The emergence of attraction errors during sentence comprehension

1.1. WHAT THE THESIS IS ABOUT 3
any modifier which can be blamed for the erroneous plural verb form. Instead,
there is a plural object which apparently attracts agreement.
(6) Ik weet dat tijd WONDEN helen.
I know that time wounds heal.PL
‘I know that time heal all wounds.’
Attraction errors induced by an object as in (6) have been experimentally attested
as well (Chanquoy and Negro, 1996; Fayol et al., 1994; Franck et al., 2006; Hartsuiker
et al., 2001; Hemforth and Konieczny, 2003). When referring to this particular
attraction configuration, I will use the term OBJECT ATTRACTION; for
instances like (5), I will use the term MODIFIER ATTRACTION or just ‘attraction’.
Subject–verb agreement as in the examples above is not the only agreement
relation vulnerable to attraction. Similar effects show up for predicative adjective
agreement with subjects (e.g., Lorimor et al., 2008; Vigliocco, Butterworth
and Garrett, 1995, 1996; Vigliocco and Franck, 1999); as well as for pronominal
agreement with antecedents (Bock, 1995a; Bock et al., 2001, 2004; Meyer and
Bock, 1999). Furthermore, attraction is not restricted to number agreement; it has
been attested for gender agreement as well (Antón-Méndez et al., 2002; Badecker
and Kuminiak, 2007; Finocchiaro and Cie´slicka, 2005; Franck et al., 2008; Meyer
and Bock, 1999; Vigliocco and Franck, 1999, 2002; Vigliocco and Zilli, 1999). In
the following, I will use the terms NUMBER ATTRACTION and GENDER ATTRAC-
TION when explicitly addressing one or the other type of agreement and I will
speak of attraction when either the relevant agreement feature is clear or a general
statement is to make. It is noteworthy that number attraction and gender attraction
are independent of each other. Russian for instance exhibits number attraction but
no signs of gender attraction (Lorimor et al., 2008). The thesis concentrates on
number agreement and number attraction. For completeness, gender attraction is
mentioned where appropriate.
The literature documents attraction errors in a wide range of languages including
Dutch (Bock et al., 2001; Hartsuiker, Antón-Méndez and van Zee, 2001;
Hartsuiker, Kolk et al., 1999, Hartsuiker, Schriefers et al., 2003 ; Kaan, 2002;
Meyer and Bock, 1999; Severens et al., 2008; Vigliocco et al., 1996), English
(Bock and Cutting, 1992; Bock and Eberhard, 1993; Bock et al., 2001; Bock and
Miller, 1991; Branigan et al., 1995; Clifton et al., 1999; Nicol, 1995; Nicol et al.,
1997; Pearlmutter et al., 1999, some more), French (Chanquoy and Negro, 1996;
Fayol et al., 1994; Franck et al., 2002, 2008; Vigliocco et al., 1996; Vigliocco and
Franck, 1999), German (Hartsuiker et al., 2003; Hemforth and Konieczny, 2003;
Hölscher and Hemforth, 2000; Pfau, 2003, 2009; Schriefers and van Kampen,
1993), Italian (Franck et al., 2008; Vigliocco et al., 1995; Vigliocco and Franck,
1999; Vigliocco and Zilli, 1999), Polish (Finocchiaro and Cie´slicka, 2005), Russian
(Bock et al., 2000; Lorimor et al., 2008; Nicol and Wilson, 2000), Slovak