Using Collective Nouns by Korean Learners of English: A Generalized Linear Model with R

This paper examines the use of collective nouns by Korean learners of English (KLsE). Collective nouns are generally known to induce verb and pronoun agreement. It has often been noted that BrE and AmE differ in verb agreement with collective nouns, but as Levin (2001) shows, both dialects in fact prefer singular verb agreement, whereas they prefer plural pronoun agreement. Beginning with this general pattern of collective nouns for native speakers, we have employed (the two sets of) the questionnaire and the Generalized Linear Model-based statistical analysis to delve into the use of collective nouns by KLsE. The result of the questionnaire reveals that KLsE use verb and pronoun agreement with collective nouns in the similar fashion as native speakers of English. They also tend toward singular verb agreement and plural pronoun agreement. However, there was no interaction found between the former and the latter, which renders compelling evidence in favor of the thesis that verb agreement is differentiated from pronoun agreement: in other words, the former is a syntactic process, whereas the latter is a notional or semantic one.