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This section is an orphan and is a stub that only uses one source for the entire article. So I would like to expand the lead section so that it explains what attraction is and that it occurs during language production, and overall just expand what is already here with a few more sources.
Lead section now exists for this. I still have to expand the agreement attraction section based on a more recent Bock study, and I've found another study specifically on object case attraction that I still have to figure out in order to expand that one little more. Happy peer reviewing!
Attraction, in linguistics, is a type of error in language production that incorrectly extends a feature from word in the sentence onto other.[1] This can refer to agreement attraction, wherein a feature is assigned based on agreement with another word. This tends to happen in English with Subject Verb Agreement, especially where the subject is separated from the verb in a complex noun phrase structure. It can also refer to Case Attraction, which assigns features based on grammatical roles, or in dialectal forms of English, Negative Attraction which extends negation particles.[2]
Agreement attraction
editAgreement attraction occurs when a verb agrees with a noun other than its subject. It most commonly occurs with complex subject noun phrases, a notable example of this appeared in the New Yorker:
- Efforts to make English the official language is gaining strength throughout the U.S.[3]
The head of the subject noun phrase, "efforts", is plural, but the verb appears in a singular form because the local noun "language" in the interceding phrase is singular, and therefore attracts the production of the singular feature in "is". While Bock pointed to this example, it doesn't follow the more common pattern where the local nouns are plural and attract plural marking onto the verb, such as in the sentence:
"The key to the cabinets were missing"[3]
The tendency for plural nouns to elicit attraction more often is caused by a marking plurality as a feature, where singularity is considered part of the default, and that activation of the noun plurality marker is what attracts the plural verb form activation.[3] Agreement attraction not only appears with Subject Verb Agreement, but also with Object Verb agreement in WH-movement in English. Take this ungrammatical construction:
"Which flowers are the gardener planting"[4]
This sentence is ungrammatical because the subject "gardener" is singular, but "are" is plural, which was attracted by the plural noun object phrase "which flowers" that appear just before the verb due to WH-movement.
Object attraction also appears in SOV constructions in Dutch, where agreement attraction occurs between the verb and the local object noun.[4]
References
edit== Notes ==Peer Review:
I am honestly really impressed by this draft. You have laid out all the information in a very organized and thoughtful pattern. It doesn't seem to be persuasive in any way, and you have taken the time to link key words to their own wikipedia pages. The only thing I'm confused about is the second sentence under "Agreement attraction." Did you mean to say "this appeared in the New York?" It seems as though you meant the New Yorker or some other literary work. Overall, great job!! (and don't forget to find that last source)
- ^ Franck, Julie (2011-01-01). "Reaching agreement as a core syntactic process Commentary of Bock & Middleton "Reaching Agreement"". Natural Language & Linguistic Theory. 29 (4): 1071–1086.
- ^ Labov, William (1972-01-01). "Negative Attraction and Negative Concord in English Grammar". Language. 48 (4): 773–818. doi:10.2307/411989.
- ^ a b c Bock, Kathryn (1995-04-01). "Producing Agreement". Current Directions in Psychological Science. 4 (2): 56–61. doi:10.1111/1467-8721.ep10771165. JSTOR 20182327.
- ^ a b Dillon, Brian; Staub, Adrian; Levy, Joshua; Jr, Charles Clifton (2017-03-20). "Which noun phrases is the verb supposed to agree with?: Object agreement in American English". Language. 93 (1): 65–96. doi:10.1353/lan.2017.0003. ISSN 1535-0665.