The emergence of attraction errors during sentence comprehension

1.4. PREVIEW 9
der of controller and distractor. While the distractor follows the controller in the
classical instances of attraction it precedes the controller when attraction operates
into a relative clause. Thus, relative clauses allow us to test whether a preceding
element can affect the agreement relation between an agreement controller and an
agreement target following it. In concrete terms, two experiments test whether the
number specification of the head noun of a relative clause has any effect on the
processing of subject–verb agreement inside the relative clause.
1.4 Preview of Major Findings and Conclusions
The experiments to be presented attest attraction errors in four constructions:
(13) a. Modifier attraction
Ich
I
weiß, dass die Mutter der KINDER angerufen hat.
know that the mother the.GEN children called has
‘I know that the mother of the children has called.’
b. Object attraction
Ich
I
weiß, dass die Mutter die KINDER getröstet hat.
know that the mother the children comforted has
‘I know that the mother comforted the children.’
c. Attraction out of a relative clause
Ich
I
weiß, dass die Mutter, deren KINDER ich betreue, gerufen hat.
know that the mother whose children I care-for called has
‘I know that the mother whose children I care for called.’
d. Attraction into a relative clause
Da kam die MUTTER, deren Kinder geweint haben.
Then came the mother whose children cried have
‘Then came the mother whose children cried.’
In (13a) and (13b), controller and distractor are clause mates. The distractor is
a genitive modifier in (13a) while it is an object in (13b). In (13c) and (13d),
on the other hand, controller and distractor belong to different clauses. 8 In sentences
with a possessive relative pronoun, attraction can operate out of the relative
clause affecting the agreement relation in the embedding clause as well as into the
relative clause affecting subject–verb agreement inside the relative clause.
The patterns of attraction errors differ across the four constructions. Modifier
attraction in sentences like (13a) is restricted to plural distractors while object
8 In chapter 5, I will discuss the possibility that the relative pronoun is the distractor in (13d).
If so, the distractor and controller are part of the same clause and even form a joined constituent.