Quantifying the cross-linguistic effects of syncretism on agreement attraction

TL;DR

This study investigates how morphological syncretism influences agreement attraction errors across four languages using large language models as processing proxies.

Contribution

It provides a cross-linguistic analysis of syncretism's effect on agreement attraction, using LLM-derived measures to replicate and extend behavioral findings.

Findings

Syncretism modulates attraction in English and German.

No modulation observed in Turkish.

Partial alignment with Russian patterns.

Abstract

Agreement attraction errors, in which a verb erroneously agrees with an intervening noun rather than its grammatical head, are amplified by morphological syncretism in some languages (English, German, Russian) but not others (Turkish, Armenian), a cross-linguistic pattern without a principled account. We use surprisal and attention entropy from large language models as processing proxies to investigate this variation across four languages. LLM-derived measures replicate behavioral findings in English and German (syncretism modulates attraction), align with Turkish null results (no modulation), and partially capture Russian patterns. We discuss further directions for better understanding why syncretism affects agreement attraction differently across languages.