English Subject-verb Agreement Research Articles

The neurocognitive processing mechanism of English subject-verb agreement by Chinese-speaking learners

The neurocognitive processing mechanism of English subject-verb agreement by Chinese-speaking learners

Does Philippine English subject–verb agreement exist in academic writing? The case of research articles across disciplines

ABSTRACT Subject–verb agreement is an overlooked grammatical aspect of Philippine English especially in academic registers. This study analyses Philippine English subject–verb agreement in published research articles (RAs) written by Filipino researchers across disciplines. Using Bautista’s subject–verb agreement framework and D’Souza's criteria for linguistic innovation, disciplinary RAs were analyzed through manual coding and independent inter-coding. Being widespread, systematic, rule-governed, and formally and competently used, only the intervening prepositional phrase under verb-related agreement was consistently present across 11 qualitative and quantitative disciplinary RA sub-registers. It appears that this could be an acceptable Philippine English grammatical innovation in academic research writing across disciplines. The study yields implications for Philippine English itself, academic writing instructions, and academic research journals.

(Reversed) Mismatch Asymmetry in English Subject-Verb Agreement

This paper investigates, in English, the widely reported mismatch asymmetry, or plural attraction in the production of subject-verb agreement and the relatively less observed reversed mismatch asymmetry, or singular attraction in comprehension. Through a self-paced reading experiment, a read-aloud production task and a pen-and-paper questionnaire, we examined whether singular attraction is a genuine effect in comprehension or it could be due to the experimental materials in the few studies that reported it. The results support the view that singular attraction in comprehension is genuine, at least for structures that include three nouns in the subject, and plural attraction extends to sentences with complex subjects that include three nouns when the task is not too demanding. The (reversed) mismatch asymmetry in subject-verb agreement is attributed to the differential mechanisms involved in sentence comprehension and production.

Chinese Learner Challenges in English Subject-Verb Agreement

The second language learners are experiencing manifold challenges when acquiring a new language. English is one of the most prevalent languages nowadays. The English speakers hail from around the world. Therefore, English has become a compulsory course in China since the late 1980s. As Chinese is my first language and English is the second, I can intermittently perceive the learner challenges especially the English grammar. Grammar is the set of rules in fields of phonology, morphology, and syntax, often complemented by phonetics, semantics, and pragmatics. Chinese grammar differs from English to a great extent, including subject-verb (S-V) agreement. It is sometimes really hard to compose grammatically correct sentences due to the influence of Chinese grammar patterns as well as the sociocultural context. Consequently, the aim of the paper is to define the challenges that the learners face whose first language is Chinese and seek for answers to this problem in second language acquisition.

INFLUENCE OF L1 WHILE LEARNING SUBJECT-VERB AGREEMENT OF ENGLISH AS A FOREIGN LANGUAGE

The study aims at investigating the poverty of subject verb agreement of Gujari learners of English at primary level. According to the term subject-verb agreement in English that verb should agree with the noun or pronoun. It is either singular or plural, the verb changes accordingly. In other words, the SVA can be defined as the change of verb according to the subject’s number and person. The study focusses upon the influence of the first language while constructing the English sentences. It investigated the Gujari speakers of English learners at district Kotli at primary level how their writing is packed with already learned languages. The study used the Brown (1994) model to classify the errors. The model categories the errors such as addition, substitution, wrong selection, omission. Learners writing sample were collected to classify the errors. It was found that adding the helping verb or main verb where it is not required in English. Similarly, they omit the verb despite its requisition likewise they substitute it according to the drive of their already learned languages. they were also found committing errors in the use of pronouns that automatically impact the subject-verb agreement. Keywords: Subject Verb Agreement, Errors, Gujari Learners, First Language Influence.

Procedural and Declarative Knowledge: The Swedish and Vietnamese learners' acquisition of knowledge in English grammar, and Pedagogical Implications

In this study, the L2 acquisition of English third person-s in different settings is examined. Two types of knowledge are declarative knowledge as the knowledge about a grammatical rule, and procedural knowledge as the ability to use these rules in spoken production. Data on procedural and declarative knowledge was collected from 32 young L2 learners in Sweden and 44 in Vietnam. The learners' acquisition of English grammar was assessed using elicitation instruments that captured procedural and declarative knowledge of English subject-verb agreement on third person singular s (3-sg-s). Procedural knowledge was tested using communicative tasks where the participants were asked to describe a boy's habitual action orally in a picture series. Declarative knowledge of grammar was investigated by means of a metalinguistic task. The learners were asked to correct the sentences and explain the reasons for their choices by referring to grammatical rules. The average scores on procedural and declarative tests within each group were statistically analyzed. The results show differences in learner outcomes, in that the Swedish learners are better at procedural knowledge and the Vietnamese learners are better at declarative knowledge. It is suggested the two types of knowledge are independent of each other. Implications for language learning and teaching for young learners will be further discussed based on the teaching practices as found in Son (2018).

Language activation in dual language schools: the development of subject-verb agreement in the English and Spanish of heritage speaker children

ABSTRACT Cross-linguistically, monolingual children produce target-like inflected verbs much earlier than they can reliably distinguish between singular and plural subject-verb agreement morphology in comprehension (i.e. Johnson, V., J. de Villiers, and H. Seymour. 2005. “Agreement Without Understanding? The Case of Third Person Singular /s/.” First Language 25: 317-333; Pérez-Leroux, A. T. 2005. “Number Problems in Children.” In Proceedings of the 2005 Annual Conference of the Canadian Linguistics Association, edited by C. Gurski, 1-12. https://cla-acl.artsci.utoronto.ca/wp-content/uploads/actes-2005/Perez-Leroux.pdf). In heritage speakers, Spanish agreement morphology shows optionality due to reduced input, especially when children transition to English schooling (i.e. Montrul, S. 2004. The Acquisition of Spanish: Morphosyntactic Development in Monolingual and Bilingual L1 Acquisition and Adult L2 Acquisition. Amsterdam: John Benjamins; Jacobson, P. 2012. “The Effects of Language Impairment on the use of Direct Object Pronouns and Verb Inflections in Heritage Spanish Speakers: A Look at Attrition, Incomplete Acquisition and Maintenance.” Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 15 (1): 22–38). We investigate how simultaneous heritage bilingual children’s interpretation and use of subject-verb agreement in English and Spanish may be modulated by increased input and activation of Spanish in dual language education (DLE). 125 participants aged 3–7 (42 heritage children, 40 English monolinguals, 39 Spanish-dominant children) took part in a fill-in-the-blanks task and a picture-matching task. In English, bilingual comprehension accuracy surpassed that of the monolinguals. In Spanish, bilingual production lagged behind that of the Spanish-dominant children and language output was found to be a greater predictor of productive accuracy than increased activation of Spanish in DLE. The implications of these results for theories of bilingualism and DLE are discussed.

Development of INSVAGRAM: An English Subject-Verb Agreement Mobile Learning Application

English language proficiency of students in the Philippines is a point of concern by many institutions particularly as it was highlighted when the results of the first participation of the country in the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) was released. The use of technology-aided educational applications dedicated to language learning, particularly those that can be accessed through mobile devices, is heavily studied internationally. However, in the Philippines, there is a limited number of developed mobile-supported applications that assist acquisition and learning of language, specifically English. Thus, the study aims were to develop a mobile learning application intended to assist students in learning a least mastered topic in English. The study utilized mixed-method descriptive research design. For the quantitative part, it employed a content-validated questionnaire to survey 132 fifth grade students, while for the qualitative part; it interviewed five English language teachers in the Philippines. A mobile learning application intended for smartphones in an Android OS was developed with focus on subject-verb agreement (SVA) as identified topic which was divided into 10 sub-topics. The application comprises two main parts: The Learn and Play Mode. Additionally, the application was also able to integrate an animated character named Alvin to simulate interaction. Alvin interacts with the user by narrating lessons, giving remarks, providing basic corrective feedback in the form of text, and expressing feelings based on the user’s inputs when doing exercises. The survey from students aged 10 to 12 years old showed that they have very often access to technological devices (i.e., desktop, laptops, tablet, smartphone) (M = 4.33) and that their technology aptitude in using them is high (M = 3.45). Furthermore, results also showed that students mostly prefer smartphones for their learning as it is their most available device at home. It is recommended to subject the developed mobile application to a user acceptance and usability testing in different educational contexts. Additionally, it is suggested to explore newer technologies like artificial intelligence to make the application intelligent and more responsive to students’ needs and inputs. Future studies may also include addition of new topics as well as developing similar applications that are localized and culturally-aware.

Input Training Matters in L2 Syntactic Representation Entrenchment: Evidence from a Follow-Up ERP Study.

The usage-based theory highlights the important role of linguistic input in language acquisition, and assumes that syntactic representations could be entrenched through usage or exposure. In the present study, we used the event-related potential technique to investigate the long-term effect of input training on second language (L2) syntactic representations entrenchment, using English subject-verb agreement structures as the stimuli. Results showed that 3months after the training of the specific subject-verb agreement structures, a significant P600 was observed in the key region (the verb) of the sentences with syntactic violations in the experimental group, but not in the control group. This indicates that linguistic input training contributes to syntactic representations entrenchment, which can be sustained for a relatively long period, indicating a long-term effect of input training. The results suggest that linguistic input is a causal variable in L2 online syntactic processing, supporting the usage-based theory.

Error Analysis of Subject-Verb Agreement Made by Students in Meurandeh Langsa

This research aimed at identifying the subject-verb agreement errors in students’ writing. This research applied a descriptive research. The data were collected through test and non-test instruments. Test instruments were conducted through writing test and non-test instruments were through questionnaire and interview. The data obtained from both test and non-test instruments were conducted by employing descriptive analysis. This research analyzed students’ narrative writing based on Surface Strategy Taxonomy proposed by Dulay, Burt and Krashen (1982). This result revealed the types of error in subject-verb agreement in the students’ narrative writing covering omission, addition and misinformation. In conclusion, the students involved in the research made a number of errors. It was found that the students’ ability to use subject-verb agreement in English was still low.

Three Elements That Affect the Realisation of Subject-Verb Agreement in the Speech Production of L2 Speakers of English with L1 Chinese

Abstract The experiment presented in this research is targeting a ‘positional’ stage of a ‘modular’ model of speech production originally proposed by Levelt (1989), Bock & Levelt (1994), where selected lemmas are inserted into syntactic frames. Results suggest a difference between L1 and L2 English speakers at the positional stage. While this might suggest that the speech planning process is different in native and non-native speakers, an alternative view is also proposed that the observed differences are the result of differences in the way that linguistic forms are stored, rather than a fundamental difference in the way that speech is planned. This result indicates main verb, copula be & local dependency effect are the three elements that affect the realization of English subject-verb agreement, and helps us locate the phase where L2 subject-verb agreement errors happen.

THE PRODUCTION OF SUBJECT-VERB AGREEMENT AMONG SWEDISH AND CHINESE SECOND LANGUAGE SPEAKERS OF ENGLISH

AbstractThis study uses a sentence completion task with Swedish and Chinese L2 English speakers to investigate how L1 morphosyntax and L2 proficiency influence L2 English subject-verb agreement production. Chinese has limited nominal and verbal number morphology, while Swedish has robust noun phrase (NP) morphology but does not number-mark verbs. Results showed that like L1 English speakers, both L2 groups used grammatical and conceptual number to produce subject-verb agreement. However, only L1 Chinese speakers—and less-proficient speakers in both L2 groups—were similarly influenced by grammatical and conceptual number when producing the subject NP. These findings demonstrate how L2 proficiency, perhaps combined with cross-linguistic differences, influence L2 production and underscore that encoding of noun and verb number are not independent.

Comparing Explicit Exemplar‐Based and Rule‐Based Corrective Feedback: Introducing Analogy‐Based Corrective Feedback

AbstractThis study introduces an approach to providing corrective feedback to L2 learners termed analogy‐based corrective feedback that is motivated by analogical learning theories and syntactic alignment in dialogue. Learners are presented with a structurally similar synonymous version of their output where the erroneous form is corrected, and they must decode the analogy‐based feedback to understand the correction. A quasi‐experimental classroom‐based study was conducted with upper secondary Swedish EFL learners (N = 49) to investigate the effectiveness of corrective feedback varying in mode (inductive exemplar‐based or deductive rule‐based) on English subject–verb agreement. Explicit correction, metalinguistic, and analogy‐based corrective feedback, all explicitly providing evidence of error and including reformulation prompts, were assessed by timed and untimed grammaticality judgment and sentence completion tasks in a between‐groups pretest, posttest, delayed posttest design with a control group. Results indicate significant delayed gains for all feedback types on the untimed grammaticality judgment task for ungrammatical items. No clear advantage was seen for rule‐based or exemplar‐based CF. Descriptive statistics indicate different trends over successive testing times, where analogy‐based feedback often led to lowest performance on the immediate posttest but showed improvement on the delayed posttest, unlike the other two CF types.

Attraction Effects in Honorific Agreement in Korean.

Previous studies have suggested that sentence processing is mediated by content-addressable direct retrieval processes (McElree, 2000; McElree et al., 2003). However, the memory retrieval processes may differ as a function of the type of dependency. For example, while many studies have reported facilitatory intrusion effects associated with a structurally illicit antecedent during the processing of subject-verb number or person agreement and negative polarity items (Pearlmutter et al., 1999; Xiang et al., 2009; Dillon et al., 2013), studies investigating reflexives have not found consistent evidence of intrusion effects (Parker et al., 2015; Sturt and Kwon, 2015; cf. Nicol and Swinney, 1989; Sturt, 2003). Similarly, the memory retrieval processes could be also sensitive to cross-linguistic differences (cf. Lago et al., 2015). We report one self-paced reading experiment and one eye-tracking experiment that examine the processing of subject-verb honorific agreement, a dependency that is different from those that have been studied to date, in Korean, a typologically different language from those previously studied. The overall results suggest that the retrieval processes underlying the processing of subject-verb honorific agreement in Korean are susceptible to facilitatory intrusion effects from a structurally illicit but feature-matching subject, with a pattern that is similar to subject-verb agreement in English. In addition, the attraction effect was not limited to the ungrammatical sentences but was also found in grammatical sentences. The clear attraction effect in the grammatical sentences suggest that the attraction effect does not solely arise as the result of an error-driven process (cf. Wagers et al., 2009), but is likely also to result from general mechanisms of retrieval processes of activating of potential items in memory (Vasishth et al., 2008).

Effects of input training on second language syntactic representation entrenchment

Objectives: The present study aimed to investigate the effects of linguistic input training on second language (L2) syntactic representation entrenchment using English subject–verb agreement structures as the stimuli. Methodology: A pre-test/training/first-post/delayed post-test experimental design was adopted. Sixty Chinese (L1)–English (L2) adult learners participated in the experiments and were randomly assigned to the experimental group (EG) and the control group (CG). In training sessions, EG learned the subject–verb structures, and CG learned other syntactic structures. Data and analysis: Reaction time and comprehension accuracy data were analyzed using a repeated-measures analysis of variance. P2 and P3 signified the key positions of the verb and the word immediately following the verb in the experimental sentence, respectively. For example, the reading time indicator was the time for reading the key positions of the example sentence “The book under the newspaper was interesting”. The words “newspaper”, “was”, and “interesting” were marked as P1, P2, and P3, respectively. Findings/conclusions: At pre-test, there was no difference between the EG and the CG in processing the subject–verb agreement structures. After two sessions of intensive training, the first post-test indicated that the EG had significantly longer reading times for the P2 and P3 positions of the ungrammatical sentences than those of the grammatical versions. The CG showed no differences in reading times. At delayed post-test, the EG had significantly longer reading times for the P3 position for all of the ungrammatical sentences than for the grammatical ones. The CG exhibited no differences in reading times. The results indicated both short-term and long-term efficacy of input training and transfer effects of input on representation entrenchment. Originality: In adult L2 syntactic literature, the current study empirically and directly explored the role of input training in entrenching L2 syntactic representation. Significance: The study suggested that input training can entrench representation. These results support the usage-based theory.

Where are the cookies? Two- and three-year-olds use number-marked verbs to anticipate upcoming nouns

We tested toddlers’ and adults’ predictive use of English subject–verb agreement. Participants saw pairs of pictures differing in number and kind (e.g., one apple, two cookies), and heard sentences with a target noun naming one of the pictures. The target noun was the subject of a preceding agreeing verb in informative trials (e.g., Wherearethe good cookies?), but not in uninformative trials (Do you see the good cookies?). In Experiment 1, 3-year-olds and adults were faster and more likely to shift their gaze from distractor to target upon hearing an informative agreeing verb. In Experiment 2, 2.5-year-olds were faster to shift their gaze from distractor to target in response to the noun in informative trials, and were more likely to be fixating the target already at noun onset. Thus, toddlers used agreeing verbs to predict number features of an upcoming noun. These data provide strong new evidence for the broad scope of predictive processing in online language comprehension.

Cues, quantification, and agreement in language comprehension.

We investigated factors that affect the comprehension of subject-verb agreement in English, using quantification as a window into the relationship between morphosyntactic processes in language production and comprehension. Event-related brain potentials (ERPs) were recorded while participants read sentences with grammatical and ungrammatical verbs, in which the plurality of the subject noun phrase was either doubly marked (via overt plural quantification and morphological marking on the noun) or singly marked (via only plural morphology on the noun). Both acceptability judgments and the ERP data showed heightened sensitivity to agreement violations when quantification provided an additional cue to the grammatical number of the subject noun phrase, over and above plural morphology. This is consistent with models of grammatical comprehension that emphasize feature prediction in tandem with cue-based memory retrieval. Our results additionally contrast with those of prior studies that showed no effects of plural quantification on agreement in language production. These findings therefore highlight some nontrivial divergences in the cues and mechanisms supporting morphosyntactic processing in language production and comprehension.

Input-based structure-specific proficiency predicts the neural mechanism of adult L2 syntactic processing

This study used Event-Related Potentials (ERPs) to explore the role of input-based structure-specific proficiency in L2 syntactic processing, using English subject-verb agreement structures as the stimuli. A pre-test/trainings/post-test paradigm of experimental and control groups was employed, and Chinese speakers who learned English as a second language (L2) participated in the experiment. At pre-test, no ERP component related to the subject-verb agreement structures violations was observed in either group. At training session, the experimental group learned the subject-verb agreement structures, while the control group learned other syntactic structures. After two continuously intensive input trainings, at post-test, a significant P600 component related to the subject-verb agreement structures violations was elicited in the experimental group, but not in the control group. These findings suggest that input training improves structure-specific proficiency, which is reflected in the neural mechanism of L2 syntactic processing.

Brain-based individual differences in online L2 grammatical comprehension

Using event-related potentials (ERPs), we investigated the impact of a range of individual difference measures related to L2 learning on proficient L1 Spanish – L2 English bilinguals’ brain responses during L2 morphosyntactic processing. Although grand mean ERP analyses revealed a biphasic N400–P600 response to English subject–verb agreement violations, subsequent analyses showed that participants’ brain responses varied along a continuum between N400- and P600-dominance. To investigate this pattern, we introduce two novel ERP measures that independently quantify relative brain response type and overall magnitude. Multivariate analyses revealed that larger overall brain responses were associated with higher L2 proficiency, while relative brain response type (N400 or P600) was predicted by a coalition of variables, most notably learners’ motivation and age of arrival in an L2 environment. Our findings show that aspects of a learner's background can differentially impact a learner's overall sensitivity to L2 morphosyntax and qualitative use of linguistic cues during processing.

STRUCTURED INPUT: GRAMMAR INSTRUCTION FOR THE ACQUISITION-ORIENTED CLASSROOM

STRUCTURED INPUT: GRAMMAR INSTRUCTION FOR THE ACQUISITION-ORIENTED CLASSROOM. Andrew P. Farley. Boston: McGraw-Hill, 2005. Pp. vii + 123. $51.56 paper.This volume for second language teachers builds on two principles of structured input (SI; VanPatten, 2004): the primacy of meaning principle and the first noun principle. After an overview of SI, Farley provides chapter-length explanations of teaching activities based on the two SI principles and concludes with a chapter on recent SI research. The three core SI activity-preparation chapters are organized around (a) an introduction to the SI principle focused on in the chapter, (b) a research review, (c) examples from various languages, (d) “principles in practice” to guide teachers in writing SI activities, (e) sample studies, and (f) suggested readings. The technique recommended for activities involves the creation of controlled tasks that limit information available to students so that only one grammatical point is salient. For example, an activity on English subject-verb agreement requires the learner to select the correct present tense verb for a given subject; one singular subject (“Sarah McLachlan”) and one plural subject (“Bono and the Edge”) are followed by only two choices: one with a verb in the singular (“travels all over the world”) and one with a verb in the plural (“play the guitar”). The logic of this activity is that language learners look to meaning first and, therefore, often overlook form, so activities can force focus on form by limiting content and restricting grammatical choice. (My own experience of this type of grammar drill is that students have a 50% chance of getting the correct answer without having to think about either meaning or form.)