Conceptual Number in Bilingual Agreement Computation: Evidence from German Pseudo-Partitives

Abstract

During subject–verb agreement (SVA) computation, the conceptual or notional number of the subject can affect whether speakers choose a singular or a plural verb, potentially overriding the grammatical number of the subject’s head. The influence of notional number has hardly been investigated in bilinguals, however. Most previous research on bilingual agreement computation has focused on agreement errors, and less is known about agreement computation in cases where multiple licit options exist. One such phenomenon is pseudo-partitives (German: eine Tüte Nüsse ‘one bag of nuts’), for which a verb may agree with either the first or the second noun phrase. We present data from 150 L1 speakers of German and Turkish–German early bilinguals who performed a sentence-completion task. While both groups showed awareness of the optionality in agreement, both preferred the first noun phrase as the agreement controller. Interestingly, notional plurality affected bilinguals’ verb choices more than those of L1 speakers, whose responses were influenced by notional plurality only in the most challenging number conflict condition. We suggest that increased cognitive demands during bilingual SVA computation may render bilinguals more susceptible to conceptual effects.

Keywords

• sentence processing
• subject–verb agreement
• conceptual number
• bilingualism
• pseudo-partitives
• German