When sex affects syntax: Contextual influences in sentence production

This article addresses the question of whether accuracy in developing a syn tactic frame for a to-be-uttered sentence is influenced by conceptual infor mation beyond the initial assignment of grammatical functions on the basis of the speakers' intentions, as predicted by the maximalist hypothesis we p ut forward in previous work (Vigliocco & Franck, 1999). In a series of four parallel experiments (in Italian and French) investigating gender agreemen t between a sentential subject and a predicative adjective, we found that c onceptual information helps syntactic accuracy when congruent with syntacti c information and hinders accuracy when incongruent, In a final experiment in Italian, potentially confounded linguistic factors were assessed and dis missed. (C) 2001 Academic Press.