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This study investigates region-specific inflectional morpheme frequencies within the ICNALE Corpus, exploring significant global linguistic intricacies. Through a quantitative, corpus-based approach, it conducts a comprehensive contrastive analysis, leveraging the extensive accessibility of the online ICNALE. Despite inherent limitations in data collection primarily reliant on interviews and written compositions within the ICNALE Corpus, the study offers illuminating insights into how diverse linguistic backgrounds influence the usage of inflectional morphemes in English. The findings bring to light interesting patterns in possessive usage, reflecting variations among ESL learners in acquiring grammatical features. Additionally, it highlights complexities in acquiring comparative and superlative degrees, aligning with challenges encountered by learners in mastering specific inflections. Analyses of plural noun inflections, subject-verb agreement, past tense, past participle, and present participle usage underscore the multifaceted influences of language background, acquisition stages, and instructional emphasis on learners' morphological patterns. Future inquiries could further investigate the impact of instructional methodologies on inflectional morpheme acquisition, undertake comparative studies across proficiency levels and age groups, explore morphological transfer from learners' native languages, and deepen comprehension of cognitive processes guiding effective learning strategies. These endeavors hold promise in refining pedagogical methodologies and enriching language learning experiences for diverse learner cohorts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Determiner phrases (DPs), an overarching term, can be classified into two determiner types: referential determiner phrases (RDPs, e.g., the boy) and quantificational determiner phrases (QDPs, e.g., each boy). Using the eventrelated potential (ERP) technique, this study explored the modulation of RDP vs. QDP in the online processing of English subject–verb agreement with omission errors by Chinese learners of English, addressing the question of whether singular quantification increases or decreases Chinese learners’ sensitivity to agreement violations. The experiment manipulated the determiner type, specifically RDP vs. QDP, and grammaticality (grammatical vs. ungrammatical). The results indicated that similar to previous studies, a P600 effect was elicited in response to subject– verb agreement violations with omission errors, demonstrating that Chinese L2 learners are sensitive to such agreement violations. Additionally, the ERP patterns exhibited variations due to D-linking and number specification of RDP and QDP. Regarding D-linking, subject–verb agreement violations in the QDP conditions, necessitating integration of discourse-related knowledge, elicited laterally and frontally distributed P600 effects associated with integration complexity at the discourse level; however, non-D-linked referential determiners elicited the posteriorly-distributed P600 effects. Differences in number specification resulted in the distinctive P600 latencies and whether P600 was preceded by N400 or not. While both the RDP and QDP conditions exhibited the P600 effects, the onset latency of this effect in the number-unspecified RDP condition was 300  ms later compared to the number-specified QDP condition. Furthermore, an additional N400 component observed in the RDP condition suggests that L2 learners acquire morphologically complex subject–verb agreements by rote, treating them as unanalyzed chunks. This N400 component was absent in the QDP condition. From these results, the conclusion can be drawn that L2 learners are sensitive to the subject–verb agreement violations with omission errors, and L2 processing patterns of subject–verb agreement vary with different features of determiners, providing further evidence for the cue-based retrieval model during comprehension of grammatical sentences. Pedagogical implications are provided, and the future research direction is suggested. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, by focussing on the behaviour of polarity elements from a variety of languages from different language families (namely, Basque, Hindi, English, Romanian, Spanish, Greek, Czech, and Russian) we investigate the relationship between polarity sensitive items (PSIs) and negative polarity items (NPIs) on the one hand, and between PSIs and negative concord items (NCIs) on the other. Based on a number of contrasts that we find, we argue that: (i) if a language has PSIs it does not necessarily have NCIs; (ii) PSIs need to be distinguished from NPIs; (iii) NCIs emerge as a subtype of PSIs, not of NPIs; and (iv) all languages that show negative concord (NC) also have polarity sensitivity (PS), but the opposite does not hold. We thus postulate that PS is a general phenomenon across languages with negative polarity (NPol) and NC as possible subtypes of PS but independent among them, and argue against the standard hypothesis that NC is a special subtype of NPol. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates knowledge of English verbal morphosyntax among multilingual students and their L1 Norwegian peers in grades 5–7 in Norway. L1 Norwegian speakers have previously shown transfer from Norwegian to verb placement or subject-verb agreement in L2 English, but their multilingual peers may have an advantage in acquiring these properties in L3 English due to their knowledge of other languages. A written test examining verb placement in verb-second (V2) contexts and subject-verb agreement was used to compare L1 Norwegian students with their multilingual peers, who spoke a variety of different L1s in the home. The results showed that the difference in mean scores alone was not significant between the L1 Norwegian group and the multilingual group, but when grade level and academic achievement were controlled for, linguistic group membership did significantly predict better performance by the multilingual group for some, but not all, grammatical conditions examined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this study was to determine the most prevalent African American Language (AAL) phonological and grammatical features in slavery- and Civil Rights–themed children's literature. Seventy-six books were initially selected to determine if they used AAL in dialogue or in narration. Of the 76 books, only 39 included AAL. The 39 books were analyzed further to categorize the specific AAL features used. The results revealed that the reduction of the final g (e.g., thinkin ') was the most prevalent phonological feature. Moreover, phonological features were used more often in slavery-themed texts than in Civil Rights texts. Additionally, the most frequently used AAL grammatical features were negation tense markers (e.g., didn't and neither) and subject-verb agreement (he listen). Grammatical features of AAL appeared more often in slavery-themed texts than Civil Rights themed texts. Implications for practice include suggestions for selecting, evaluating, and reading the books from this study with students. Implications for research include investigating other AAL features in slavery- and Civil Rights-themed books, authenticating the storylines of slavery- and Civil Rights–themed books, and analyzing other books with AAL that do not use these themes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

English has become the global lingua franca, facilitating communication across diverse nations. The reason for Filipinos to proficiently acquire and utilize English lies in its pivotal role in the nation's future development. This study investigated the reading interest and grammatical competence of first-year education students in one of the private schools in North Cotabato, Philippines. Employing a descriptive-correlational research design, the investigation delineates the respondents' demographic profile, encompassing parents' highest educational attainment and reading material preferences, both print and digital. Furthermore, it scrutinized disparities in reading interest and grammatical competence among students based on demographic profiles and explores the interplay between reading interest and grammatical competence. Findings highlights a noteworthy proclivity among first-year education students toward reading and a high level of grammatical competence. Particularly, mothers' highest educational attainment and access to printed materials exhibit significant correlations with reading interest and grammatical competence, particularly in verb tenses and subject-verb agreement. These findings underscore for ongoing teacher development initiatives aimed at fostering innovative pedagogical approaches that invigorate students' enthusiasm for English language acquisition and literary engagement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores the violation of grammatical agreement in Sesotho. Grammatical agreement is a significant characteristic in sentence construction. There should be covariance relations between the noun phrase (NP) subject and the device that links it with the verb phrase. However, I have observed that language users violate this agreement relation in their daily conversation. Using the Minimalist Program, sentences collected from native speakers casual conversations were analysed to identify the type of NPs that are commonly associated with the non-corresponding agreement device. The collected sentences were further examined to investigate factors that contribute to the phenomenon. The analysed data reveal that NPs that comprise titles and metaphoric nouns are the ones mostly used in sentences that violate the agreement relation, while lack of knowledge of syntactic rules, semanticity of noun classification and negligence are the contributing factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examined the extent to which working memory (WM) capacity and distance-based complexity influenced how second language (L2) learners used morphosyntactic information incrementally during online processing of L2 English long-distance subject-verb number agreement dependencies. The moving-window self-paced reading experiment involved 40 agreement-lacking first language (L1) Thai learners of English and 40 native English speakers. Distance-based complexity was manipulated based on whether the agreement controller and the agreeing verb were intervened by a short-distance subject-extracted relative clause or a long-distance object-extracted relative clause in line with the Dependency Locality Theory. The findings indicated that both native speakers and L2 learners experienced less processing difficulty in short-distance conditions, showing heightened sensitivity to agreement violations. Their sensitivity was, however, modulated as a function of distance-based complexity and WM capacity. The L2 learners' lack of sensitivity in the long-distance conditions was associated with their limited pool of cognitive resources. Consistent with the L1–L2 structural competition account, these findings suggest in relation to morphology learning in SLA that L2 learners may labor under parallel activation during crosslinguistic competition, whereby cognitive resources are insufficient to resolve long-distance agreement dependencies, thus resulting in reduced sensitivity to L2 morphosyntactic violations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study is aimed to examine the types of written subject verb agreement mistakes made by the students enrolled in BS English program. Second purpose of this study was to check mastering subject verb concord depends whether on language exposure or grip on language. There has been profound research on the reasons of mistakes made by students in subject verb agreement but none has touched upon what sort of mistakes students make mostly, particularly in University of kotli.A study at the University of Kotli has been conducted to examine the subject-verb agreement errors made by students in the BS 5th and BS 1st semesters. Researchers utilized essay writing as their research tool and adopted a qualitative research method. The study's findings indicate that the majority of errors, particularly omissions, were made by BS English 5th semester students. The proportion of students making omission errors is higher than those making misinformation errors, with addition errors being the least common. The results indicate that 5th semester students still struggle with subject-verb agreement, making more errors than 1st semester BS English students despite having more language exposure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines online processing and offline judgments of subject-verb person agreement with a focus on how this is impacted by markedness in heritage speakers (HSs) of Italian. To this end, 54 adult HSs living in Germany and 40 homeland Italian speakers completed a self-paced reading task (SPRT) and a grammaticality judgment task (GJT). Markedness was manipulated by probing agreement with both first-person (marked) and third-person (unmarked) subjects. Agreement was manipulated by crossing first-person marked subjects with third-person unmarked verbs and vice versa. Crucially, person violations with 1st person subjects (e.g., io *suona la chitarra “I plays-3rd-person the guitar”) yielded significantly shorter RTs in the SPRT and higher accuracy in the GJT than the opposite error type (e.g., il giornalista *esco spesso “the journalist go-1st-person out often”). This effect is consistent with the claim that when the first element in the dependency is marked (first person), the parser generates stronger predictions regarding upcoming agreeing elements. These results nicely align with work from the same populations investigating the impact of morphological markedness on grammatical gender agreement, suggesting that markedness impacts agreement similarly in two distinct grammatical domains and that sensitivity to markedness is more prevalent for HSs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study examined the deficits of people with aphasia in tense (past, present, and future) and agreement (person, number, and gender) in Jordanian Arabic. Forty participants were selected and two tasks were administered for this study using Boston Diagnostic Aphasia Examination (BDAE)-Arabic version. The first task was sentence completion in which sentences have a blank and need to be filled by the participants. The second task was grammaticality judgment, in which participants should determine whether sentences are grammatically correct or not. Results indicated significantly that the Jordanian participants with aphasia violate gender aspect more than person and number in both sentence completion task (p = 0.025) and grammaticality judgment task (p = 0.000), it was also reported that past tense was violated significantly more than present and future in sentence completion task (p = 0.000) as well as grammaticality judgment task (p = 0.012). It is concluded that Arabic speakers with agrammatism were tested with reference to time and agreement and the results showed that they performed as hypothesized, showing a selective deficit for production of inflected forms of past tense. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research was titled: (Seven Grammar) to explain these seven pillars and their importance, as they are considered among the basics of grammar. Grammatical sentences are not devoid of these pillars. Indeed, we do not find any Arabic word devoid of one of these pillars. Due to its importance and place in grammatical studies, the study with this title was an explanation of it, a definition of its meanings, and a statement of its rulings. By these (sevens) we mean (nominatives), although some grammarians see them as five, as will be mentioned later, just as there are other grammatical sevens, which are: (sentences that have no place in grammatical analysis), and (sentences that have a place in grammatical analysis), But the researcher here means by (grammatical sevens) the seven nominatives, and these nominatives are all (nouns), which do not contain (a verb or a letter), and they are: the subject, the predicate, the subject, the deputy subject, the noun kan and its sisters, the predicate inna and its sisters, and the subordinate to the nominative. Through the study, the researcher found that most grammarians begin these seven nominatives with (the subject), but we believe that beginning them with (the subject) is better. Because the subject comes first in the sentence in terms of order, so when we say: (Zaid is a scholar), we find the subject (Zaid) placed in the nominal sentence in first place, then the predicate (a scholar) comes in second place. As for (the subject), this is not the case. When we say: (Zaid the world came) we find the subject (Zaid) ranked second in the verbal sentence, and the verb (came) ranked first. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study compares the performance of three machine translation tools in English-Arabic translation to answer the questions of (a) whether the three machine translation tools, Google Translate, Systran and Microsoft Bing can be ordered in a hierarchy of performance, and (b) whether they can handle lexically and structurally ambiguous sentences and garden path sentences. Using a number of constructed and selected English sentences, the morphosyntactic features of number, gender, case, definiteness, and humanness, agreement between cardinal numerals and their head nouns, lexically and structurally ambiguous sentences and garden path sentences are used to test the three machine translation tools for performance. The results show that (a) as far as handling the morphosyntactic features of subject-verb agreement in Standard Arabic, all three machine translation tools perform equally well, and no machine translation tool seems to perform significantly better than the other two (b) some marked features (e.g. dual number and humanness) of SA seem to pose some problems for machine translation tools, and (c) lexically and structurally ambiguous sentences and garden path sentences seem to be the most challenging sentences for the three machine translation tools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study is an attempt to investigate the scope and type of error in feedback effectiveness. This study consists of two experiments. One was conducted to investigate the feedback effects on a rule-based error type (i.e. subject–verb agreement errors) and the other was conducted to investigate the effects on a lexically-based error type (i.e. verb–noun collocation errors). In addition, the scope of error was investigated in both experiments. In terms of the rule-based error type, results for the immediate posttest writing task showed focused feedback to be effective for the narrowly defined subject–verb agreement errors (i.e. subject–verb agreement involving lexical verbs or copula be). In the delayed posttest writing task, the benefit still persisted for the narrowly defined subject–verb agreement errors. In terms of the lexically-based error type, results for the immediate posttest writing tasks showed focused feedback to be effective for the broadly defined verb–noun collocation errors (three or four collocation errors made and corrected in pretests). In the delayed posttest writing tasks, the benefit still persisted for the broadly defined verb–noun collocation errors broadly defined. These findings suggest that the notion of error type should influence the feedback effectiveness. Theoretical implications regarding the role of notice in the second language acquisition process were discussed based on the results obtained in this study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This quantitative study aimed to determine the effects of using a quasi-experimental method using pre-test - post-test with one group design was used in this study, which identified the scores of the students in four grammar area tests before and after the use of cooperative learning activities. The four areas were pronoun-antecedent agreement, subject-verb agreement, tenses of verbs, and voices of verbs. The students' mean pre-test and post-test scores were then compared to determine significant improvement in the student's competency. Cooperative learning activities were then constructed as research output. Findings show that prior to the use of cooperative learning activities, the student's competencies in three areas were found to be fair. These were on the pronounantecedent agreement, tenses of verbs, and voices of verbs. Only in the area of subject-verb agreement was the students' competency found to be poor. After the use of cooperative learning activities, the students' competencies were found to be satisfactory in all areas of the grammar test. There were significant differences in the mean pre-test and post-test scores of the students in all areas of the grammar test. The computed t-values imply significant improvement in the students' competencies after the use of cooperative learning activities. Conclusion and recommendations were given. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In morphologically richer languages, including French, one must learn the specific properties of number agreement in order to understand the language, and this learning process continues into adolescence. This study examined similarities and differences between French-speaking adolescents with and without developmental language disorder (DLD) when processing number agreement, and investigated how morpho-syntactic regularity affected language processing. Using event-related potentials (ERP) and only grammatical sentences with audio-visual mismatches, we studied ERP correlates to three types of number agreement: (1) regular determiner agreement in noun phrases, (2) regular subject-verb plural liaison, and (3) irregular subject-verb agreement. We also included a lexico-semantic mismatch condition to investigate lexico-semantic processing in our participants. 17 adolescents with DLD (M = 14.1 years) and 20 (pre)teens with typical language (TL, M = 12.2 years) participated in the study. Our results suggest three patterns. First, French-speaking teenagers without DLD are still consolidating their neurocognitive processing of morpho-syntactic number agreement and generally display ERP profiles typical of lower language proficiency than adult native speakers. Second, differences in morphosyntactic processing between teenagers with and without DLD seem to be limited to rule-based (regular) number agreement. Third, there is little evidence for corresponding differences in lexico-semantic processing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aims to identify the main problems with the Subject-Verb Agreement found in students writing in the English Education major at University of Papua, to know the main problem researcher used Corder's theory to determine the mistake in student's essay while their write. This research was conducted on semester 4th students of the University of Papua. The method used is a qualitative descriptive. The findings of the research show that there were a lot of mistakes that occurred in students' essays. where the highest percentage of error was Omission (43.97%), then Mis-information (29.08%), Addition (20.99%) and the lowest error was Mis-ordering (4.96%). Furthermore, there are several causes of these errors, namely First language influence, language exposure and carelessness. Basically, the causes of the errors that have been exposed above are the sources of error that are found in students' writing. To avoid and reduce those errors, the students should practice and expose themselves to their language targets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although native speakers (NSs) of English make plural agreement in preverbal-subject sentences (e.g., A pen and eraser *is/are...), previous studies have demonstrated that they prefer singular – not plural – agreement between verbs and conjoined noun phrases (NPs) in expletive there constructions (e.g., there is/are a pen and an eraser...), showing efficiency-driven processing prioritization of agreement between nearest constituents. This paper assesses whether Japanese L2 learners of English (JLE) show this tendency. The results of two self-paced reading experiments together indicated that even though efficiency-driven processing was available to L2 learners, their use was unstable due to the repeated exposure to there are NPpl- and NPpl-type sentences during the task. It seems possible that repeated exposure triggered learners' knowledge that conjoined NPs are always plural. Hence, it could conceivably be hypothesized that a learner's specific knowledge intervenes the efficiency-driven processing strategy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper explores the potential of the flipped classroom model in language education, specifically for teaching grammar. The flipped model shifts traditional teaching by moving direct instruction outside class, allowing more engaging in-class activities. It also reverses teaching, putting direct instruction before class and interactive learning during class. It may stand language instructors in good stead, for it enhances engagement and comprehension. This experiment investigates its implementation, benefits, challenges, and impact on grammar learning outcomes. Notable among the challenges posed by this model, if instructors opt to avail themselves of its mechanisms, are technological barriers, including limited access to high-speed internet and a lack of compatible hardware. The study comprises an illustrative analysis that applies the model to instructing subjectverb agreement through pre-class activities, video content, quizzes, games, and essay assignments. The results palpably demonstrate an improved understanding and practical application of grammar. The flipped classroom offers transformative opportunities for language education, needing careful preparation and addressing tech challenges. It attempts to affect a qualitative leap in learning by using technology for content delivery and focusing on interactive in-class activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research aims to explore the effectiveness of utilizing the B-SLIM Model in enhancing writing skills through organized English learning activities for communication. The study sample consisted of 35 first-year students majoring in English for International Communication at Rajamangala University of Technology Tawan-ok, specifically enrolled in the Integrated Skills in the English Language course during the 2021 academic year. The research utilized various instruments, including a 500-word essay writing assignment, a form for recording writing errors, a student satisfaction survey regarding B-SLIM Model activities, and a focus group discussion to identify error causes. Analysis of the writing errors revealed that common pre-course errors included subject-verb agreement (33.10%), sentence boundaries (30.31%), and clause boundaries (36.59%). Post-course errors were observed as follows: subject-verb agreement (9.82%), sentence boundaries (30.36%), and clause boundaries (59.82%). The English learning management based on the B-SLIM Model demonstrated an efficiency rating of 73.45/80.32, surpassing the set criteria of 70/70. Moreover, the application of the B-SLIM Model resulted in improved English writing abilities compared to traditional approaches. Student satisfaction with the B-SLIM Model was high, with a mean score of 4.63 (S.D=1.44). Common errors in English writing were attributed to students' native language interference and limited knowledge of English structure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a case study based on the writing of James Horner, one of the many Irish emigrants who crossed the Atlantic between the late 1700s and early 1800s. Communication between Horner and his family back in Ireland was kept through personal correspondence. His letters, which contain about 14,000 words in total, are part of the Corpus of Irish English Correspondence (CORIECOR), and they provide detailed accounts of his experiences and impressions of the recently adopted country. They also show progressive standardisation, which makes them an interesting site for historical sociolinguistic analysis: shifting from vernacular Irish English towards a more standardised type of English to some degree. Our study focuses on the use of subject-verb agreement and addresses the following research questions: does geographical and social mobility condition Horner's speech? If so, how does an individual's social status affect language? The findings reported below show that social mobility as well as dialect contact seem to have contributed to general standardisation and the subsequent blurring of identity markers in language use. The paper, thus, offers new perspectives on the analysis of intra-speaker variation using historical data and contributes to the discussion of the need for this type of micro-analysis in the area of historical sociolinguistics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Grammatical Error Correction (GEC) is the task of automatically detecting and correcting errors in text. The task not only includes the correction of grammatical errors, such as missing prepositions and mismatched subject–verb agreement, but also orthographic and semantic errors, such as misspellings and word choice errors, respectively. The field has seen significant progress in the last decade, motivated in part by a series of five shared tasks, which drove the development of rule-based methods, statistical classifiers, statistical machine translation, and finally neural machine translation systems, which represent the current dominant state of the art. In this survey paper, we condense the field into a single article and first outline some of the linguistic challenges of the task, introduce the most popular datasets that are available to researchers (for both English and other languages), and summarize the various methods and techniques that have been developed with a particular focus on artificial error generation. We next describe the many different approaches to evaluation as well as concerns surrounding metric reliability, especially in relation to subjective human judgments, before concluding with an overview of recent progress and suggestions for future work and remaining challenges. We hope that this survey will serve as a comprehensive resource for researchers who are new to the field or who want to be kept apprised of recent developments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this research paper is to examine the joint effect of syncretism and syntactic distance on subject-verb agreement in Serbian. To do so, the paper employs one comprehension experiment, a speeded grammaticality judgment task. The task is designed to determine whether an attractor noun syncretic with the nominative plural elicits more erroneous judgments in environments of varying syntactic distance, those with either prepositional or clausal postmodifiers. The results of the speeded grammaticality judgment task point to an apparent joint effect of syncretism and syntactic distance on agreement. More specifically, there is an evident increase in the number of attraction errors with syncretic, as opposed to non-syncretic attractors in prepositional and clausal postmodifiers. This increase is greater with prepositional than with clausal postmodification. These observations are elaborated within the retrieval approach to agreement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The timing of corrective feedback (CF) provision has been a controversial issue in SLA research. Despite widespread research, there is still disagreement on whether the erroneous structures should be addressed immediately or at a delayed time after task completion. This study investigates the comparative effects of immediate and delayed feedback on developing subject-verb (s-v) agreement by Iranian EFL learners. To this end, 28 university students were divided into immediate (n=14) and delayed (n=14) CF groups after the administration of the Oxford Placement Test. The study involved a pre-test, three treatment sessions and a posttest. The two feedback groups received treatments followed by either immediate feedback provided after task completion or delayed feedback delivered after 3 days of task completion. The tests and treatments contained various activities including multiplechoice, cloze, fill-in-the-blanks and picture description task. The results of the analysis of test scores on the pre- and post-tests were indicative of the outperformance of the immediate CF group, implying that the immediate feedback may be more beneficial for developing s-v agreement accuracy than delayed feedback. The findings of this investigation can bear efficient implications for language teachers and researchers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the processing mechanisms of subject-verb agreement in Korean, which offers a distinctive landscape that encompasses both optional and required agreement components. We particularly focused on the attraction effect, by teasing a part of agreement relationships (optional vs. required). The findings in this study indicate that Korean honorific agreements might employ a distinct processing strategy, potentially resembling the active search strategy observed in other long-distance dependencies in Korean. Korean speakers appear to predict the presence of honorific markers for dependency resolution, even though honorific agreements are not obligatory in the language. This research provides new insights into the crosslinguistic variations in processing strategies for subject-verb agreement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reports show that Filipino students have deteriorating communication skills in the English language. To verify these, it is significant to investigate their communicative competence. Thus, this study was conducted. Specifically, it sought answers to the following questions: 1) What are the common students' errors in the application of subject-verb agreement rules in English? 2) What are the grammar rules that are mastered and those that are not? 3) What interventions can be done to enhance the performance of Grade 8 students in the least mastered grammar rules? The study used a descriptive-evaluative research design. The students were given a diagnostic test composed of 90-item multiple-choice questions about 18 subject-verb agreement rules in sentences, where each rule was represented by five questions. The grammatical errors made by the students were determined based on the number of correct responses in each rule. The top most common grammatical errors, the mastered and unmastered rules were identified. The respondents were 291 randomly selected Grade 8 students from secondary schools in Milagros, Masbate. The selection of sample respondents was done using stratified random sampling. Based on the result of the diagnostic examination, the following were the findings: 1) The Grade 8 students'score in each of the 18 rules was below the mastery level of 75% and it shows low level of mastery of all the rules in subject-verb agreement. 2) Students got a near mastery level score in only one out of 18 rules and it deals with mathematical abstractions. Based on the findings, the conclusion was drawn: 1) Grade 8 students in Milagros, Masbate involved in this study have very poor performance in subject-verb agreement rules. Based on conclusion, the researcher recommended the following: 1) Grammar rules must be given enough time. 2) Devise a learning module targeting the identified errors to master the rules. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: The present study provides longitudinal data on the development of receptive and expressive grammar in children and adolescents with Down syndrome and addresses the role of nonverbal cognitive abilities and verbal short-term memory for morphosyntactic development. Method: Seventeen German-speaking individuals with Down syndrome (aged 4;6-17;1 years at first testing (T1)) were assessed twice, 4;4-6;6 years apart. For a subset of five participants, there was also a third assessment 2 years after the second. Receptive grammar, nonverbal cognition, and verbal short-term memory were tested using standardized measures. For expressive grammar, elicitation tasks were used to assess the production of subject-verb agreement and of wh-questions. Results: At group level, the participants showed a significant increase in grammar comprehension from T1 to T2. However, progress diminished with increasing chronological age. Notable growth could not be observed beyond the age of 10 years. With respect to expressive grammatical abilities, progress was limited to those participants who had mastered verbal agreement inflection around age 10 years. Individuals who did not master verbal agreement by late childhood achieved no progress in producing wh-questions, either. There was an increase in nonverbal cognitive abilities in the majority of participants. Results for verbal short-term memory followed a similar pattern as those for grammar comprehension. Finally, neither nonverbal cognition nor verbal short-term memory were related to changes in receptive or expressive grammar. Discussion: The results point to a slowdown in the acquisition of receptive grammar which starts before the teenage years. For expressive grammar, improvement in wh-question production only occurred in individuals with good performance in subject-verb agreement marking, which suggests that the latter might have a trigger function for further grammatical development in German- speaking individuals with Down syndrome. The study provides no indication that nonverbal cognitive abilities or verbal short-term memory performance determined the receptive or expressive development. The results lead to clinical implications for language therapy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author shares her reflections about the basic problems with the fight for claiming appropriate pronouns. Topics discussed include the use of the singular pronoun he for a large group of women which included just one man, the fight for using plural pronouns for people who reject the conventional singular pronoun, and the view that the pronoun debate is parochial in the English language.

This paper provides an argument for the Specifier-to-Specifier antilocality constraint (Erlewine 2016, 2020) on movement from the collective/distributive interpretative ambiguity in the dual Quantifier Phrase (DQP) kila/kilta in Standard Arabic. The paper shows that the antiagreement effect in distributive kila/kilta is due to the fact that the QP, which occupies a high position in the agreement domain of articulation, may not undergo movement into the specifier of an immediately dominating agreeing head: it is too short a movement that is blocked by antilocality. On the other hand, subject-verb agreement in collective kila/kilta surfaces since collective kila/kilta occupies a lower position in the agreement domain, making movement into the specifier of the agreeing head long enough to avoid being blocked by antilocality. The paper shows that the asymmetry observed between the collective and distributive kila/kilta with respect to (anti-)agreement can be straightforwardly accounted for under the Specifier-to- Specifier antilocality approach of Erlewine (2016, 2020). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The phenomenon of attraction effects, whereby a verb erroneously retrieves a syntactically inaccessible but feature-matching noun, is a type of grammatical illusions (Phillips, Wagers, and Lau 2011) that can occur in long-distance subject-verb agreement in human sentence processing (Wagers et al. 2009). In contrast, reflexive-antecedent dependencies have been claimed to lack attraction effects when the reflexive and the antecedent mismatch (Dillon et al. 2013). Yet, some other studies have shown that attraction effects have been observed in reflexive-antecedent dependencies, when the number of feature mismatch between the reflexive and the antecedent increases (Parker and Philips 2017). These findings suggest that there are different cue weightings based on the predictability of the dependency, and these cues are combined according to different cue-combination scheme, such as a linear or a non-linear cue-combination rule (Parker 2019). These linguistic phenomena can be used to analyze how linguistic features are accessed and combined within the internal states of Deep Neural Network (DNN) language models. In the linguistic representations of BERT (Devlin et al. 2018), one of the pre-trained DNN language models, various types of linguistic information are encoded in each layer (Jawahar et al. 2019) and combined while passing through the layers. By measuring the performance of Masked Language Model (MLM), this study finds that both subject-verb agreement and reflexive-antecedent dependencies show attraction effects and follow the linear-combinatoric rule in BERT. The different results from human sentence processing suggest that the self-attention mechanism of BERT may not be able to capture the differences in the predictability of the dependency as effectively as memory retrieval mechanisms in humans. These findings have important implications for developing more understandable and interpretable explainable-AI (xAI) systems that better capture the complexities of human language processing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aimed to investigate and identify the grammatical features of African American Vernacular English (AAVE) used in the song lyrics of the Indonesian Rapper Ramengvrl's album, Can't Speak English, and understand the underlying reasons for this AAVE use by applying the language and society of sociolinguistics approach. The data was analyzed using Wolfram's theory of classification of grammatical features of AAVE in Ramengvrl's songs to elaborate on the purpose of its use. The data analyzed were qualitatively collected by closely and thoroughly listening to the songs and reading the transcribed lyrics. The results are as follows: Ramengvrl employs 8 out of 13 grammatical features of AAVE. Those are copula/auxiliary absence, specialized auxiliary, subject-verb agreement, negation, remote "been," nominals, non-standard pronouns, and question formation. Furthermore, this AAVE use by Ramengvrl is because of (1) the influences of Hip-hop artists, (2) the authenticity of Hip-Hop culture, and (3) as an anti-language to represent herself. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the L2 acquisition of the morphosyntax of number agreement of French by L1 learners. The study is based on a pilot study that investigates learners' knowledge of number agreement of two paradigms of subject-verb number agreement in French: the so-called matching paradigm in which agreement in number is expressed audibly via an alternation of the verb stem between a singular and plural forms and the mismatching paradigm in which the number agreement is not audible realized via singular vs. plural alternation. We discussed our sample's proficiency in (de-)normalizing number agreement and the implications it has for the theory of corrective feedback and linguistic input in L2 processing in Language acquisition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that gapping in Spanish is not a single phenomenon and can be derived from different source structures. The first type of gapping in Spanish involves clausal coordination and is thus derived through TP-deletion, whereas the second type contains low coordination below TP, which allows it to be derived by either vP-deletion or Across-The-Board (ATB) verb movement whose availability depends on the subject-verb agreement patterns found in gapping. This approach also extends to cases where the conjuncts in gapping display various noncanonical word orders, which also fall under two types of gapping and can be analyzed using the same mechanisms as those applicable to SVO-conjuncts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In an articulation between psycholinguistics and sociolinguistics, and from a formalist-like approach of language, this paper discusses possible adaptative effects caused by operant priming effects in language variation processing, and how these effects impact processing costs associated with third-person plural variable subjectverb agreement. To do so, we ran a self-paced reading experiment that included not only constructions attested for variable verb agreement but also ungrammatical instances, aiming to check for differences in cost proportionality between variable (then grammatical) and ungrammatical instances. The experiment also included the manipulation of long stimuli, which allowed adaptive effects to be verified as a result of an operant priming effect. This type of manipulation, as far as we know, is unprecedented in studies of the psycho-sociolinguistic interface in Brazil. The results suggested different costs and adaptative effects associated with grammatical conditions (redundant and non-redundant agreements) that were not attested in the ungrammatical condition. In other words: processing variable grammatical instances is different from processing ungrammatical ones. This study, therefore, shed light on questions concerning the online processing of linguistic variation, an increasingly productive topic in linguistics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What and how to teach religious moderation at the undergraduate level still concerns academics. This study aims to explore the perceptions of lecturers and students about the objectives, content, and strategies used in learning religious moderation. This study uses a multiple-case exploratory design with a qualitative approach. Data were collected through interviews with eight lecturers and 15 students from public and Islamic universities in Indonesia. Data analysis in this study used conventional content analysis methods with an inductive coding process. The first two authors analysed data, and their agreement was calculated using Cohen's kappa of 0.90. As a result, participants said that the ultimate goal of learning moderation in religion is to teach students about aligning views on religion and non-religion. The content that needs to be taught early and as a firm root of religious moderation is the internal harmony of religious communities. Finally, the development of campus culture can be an alternative model to internalise the values of religious moderation. Contribution: Overall, this research helps us to understand what kind of religious moderation learning we want to introduce in Indonesian universities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Turkish 3rd person plural subjects normally appear with verbs that are unmarked for number. Following earlier findings which indicate that Turkish heritage speakers (HS) accept overt plural marking more readily compared to monolingually raised Turkish speakers, the present study investigates to what extent bilingual speakers are sensitive to grammatical, surface-level and semantic constraints on Turkish plural agreement marking. A scalar acceptability judgement task was carried out with non-bilingual Turkish speakers residing in Turkey and Turkish-German bilinguals residing in Germany. Our experimental design involved manipulating both subject animacy and subject position. Participants' judgement patterns confirmed Turkish speakers' general preference for unmarked verb forms, which was modulated both by subject animacy and by subject position. Significant differences were observed between lower proficiency HS on the one hand, and monolinguals and advanced proficiency HS on the other, suggesting that the relatively subtle interplay between different types of constraint on number agreement marking is affected by heritage language conditions. We found no evidence for simplification or optionality reduction in the lower proficiency HS' judgements, however. We innovate on previous research by using Gradient Symbolic Computation modelling to capture between-group differences in the relative weightings of the constraints under investigation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on the description and analysis of an anomalous or non-normative plural agreement phenomenon that certain Spanish verbs, named "terciopersonal" o "pseudopersonal" in the literature, present when combined with an infinitive clause whose verb selects a plural NP as its direct object (Te cuestan hacer las tareas más fáciles 'It's hard for you to do the easiest tasks'). After describing the phenomenon, we show that the finite verb does not present all the characteristics that are usually attributed to auxiliaries and we defend that the theory of nexus and junctures proposed in role and reference grammar is a useful analytical tool in order to account for the structures under study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explored the role of written languaging (WL) in response to automated written corrective feedback (AWCF) in L2 accuracy improvement in English classrooms at a university in China. A total of 254 freshmen enrolled in intermediate composition classes participated, and they wrote 4 essays and received AWCF. A half of them engaged in WL after receiving correction, while the other half did not. To measure whether WL could contribute to L2 accuracy improvement, error correction tests were conducted three times. AWCF targeted all types of errors, but the study focused on investigating six language features (nouns, conjunctions, subject-verb agreement, sentence constituents, articles, and prepositions) known as the most frequent errors intermediate students make. The results proved that WL had a positive effect on accuracy improvement overall. However, when individual language features were considered separately, the effects were not the same. The inherent complexity of the features along with L1 influence appeared to affect the effects of WL for accuracy improvement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In English, subject-verb agreement is deemed to be 'local' if the controller (i.e., the subject) and the target (i.e., the main verb) are adjacent, but 'non-local' if these items are separated by one or more terminal nodes. Previous research indicates that second language English learners whose first languages lack subject-verb agreement tend to supply inflection for this functional category less accurately in non-adjacent than adjacent contexts in spoken production. This asymmetry could be driven by either adjacency or locality, since, for subject-verb agreement at least, these two properties are aligned with each other. Phrase-internal agreement, by contrast, is local regardless of whether the controller (i.e., a determiner or quantifier) and the target (i.e., a noun) are adjacent or non-adjacent; hence, for this type of agreement, adjacency and locality are not aligned with each other. In the present study, we gave a sentence-construction task to 64 native speakers of Vietnamese, a language without inflection for number agreement. Suppliance of inflection was lower in non-adjacent than adjacent contexts phrase-internally, and therefore within the local domain itself. We concluded that what gave rise to the asymmetries in inflectional production in our study, and, by extension, also in previous research on subject-verb agreement, was not the distinction between local and non-local domains, but rather the one between adjacent and nonadjacent contexts for agreement. In so doing, we present a more parsimonious analysis of asymmetries in the spoken production of agreement inflection than the one currently available. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current study seeks to investigate the effectiveness of collaborative Zoom breakout rooms discussion in eliminating subject-verb agreement difficulties encountered by Palestinian English majors. The quasi-experimental approach was adopted. To explain, an intact class consisting of 30 freshmen English majors were exposed to a pre-posttest focusing on subject-verb agreement. For intervention, the participants were put into Zoom breakout rooms in small heterogenous groups to discuss the subject-verb agreement rules and to practice related exercises collaboratively. Google documents were used to provide exercises and instructions. The result showed that the participants' scores in the posttest outperformed the results of the pretest. The statistically recorded positive result confirmed the effectiveness of the collaborative Zoom breakout rooms discussion on eliminating subject-verb agreement difficulties encountered by Palestinian English majors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is well-known that native English speakers sometimes erroneously accept subject-verb agreement violations when there is a number-matching attractor (e.g., *The key to the cabinets were...). Whether bilinguals whose L1 lacks number agreement are prone to such interference is unclear, given previous studies that report conflicting findings using different structures, participant groups, and experimental designs. To resolve the conflict, we examined highly proficient Korean–English bilinguals' susceptibility to agreement attraction, comparing prepositional phrase (PP) and relative clause (RC) modifiers in a speeded acceptability judgment task and a speeded forced-choice comprehension task. The bilinguals' judgments revealed attraction with RCs but not with PPs, while reaction times indicated attraction with both structures. The results therefore showed L2 attraction in all measures, with the consistent exception of judgments for PPs. We argue that this supports an overall native-like agreement processing mechanism, augmented by an additional monitoring mechanism that filters explicit judgments in simple structures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]