A robust result in research on the production of grammatical agreement is that speakers are more likely to produce an erroneous verb with phrases such as "the key to the cabinets", with a singular noun followed by a plural one, than with phrases such as "the keys to the cabinet", where a plural noun is followed by a singular. These asymmetries are…

We examined how verb factivity influences the ability of readers to detect and resolve the mismatch of receiving false referents in relation to true referents in discourse contexts. Factive verbs (e.g., know), but not nonfactive verbs (believe), entail the truth of their complements. Recent research by Singer [Singer, M. (2006). Verification of…

An eye movement study of temporarily ambiguous closure sentences confirmed that the early closure penalty in a sentence like "While John hunted the frightened deer escaped" is larger for a simple past verb ("hunted") than for a past progressive verb ("was hunting"). The results can be explained by the observation that simple past tense verbs…