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Perception of exuberant exponence in Batsbi: Functional or incidental?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 February 2026

Alice C. Harris and
Arthur G. Samuel
Alice C. Harris*
Affiliation:
University of Massachusetts Amherst and Stony Brook University
Arthur G. Samuel*
Affiliation:
Basque Center on Cognition, Brain and Language; Ikerbasque, Basque Foundation for Science; and Stony Brook University
*
Harris Department of Linguistics 226 South College 150 Hicks Way University of Massachusetts Amherst, MA 01003 [acharris@linguist.umass.edu] [a.samuel@bcbl.eu]
Harris Department of Linguistics 226 South College 150 Hicks Way University of Massachusetts Amherst, MA 01003 [acharris@linguist.umass.edu] [a.samuel@bcbl.eu]
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Abstract

Batsbi has multiple exponence (redundant marking) in gender-number agreement, and in this article we explore the question of whether marking of this kind is functional. In a series of three experiments, we compare verbs that have no agreement marker with ones that have a single marker, and we compare verbs with one agreement marker with ones that have two. We find that word recognition is slower with agreement than without it; and words with two agreement markers are recognized more slowly and with more errors relative to verbs with a single marker. For grammaticality judgments, subjects were generally slower to respond when the verb carried more markers. For verbs with no marker versus verbs with one marker, this extra cognitive effort yielded improved accuracy; however, this advantage did not extend to multiple exponence, as the extra processing time did not produce much improvement in accuracy. In cued recall, the presence of one marker conferred a clear advantage in accuracy, but the presence of two agreement markers actually resulted in decreased accuracy. Overall, multiple exponence was found not to confer a functional advantage in these experiments.

Keywords

multiple exponenceextended exponenceprocessing, Batsbiendangered languageexperimental

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Language , Volume 87 , Issue 3 , September 2011, pp. 447 - 469
Copyright
Copyright © 2011 Linguistic Society of America

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