Interference in quantifier float and subject-verb agreement

Abstract

ABSTRACT When forming a dependency between two elements of a sentence, the processor must retrieve a grammaticality licensed element from memory. Previous research has suggested that this dependency formation is susceptible to interference from structurally unlicensed elements. However, there has been debate on why dependency formation is susceptible to interference and whether interference arises in only certain dependencies or not. The present study addressed these issues in four self-paced reading experiments and four speeded judgement experiments by investigating a well-examined dependency, namely subject-verb agreement, and so-called quantifier float, which remains unexplored in existing sentence processing research. Our results largely suggested interference in ungrammatical sentences, but we did not find clear interference effects in grammatical sentences. We argue that both subject-verb agreement and quantifier float are similarly susceptible to interference when the processor initiates cue-based memory retrieval and retrieves a structurally unlicensed element due to difficulties forming grammatically licit dependencies.