Grammatical gender in noun phrase production: the gender interference effect in German

Languages appear to differ in the way definite determiners are selected during noun phrase production. Recently, Miozzo and Caramazza (Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition) have proposed that a distinction should be made between early and late selection languages. In early selection languages, the nounÇs gender uniquely specifies the definite determiner whereas in late selection languages the definite determiner can only be specified during the phonological encoding of the noun phrase. This hypothesis predicts that in picture-word interference experiments on noun phrase production in early selection languages like German one should obtain a gender interference effect. In two experiments on German, this prediction is confirmed. The implications of these results for the proposed distinction between early and late selection languages are discussed