TY  - JOUR
A1  - Felser, Claudia
A1  - Jessen, Anna
T1  - Correlative coordination and variable subject-verb agreement in German
JF  - Languages : open access journal
N2  - Coordinated subjects often show variable number agreement with the finite verb, but linguistic approaches to this phenomenon have rarely been informed by systematically collected data. We report the results from three experiments investigating German speakers' agreement preferences with complex subjects joined by the correlative conjunctions sowohl horizontal ellipsis als auch ('both horizontal ellipsis and'), weder horizontal ellipsis noch ('neither horizontal ellipsis nor') or entweder horizontal ellipsis oder ('either horizontal ellipsis or'). We examine to what extent conjunction type and a conjunct's relative proximity to the verb affect the acceptability and processibility of singular vs. plural agreement. Experiment 1 was an untimed acceptability rating task, Experiment 2 a timed sentence completion task, and Experiment 3 was a self-paced reading task. Taken together, our results show that number agreement with correlative coordination in German is primarily determined by a default constraint triggering plural agreement, which interacts with linear order and semantic factors. Semantic differences between conjunctions only affected speakers' agreement preferences in the absence of processing pressure but not their initial agreement computation. The combined results from our offline and online experimental measures of German speakers' agreement preferences suggest that the constraints under investigation do not only differ in their relative weighting but also in their relative timing during agreement computation.
KW  - correlative coordination
KW  - subject– verb agreement
KW  - German
Y1  - 2021
U6  - https://doi.org/10.3390/languages6020067
SN  - 2226-471X
VL  - 6
IS  - 2
PB  - MDPI
CY  - Basel
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Jessen, Anna
A1  - Festman, Julia
A1  - Boxell, Oliver
A1  - Felser, Claudia
T1  - Native and non-native speakers' brain responses to filled indirect  Object Gaps
JF  - Journal of Psycholinguistic Research
N2  - We examined native and non-native English speakers’ processing of indirect object wh-dependencies using a filled-gap paradigm while recording event-related potentials (ERPs). The non-native group was comprised of native German-speaking, proficient non-native speakers of English. Both participant groups showed evidence of linking fronted indirect objects to the subcategorizing verb when this was encountered, reflected in an N400 component. Evidence for continued filler activation beyond the verb was seen only in the non-native group, in the shape of a prolonged left-anterior negativity. Both participant groups showed sensitivity to filled indirect object gaps reflected in a P600 response, which was more pronounced and more globally distributed in our non-native group. Taken together, our results indicate that resolving indirect object dependencies is a two-step process in both native and non-native sentence comprehension, with greater processing cost incurred in non-native compared to native comprehension.
KW  - Sentence processing
KW  - Wh-movement
KW  - Filled gaps
KW  - ERPs
Y1  - 2017
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1007/s10936-017-9496-9
SN  - 0090-6905
SN  - 1573-6555
VL  - 46
SP  - 1319
EP  - 1338
PB  - Springer
CY  - New York
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Jessen, Anna
A1  - Felser, Claudia
T1  - Reanalysing object gaps during non-native sentence processing
BT  - Evidence from ERPs
JF  - Second language research
N2  - The present study used event related potentials (ERPs) to investigate how native (L1) German-speaking second-language (L2) learners of English process sentences containing filler-gap dependencies such as Bill liked the house (women) that Bob built some ornaments for __ at his workplace. Using an experimental design which allowed us to dissociate filler integration from reanalysis effects, we found that fillers which were implausible as direct objects of the embedded verb (e.g. built the women) elicited similar brain responses (an N400) in L1 and L2 speakers when the verb was encountered. This confirms findings from behavioral and eye-movement studies indicating that both L1 and L2 speakers immediately try to integrate a filler with a potential lexical licensor. L1/L2 differences were observed when subsequent sentence material signaled that the direct-object analysis was in fact incorrect, however. We found reanalysis effects, in the shape of a P600 for sentences containing fillers that were plausible direct objects only for L2 speakers, but not for the L1 group. This supports previous findings suggesting that L2 comprehenders recover from an initially plausible first analysis less easily than L1 speakers.
KW  - English
KW  - ERPs
KW  - filler-gap dependency
KW  - L2 processing
KW  - reanalysis
Y1  - 2018
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1177/0267658317753030
SN  - 0267-6583
SN  - 1477-0326
VL  - 35
IS  - 2
SP  - 285
EP  - 299
PB  - Sage Publ.
CY  - London
ER  -