Gender agreement mismatch in sandwiched coordination

This paper reports on an experimental study on noun-verb agreement in so-called sandwiched configurations, where a coordinated subject (Goal) is situated between two participles (Probes). As reported by Marušič & Nevins (2020), in such configurations the two conjuncts of a coordinate subject control agreement with different probes, each one with the linearly closest probe – the first conjunct with the probe preceding the subject and the second conjunct with the probe following the subject. This study in addition confirms that two participles show agreement with the single, hierarchically highest conjunct, as well as having the first probe reflecting gender features of the closest (hierarchically highest) noun and the second one displaying default gender agreement. Hence, the configurations mirror exactly the agreement strategies found in simple, pre- and postverbal, coordinate structures. The acceptability rating experiment of Marušič & Nevins (2020) is conceptually replicated in Bosnian-Croatian-Montenegrin-Serbian (BCMS), with results confirming their study and their conclusions. The distributed model of agreement (Arregi & Nevins 2012) considers a two-step Agree operation, the second step of which, Agree-Copy, taking place post-syntactically, before or after linearisation, thus allowing Linear order to have a direct effect on agreement.