The emergence of attraction errors during sentence comprehension

2.1. GRAMMATICAL NUMBER 25
And, as a consequence of the high syncretism in German, number ambiguity is a
common phenomenon.
2.1.4 Markedness of Plural
The notion of MARKEDNESS can be traced back to the Prague School. It was
first development in phonology and later extended to morphology, syntax and semantics.
The key intuition is that in oppositions, one element is the basic form
whereas the other one has something added. For illustration consider a phonological
example: /k/ is unmarked in comparison to /g/ because it lacks the voicing
that /g/ exhibits. Note that markedness is defined as a relative term: /g/ is marked
with respect to voicing in comparison to /k/.
Jakobson (1936) argues that linguistic oppositions reflect a difference in the
possession of a property. The marked opposition signals the possession of the
property, whereas the unmarked form is neutral with respect to this property.
Therefore, the unmarked form can occur in contexts where it explicitly signals
a contrast with the marked item, and it can occur in contexts where the contrast
is suspended or neutralized. Furthermore, the marked opposition is usually more
complex, often derived by affixation or inflection. The unmarked opposition, on
the other hand, is often expressed by less complex means, occurs more often in
texts and is acquired earlier than the marked counterpart (cf. Greenberg, 1966;
Mayerthaler, 1980).
As noted above, markedness is a relative notion—relative with respect to a
certain property and relative with respect to a corresponding counterpart. The
latter one becomes particularly interesting when a property is not just a binary
opposition but an n-ary opposition with n>2, e.g., in a number system which has
a dual in addition to singular and plural.
However, even for the binary singular–plural opposition, it is hard to decide
which property the opposition marks. Both singular and plural forms can occur in
neutral contexts, especially when used generically. Although generic indefinites
are formally singular, they do not refer to a single referent, i.e. do not explicitly
express singularity. Generic plurals, on the other hand, do not explicitly mark
plurality. Both generic expressions do not denote concrete entities but rather refer
to a whole class or an abstract concept of that class. This is illustrated in (12). 17
(12) a. An axolotl can regenerate most body parts.
b. Axolotls can regenerate most body parts.
17 An axolotl is a salamander originating from Mexico and now at home in labs all over the
world, amongst other reasons because of its astonishing regenerating capability as described in
(12).