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When linearity prevails over hierarchy in syntax

Willer-Gold, J; Arsenijevic, B; Batinic, M; Becker, M; Cordalija, N; Kresic, M; Leko, N; ... Nevins, A; + view all (2018) When linearity prevails over hierarchy in syntax. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America , 115 (3) pp. 495-500. 10.1073/pnas.1712729115. Green open access

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Abstract

Hierarchical structure has been cherished as a grammatical universal. We use experimental methods to show where linear order is also a relevant syntactic relation. An identical methodology and design were used across six research sites on South Slavic languages. Experimental results show that in certain configurations, grammatical production can in fact favor linear order over hierarchical structure. However, these findings are limited to coordinate structures and distinct from the kind of production errors found with comparable configurations such as “attraction” errors. The results demonstrate that agreement morphology may be computed in a series of steps, one of which is partly independent from syntactic hierarchy.

Type: Article
Title: When linearity prevails over hierarchy in syntax
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1712729115
Publisher version: http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1712729115
Language: English
Additional information: This open access article is distributed under Creative Commons AttributionNonCommercial-NoDerivatives License 4.0 (CC BY-NC-ND).
Keywords: Experimental syntax, syntactic agreement, elicited language production, coordinated noun phrases, South Slavic languages
UCL classification: UCL
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > Div of Psychology and Lang Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > Div of Psychology and Lang Sciences > Linguistics
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10041698
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