How do people produce ungrammatical utterances?

We investigate whether people might come to produce utterances that they regard as ungrammatical by examining the production of ungrammatical verb-construction combinations (e.g., The dancer donates the soldier the apple) after exposure to both grammatical and ungrammatical sentences. We contrast two accounts of how such production might take place: an abstract structural persistence account, according to which it is caused by increased activation of an abstract structural rule; and a lexically-driven persistence account, according to which it requires previous exposure to the same (ungrammatical) verb-construction combination. In four structural priming experiments, we found that sentences with ungrammatical verb-construction combinations were produced only after exposure to similar ungrammatical exemplars containing the same verb, but not after such sentences with a different verb, or grammatical sentences with the same construction. These results indicate that people can produce sentences with ungrammatical verb-construction combinations after brief exposure to related sentences, and provide support for the lexically-driven persistence account of such production.

► We ask if/how people can come to produce sentences with ungrammatical verb-construction combinations. ► Abstract structural persistence and lexically-driven persistence can account for the production of such sentences. ► Ungrammatical sentences are produced after ungrammatical same-verb primes. ► They are not produced after ungrammatical different-verb primes, or well-formed primes with the same construction. ► These findings favor the lexically-driven persistence account.