Conceptual and Grammatical Plurality of Conjoined NPs in L2 Sentence Comprehension August 20, 2016 The 42nd JASELE Dokkyo University 1

Overview • Introduction • Background • The Present Study • Results • Discussion 2

Overview • Introduction • Background • The Present Study • Results • Discussion 3

Yu TAMURA Graduate School, Nagoya University Japan Society for the Promotion of Science 4

Overview • Introduction • Background • The Present Study • Results • Discussion 5

• Mike and Tom are/*is going to help us. • Coordinate NPs = always plural? -> NO • It depends on the referent • Harry and only Harry is/*are going to be allowed to read this. • Pickles and ice cream is delicious. • Pickles and ice cream are delicious. (Morgan, 1984, p.72) Semantic properties matter! Number determination 6 Background

• Always semantics win? -> NO • * There are a cat and a dog in the yard. • There is a cat and a dog in the yard. • Native speakers of English tend to make the first conjunct agreement (Sobin, 1997) Number determination is a mixture of syntax, morphology, and semantics • In this study, I will use conceptual plurality to refer to the semantics of number. Number determination 7 Background

Mechanism for L1 Production 8 Background •Marking and Morphing (Bock, Eberhard, & Cutting, 2004) •Marking (Clause level procedure) •conceptual number -> grammatical number Subject -> plural Subject -> singular

Mechanism for L1 Production 9 Background •Marking and Morphing (Bock, Eberhard, & Cutting, 2004) •Morphing (Phrase level procedure) •Morphological number -> grammatical number bananas scissors NP[plural] NP[plural]

Mechanism for L1 Production 10 Background • Conceptual number and grammatical number sometimes differ • Scissors, tweezers, etc. • Conceptually singular but grammatically plural • Family, audience, etc. • Conceptually plural but grammatically singular • Conceptual number could override grammatical number (Humphreys & Bock, 2005; Vigliocco, Butterworth, & Garrett, 1996) • The two number marking processes are independent (Bock et al., 2004) • Marking and Morphing approach works for L1 sentence comprehension too(Wagers, Lau, & Phillips, 2009)

• Processing plural morphemes is difficult for L2 learners • They know the rule but can’t use it in online (Jiang, 2004, 2007, Jiang et al., 2011) • What is easier for L2 learners? • Syntactically denoted plurality (Shibuya & Wakabayashi, 2008) • e.g., Tom and Mary • Lexically denoted plurality (e.g., Jiang et al., 2015) • e.g., these books, several bags, two cats, many apples Processing Plurality in SLA 11 Background

• Garden-path effects (Tamura et al., 2015) • (a) When the lovers kissed the boy played… • (b) When the boy and the girl kissed the boy played… • No garden-path effects in (b) • L2 learners are capable of representing conjoined NPs as conceptually plural • Is syntactically denoted plurality easier? • Shibuya and Wakabayashi (2008) only investigated over the use of the third-person singular -s • e.g., Tom and Mary cook/*cooks… Conceptual Plurality in L2 Comprehension 12 Background

• Advanced L2 learners were able to utilize conceptual number information during production (Foote, 2010) • Few studies investigated the role of conceptual number information during sentence comprehension (except Kusanagi, Tamura, Fukuta, 2015; Tamura et al., 2015) Problems 13 Background Shouldn’t we examine conceptual number processing in L2 sentence comprehension?

• Number agreement between the conjoined NP and copula • e.g., My mother and his father *is/are in New York City. • Two possibilities • Conceptual plurality ̋ & Grammatical plurality ̋ • Conceptual plurality ̋ & Grammatical plurality ☓ Hypothesis 14 Background Focus of the present study

Overview • Introduction • Background • The Present Study • Results • Discussion 15

• 32 Japanese undergraduate and graduate students • Identical to those who participated in Tamura et al. (2015) Participants 16 The Present Study n M SD Min Max skew kurtosis Age 31 24.77 5.35 20 40 1.57 1.23 TOEIC 32 824.22 113.12 550 990 -0.61 -0.44 Study abroad (month) 18 11.36 13.28 0.5 54 1.89 3.28 Years of learning English 32 13.59 5.85 8 36 2.18 5.05 Starting age 31 11.03 4.66 2 25 1.02 2.47 Table 1. Demographic Information of the Participants

• Word by word self-paced reading task on PC • developed by Hot Soup Processor (ver 3.3.2) Experiment 17 The Present Study __ ___ __ __ ___ _____ __ _____ ___ ____ The ____ __ __ ___ _____ __ _____ ___ ___ ____ mother __ _____ __ _____ ___ ____ ____ __ boy __ ___ _____ __ _____ ___ ___ ____ __ boy __ ___ _____ __ _____ ___ ___ ___ ____ __ _____ __ _____ ___ __ now. __ ____ __ ___ __ ___ _____ __ _____ ___ ࣍΁

• 20 pairs of target sentences (DP and DP BE PP) • *The mother and his son is in the cottage now. • The mother and his son are in the cottage now. • 68 distractor items • One-third of the distractor items was followed by comprehension questions • Mean Accuracy of the comprehension questions • 82.8% (SD = 11.4) • Two counterbalanced lists • Two sessions with a few minutes break Materials 18 The Present Study

• Outliers • Each participant’s means and SDs of RTs in each condition were calculated • Responses above the Mean RTs +/- 3SD were removed • Responses below 200ms were removed • Overall, 4.4% of all the responses were removed Analysis 19 The Present Study

• Generalized Linear Mixed-Effects Model (GLMM) by R 3.3.0 • Explanatory variables • Agreement condition (2 levels) • singular or plural •Covariate •The number of letters •Response variables •Raw RTs • Distribution family and link function • Inverse-Gaussian distribution and identity-link Analysis 20 The Present Study

Overview • Introduction • Background • The Present Study • Results • Discussion 21

Reading Time Differences 22 Results father is/are in New York sg 593 (194) 471 (113) 462 (134) 478 (134) 535 (153) pl 570 (187) 486 (104) 434 (82) 441 (110) 519 (130) Table 2. Mean RTs (ms) and SDs (parentheses) in each condition Note. sg = singular; pl = plural

Reading Time Differences 23 Results father is/are in New York sg 593 (194) 471 (113) 462 (134) 478 (134) 535 (153) pl 570 (187) 486 (104) 434 (82) 441 (110) 519 (130) Table 2. Mean RTs (ms) and SDs (parentheses) in each condition Note. sg = singular; pl = plural

Reading Time Differences 24 Results 0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 father is/are in New York RT(ms) sg pl

Reading Time Differences 25 Results 0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 father is/are in New York RT(ms) sg pl

Reading Time Differences 26 Results father is/are in New York Note. Dotted lines are mean RTs

Region 4 27 Results Random effects Fixed effects By Subject By Items Parameters Estimate SE t p SD SD Intercept 617.34 37.55 16.44 <.001 91.73 43.11 c.letters 16.33 7.98 2.05 .04 — — Condition 7.30 19.93 0.37 .71 64.47 — My mother and his father is/are in New York City. Table 3. The Results of GLMM in Region 4

Region 5 28 Results My mother and his father is/are in New York City. Random effects Fixed effects By Subject By Items Parameters Estimate SE t p SD SD Intercept 496.45 35.85 13.85 <.001 63.30 31.94 c.letters -3.84 21.17 -0.18 .86 — — Condition -21.50 27.15 -0.79 .43 26.39 45.39 Table 4. The Results of GLMM in Region 5

Region 6 29 Results My mother and his father is/are in New York City. Random effects Fixed effects By Subject By Items Parameters Estimate SE t p SD SD Intercept 509.78 24.21 21.06 <.001 53.88 22.49 c.letters 25.88 7.08 3.66 <.001 — — Condition 26.06 18.75 1.39 .16 63.72 — Table 4. The Results of GLMM in Region 6

Region 7 30 Results My mother and his father is/are in New York City. Random effects Fixed effects By Subject By Items Parameters Estimate SE t p SD SD Intercept 500.70 24.41 20.51 <.001 60.61 31.34 c.letters 30.63 8.09 3.79 <.001 — — Condition 26.77 21.96 1.22 .22 77.49 — Table 5. The Results of GLMM in Region 7

Overview • Introduction • Background • The Present Study • Results • Discussion 31

• No reading time differences between singular and plural agreement conditions in the target region • No spill-over effects were found in Region 6 and 7 Summary of the Results 32 Discussion

• The participants succeeded in using conceptual plurality in processing conjoined NP (Tamura et al., 2015) • However, in this study • The same participants did not notice number agreement mismatches (A and B *is/are….) • They failed to utilize grammatical number Two Types of Plurality 33 Discussion

Processing Mechanism 34 Discussion Tamura et al. (2015) the boy and the girl The Present Study the boy and the girl [plural]

Discussion Temporal comprehension processing model [My mother and his father] NP NP and ConjP NP[ ] Subject Object pl MESSAGE 35

• Questions remained unsolved • Can L2 learners of English extract conceptual plurality from morphological plurality? • bananas -> • Can L2 learners of English extract conceptual plurality from morphological plurality if lexical support is provided? • these bananas -> Future Directions 36 Discussion

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Conceptual and Grammatical Plurality of Conjoined NPs in L2 Sentence Comprehension contact info Yu Tamura Graduate School, Nagoya University [email protected] http://www.tamurayu.wordpress.com/ 38 0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 father is/are in New York RT(ms) sg pl • Conceptual Plurality ̋ • Grammatical Plurality ☓