS at the critical word?2. What are the electrophysiological correlates of aspect violations? 3. What is the relationship between aspect and unaccusativity?In Chapter 2, we presented the set-up and the results of the behavioral self-paced reading (SPR) experiment on tense and aspect processing as well as the ERP experiment on aspect processing in BCS that attempted to answer research questions 1 and 2. In the self-paced reading experiment, we investigated the processing of tense and aspect violations in BCS. As an answer to the first research question, we showed that tense violations are not detected online at the critical word where the violation is disambiguated whilst aspect violations are detected at the point of the violation. We argued that aspectual meanings conveyed by the perfective and the imperfective verb forms are rather distinct which made aspect violations salient. For tense violations, the parser did not register the violation of a future time frame of a sentence by a past tense verb at the spot because past tense verbs can have future time reference in restricted contexts. We argued that online, the parser leaves open all possibilities and activates all the meanings of the sentence. After the sentence had been processed, in the offline grammaticality judgment task, the native speakers rejected tense violations because they selected the canonical interpretation of the past tense verb formIn the ERP experiment, we investigated the ERP correlates of aspect processing in BCS. The collected ERPs show a P600 for aspect violations. We summarized the behavioral and the ERP data on aspect processing in BCS claiming that aspect violations in BCS are salient and processed at the critical word. We also made a cross-linguistic comparison with the English time reference system. We argued for a clear difference between BCS and English aspect systems. In BCS, aspectual meanings are straightforwardly encoded by either perfective or imperfective verb form, whereas in English, one aspectual meaning can be conveyed by different forms which means that English aspect violations are not salient.In Chapter 3, we presented the set-up and the results of the behavioral cross-modal lexical priming (CMLP) experiment that investigated the interplay between aspect and unaccusativity that was formulated in the third research question of this PhD project. The results of our CMLP experiment show the inextricable link between aspect and unaccusativity and that only subjects of perfective unaccusative verbs forms are base-generated as internal arguments. Finally, we compared the results of our experiment on aspect and unaccusative verbs in BCS to a study in English unaccusatives by Friedmann et al. (2008). We addressed cross-linguistic differences and how they affect processing. We suggested that English unaccusative verbs in their base form express perfective meaning too. Finally, we pointed out that perfectivity might be a universal feature of unaccusativity. In Chapter 4, we reminded the reader of the current views of tense, aspect and unaccusativity in the linguistic literature. We outlined the three research questions of the PhD project and explained how our three experiments contributed to answering those research questions. We provided a comprehensive description of the findings of our three experiments and their implications. We also made an observation that is at the core of our experimental results and that is in line with the immensely important finding of Swinney (1979): When a verb form is used to convey more than one meaning, all the meanings are activated and subsequently, in the course of the sentence, the relevant interpretation is selected and other interpretations are discarded. Finally, we acknowledged the limitations of our three studies and provided suggestions for future research

Slaganje s bližom imenicom u koordiniranom postverbalnom subjektu u bosanskom/hrvatskom/srpskom jeziku: eksperimentalna studija

In some previous experimental work on agreement strategies in South Slavic languages, it was demonstrated that the closest conjunct agreement (CCA) is the only available strategy for agreement with conjoined noun phrases in postverbal contexts. However, the examples that are claimed to be a result of CCA could potentially be analyzed as a clausal ellipsis (CE). Th e CE analysis was argued for by Aoun, Benmamoun and Sportiche (1994). In their approach based on examples from three dialects of Arabic, the postverbal linear agreement was claimed to be a result of CE, not of CCA. Th us, they predicted the semantic independence of two coordinated events. However, this claim is diffi cult to defend if a specifi c type of predicates is taken into account – the so–called collective predicates. Th erefore, we designed a sentence–picture matching experiment with collective verbs and postverbal subjects with speakers of Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian (BCS) to test whether the postverbal linear agreement was a result of phrasal coordination or CE. Th e study managed to show that CCA is not a result of CE, but a distinct agreement strategy.U nekim ranijim radovima o strategijama slaganja predikata s koordiniranim subjektom (vidi Marušič et al. 2015, Willer–Gold et al. 2016, Čordalija et al. 2016), ustanovljeno je da slaganje predikata s bližom imenicom u koordiniranom subjektu jest jedina moguća strategija slaganja kada subjekt slijedi iza predikata. Međutim, primjeri za koje se tvrdi da su rezultat slaganja predikata s bližom imenicom u takvim kontekstima mogli bi se potencijalno analizirati i kao rezultat rečenične elipse. Upravo takvu analizu zagovaraju Aoun, Benmamoun i Sportiche (1994). Njihov pristup se zasniva na primjerima iz triju dijalekata arapskog jezika te utvrđuju da je linearno slaganje u kontekstima s postverbalnim subjektom rezultat rečenične elipse, a ne slaganja predikata s bližom imenicom. Prema tome, oni predviđaju semantičku nezavisnost dva koordinirana događaja. Međutim, Munn (1999) ukazuje kako je ovu tvrdnju teško obraniti ako se uzme u obzir specifi čan tip predikata, tzv. zbirni predikat. Zbog toga smo dizajnirali eksperiment u kojem smo tražili od izvornih govornika bosanskog/hrvatskog/srpskog jezika da ocijene u kolikoj mjeri rečenice sa zbirnim glagolima koje prethode koordiniranom subjektu odgovaraju pratećem crtežu koji predstavlja događaj ili situaciju koju rečenica izražava. Rezultati eksperimenta pokazuju da primjeri slaganja predikata s koordiniranim subjektom nisu rezultat rečenične elipse, već zasebna strategija slaganja – slaganje s bližom imenicom. Budući da eksperiment nije pokazao značajnu razliku u prihvatljivosti između rečenica koje sadržavaju koordinirani subjekt i prosti nekoordinirani subjekt sa zbirnim glagolima, zaključili smo da rečenice s koordiniranim subjektom i zbirnim predikatom (glagoli poput sudarati se) nisu derivirani pomoću rečenične elipse. U protivnom, takve rečenice bile bi rangirane po prihvatljivosti znatno niže od svih drugih zbog toga što bi crtež koji ide uz takve rečenice bio nekompatibilan s interpretacijom koja podrazumijeva dva događaja. Takva interpretacija bila bi neizbježna ukoliko bi se takve rečenice u dubinskoj strukturi sastojale od dviju koordiniranih rečenica

Strategije ujemanja deležnika s koordiniranimi osebki v bosanskem/hrvaškem/srbskem jeziku

In this paper, we demonstrate that Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian (BCS), like Slovenian, has three distinct strategies of subject-predicate agreement when the subject consists of conjoined noun phrases: 1. agreement with the maximal projection – a Boolean Phrase (&P), 2. agreement with the conjunct which is closest to the participle, and 3. agreement with the conjunct which is hierarchically the highest. In order to test the initial hypothesis that there are three agreement strategies, we conducted a controlled experimental study of the morphosyntax of agreement between conjoined subjects and participles in BCS, which consisted of an oral production experiment and a written production experiment. These experiments revealed a high presence of default agreement and closest  conjunct agreement in the language. 50% of preverbal conjoined phrases elicited the default masculine agreement and 95% of postverbal conjoined noun phrases elicited the closest conjunct agreement. However, the bulk of the analysis focused on the possibility of treating the highest conjunct agreement (HCA) as a legitimate agreement strategy. 7% of all of the agreement forms in the subject preverbal (SV) examples demonstrated HCA. These figures increased to 13% if individual conditions were considered. Last conjunct agreement (LCA) for subject postverbal (VS) examples, on the other hand, was only present in 1% of the examples. For this reason, we classified them as performance errors and refuted LCA as an agreement strategy. These results are contrary to Bošković’s findings (2009), in which he does not acknowledge HCA as a legitimate strategy, however, our results do confirm the findings of Marušič et al. (2015).V članku pokažemo, da ima bosanski/hrvaški/srbski jezik (BHS) tako kot slovenščina tri strategije ujemanja med osebkom in predikatom, ko je osebek koordinirana samostalniška zveza: 1. ujemanje z maksimalno projekcijo – Boolejeva zveza (&P); 2. ujemanje s koordinirano prvino, ki je bližja deležniku; 3. ujemanje s koordinirano prvino, ki je najvišje v hierarhiji. Da bi preverili podmeno o treh strategijah ujemanja, smo izvedli kontrolirano eksperimentalno študijo oblikoslovno-skladenjskega ujemanja med koordiniranimi osebki in deležniki v BHS, ki je vključevala eksperimenta z govorjenim in pisnim jezikom. Eksperimenta sta pokazala visoko prisotnost privzetega ujemanja in ujemanja z najbližjo koordinirano prvino v osebku. Petdeset odstotkov predglagolskih koordiniranih zvez je pokazalo privzeto ujemanje z moško obliko, petindevetdeset odstotkov zaglagolskih koordiniranih samostalniških zvez pa se je ujemalo po načelu najbližje koordinirane prvine. Analiza je bila v največji meri osredinjena na ustreznost ujemanja s koordinirano prvino, ki je najvišje v hierarhiji (HCA). Slednja se je pojavila v sedmih odstotkih oblik, kjer je bil osebek v predglagolskem položaju. Odstotek naraste na 13, če upoštevamo posamezne pogoje. Ujemanje z zadnjo koordinirano prvino pri zaglagolskih osebkih (LCA) pa je bilo prisotno le v enem odstotku primerov, zato smo jih opredelili kot napake v rabi jezika in zavrnili LCA kot ustrezno strategijo ujemanja. Rezultati nasprotujejo študiji Boškovića (2009), ki zavrača HCA kot ustrezno strategijo, potrjujejo pa izsledke Marušiča et al. (2015)

Elided Clausal Conjunction Is Not the Only Source of Closest‐Conjunct Agreement: A Picture‐Matching Study

A recurring hypothesis about the agreement phenomena generalized as closest‐conjunct agreement takes this pattern to result from reduced clausal conjunction, simply displaying the agreement of the verb with the nonconjoined subject of the clause whose content survives ellipsis (Aoun, Benmamoun & Sportiche 1994, 1999see also Wilder 1997). Closest‐conjunct agreement is the dominant agreement pattern in the South Slavic languages Slovenian and Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian. A natural question is whether closest‐conjunct agreement in these varieties may indeed be analyzed as entirely derived from conjunction reduction. In this article, we report on two experiments conducted to test this. The results reject the hypothesis as far as these languages are concerned, thereby upholding the relevance of models developed to account for closest‐conjunct agreement within theories of agreement