PREDICATE AGREEMENT WITH PRONOMINAL CONJUNCTS: AN EXPERIMENTAL RESEARCH

The paper’s primary objective is an experimental investigation of the variability of predicate agreement in person and number with a subject that is a multiple controller and is expressed by fi rst- and second-person pronouns. We have selected the word order (the preverbal or postverbal position of the coordinated subject) and the order of conjuncts (“I and you” or “you and me”). Two experiments examine the acceptability of three agreement strategies for four confi gurations: resolution agreement based on the personal hierarchy (1pl verb form), partial agreement with one of the conjuncts (1sg and 2sg verb forms), and default agreement (3pl verb form). The resolution strategy ranked the highest in acceptability, according to the results, but all three strategies are possible because they get higher ratings than ungrammatical sentences. Experimental evidence has been obtained for the conclusions made earlier on the basis of corpus data that the verbal position of the subject increases the acceptability of strategies other than the resolution strategy, in particular, partial agreement with the closest conjunct. In addition, the paper discusses the methodological diffi culties that arose when using an experimental task of self-paced reading.