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Gender Congruency Effects in Spanish: Behavioral Evidence from Noun Phrase Production
Ruixue Wu1, Niels O Schiller1,2
1Leiden University Centre for Linguistics (LUCL), Leiden University, Reuvensplaats 3, 2311 BE Leiden, The Netherlands.
Brain Sciences
|May 16, 2023
Summary
Native Spanish speakers show a grammatical gender congruency effect in noun phrase production. This indicates that grammatical gender influences determiner selection, challenging previous assumptions about Romance languages.
Area of Science:
- Psycholinguistics
- Linguistic Theory
- Cognitive Science
Background:
- Grammatical gender is a lexico-syntactic feature studied in many languages.
- The gender congruency effect has been observed in Germanic and Slavic languages but not previously in Romance languages.
- Previous research suggested Romance languages lack this effect due to article phonology and exceptions.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the gender congruency effect in native Spanish noun phrase production.
- To determine if grammatical gender influences determiner selection in Spanish.
- To provide behavioral evidence for the gender congruency effect in Romance languages.
Main Methods:
- Picture-word interference paradigm with 30 native Spanish speakers.
- Manipulation of gender congruency (congruent vs. incongruent) and semantic relatedness (related vs. unrelated).
- Measurement of naming latencies across four experimental conditions.
Main Results:
- Significantly longer naming latencies observed in gender-incongruent conditions.
- The effect was more pronounced when semantic relatedness was also manipulated.
- Results indicate competitive selection of determiners based on grammatical gender.
Conclusions:
- Grammatical gender functions as a lexico-syntactic feature influencing determiner selection in Spanish.
- The study provides behavioral evidence for the gender congruency effect in a Romance language.
- Findings challenge the notion that Romance languages lack this psycholinguistic effect.
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