Effects of semantic variables on the subject-verb agreement processes in writing

Abstract

Two experiments are reported in which participants were orally presented with French sentences that they were required to write down. In a single-task condition, only single sentences were presented and the written recall concerned only these sentences. In a dual-task condition, a second task was added: to memorize an additional list of words or to do mental addition while writing down the sentences. The experimental sentences were all of the type 'Prep. + N1 + verb + subject' (e.g. Dans les trains passe le controleur, Along the trains comes the inspector) in which the preverbal noun constituted either a plausible or an implausible subject for the verb following. Results showed that: (a) number agreement was more likely to be correct when the preverbal noun was implausible as the subject of the sentence, (b) but when they had to transcribe sentences with an implausible preverbal noun, the participants' performance at a concurrent task was poorer. These two findings indicate that the plausibility of the subject role of the preverbal noun provides information that can be used to control the procedures which underlie the construction of the agreement