Exploring the Patterns of Verbal Agreement of Collective Noun-Headed Subjects in a Parsed Corpus of Present-Day English

10 pages•Published: February 23, 2017

Abstract

This study explores verbal agreement variation with collective noun-headed subjects taking plural of-dependents in a set of data retrieved from a parsed version of the corpus of Global Web-based English (GloWbE). The results show how syntactic distance between the subject and the verb (and also the complexity of the modifier(s) of the of-PP) reduces the influence that these plural of-PPs exert on the verb, thus lowering the rate of plural agreement.

Keyphrases: agreement, collective noun, morphologically (un)marked plurality, of dependency, syntactic complexity, syntactic distance

In: Chelo Vargas-Sierra (editor). Professional and Academic Discourse: an Interdisciplinary Perspective, vol 2, pages 325-334.

Links:	https://easychair.org/publications/paper/XcM
	https://doi.org/10.29007/8v9n

BibTeX entry

@inproceedings{AESLA2016:Exploring_Patterns_Verbal_Agreement,
  author    = {Yolanda Fernández-Pena},
  title     = {Exploring the Patterns of Verbal Agreement of Collective Noun-Headed Subjects in a Parsed Corpus of Present-Day English},
  booktitle = {Professional and Academic Discourse: an Interdisciplinary Perspective},
  editor    = {Chelo Vargas-Sierra},
  series    = {EPiC Series in Language and Linguistics},
  volume    = {2},
  publisher = {EasyChair},
  bibsource = {EasyChair, https://easychair.org},
  issn      = {2398-5283},
  url       = {/publications/paper/XcM},
  doi       = {10.29007/8v9n},
  pages     = {325-334},
  year      = {2017}}

Download PDF Open PDF in browser