Three experiments examined plausibility effects on the production and
comprehension of subject-verb agreement. In a production task,
participants were given a verb and sentence preamble and asked to
create a complete passive sentence. The preambles contained two nouns
(e.g., the album by the classical composers). The plausibility
of the verb was manipulated so that either (a) both nouns could be
plausible passive subjects (e.g., praised, as both albums and
composers can plausibly be praised) or (b) only the head noun could be
a plausible subject (e.g., played, as only albums can plausibly
be played). The comprehension task was self-paced reading with the
same materials. The results from both methodologies demonstrated
robust plausibility effects. There were higher agreement error rates
in production and longer RTs at the verb in comprehension when both
nouns were plausible subjects than when only the head was plausible.
Implications for current production models are considered and an
alternative account is presented that is motivated by current
comprehension models and other recent production data.