This study examines the role of distance in the decision among grammatical variants. The empirical test case is the English mandative subjunctive construction, which co-occurs with an embedded modal auxiliary, a subjunctive or an indicative verb form. The fact that the subjunctive is triggered by specific lexical items allows one to measure the distance between the triggering unit and the target verb. This distance is found to play a significant role in the grammatical decision process. With increasing distance between trigger and target, the probability of selecting a modal auxiliary increases and the probability of selecting the subjunctive decreases. The theoretical account hinges on the range and strength of linguistic units. Syntactic units (i.e. modals) are claimed to have a wider range than morphological units (i.e. indicative and subjunctive). Furthermore, the indicative is claimed to have a wider range than the subjunctive. Varying ranges are interpreted as varying decay rates. The lower decay rate of syntactic as compared to morphological units results from the syntactic level being superordinated to the morphological level in language production. The inclusion of the semantic and the phonological levels confirms that the position of a level in the structural hierarchy determines its range.

中文翻译：

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语言单位的范围：英语强制虚拟语气结构中的距离效应

本研究考察了距离在语法变体之间的决定中的作用。实证测试用例是英语强制虚拟语气结构，它与嵌入的情态助动词、虚拟语气或指示性动词形式同时出现。虚拟语气是由特定的词项触发的这一事实允许人们测量触发单元和目标动词之间的距离。发现这个距离在语法决策过程中起着重要作用。随着触发器和目标之间距离的增加，选择模态辅助的概率增加，选择虚拟语气的概率降低。理论解释取决于语言单位的范围和强度。句法单位（即情态）被声称比形态单位（即 指示性和虚拟语气）。此外，该指示性声称具有比虚拟语气更广的范围。变化的范围被解释为变化的衰减率。与形态单位相比，句法的较低衰减率是由于在语言产生中句法水平高于形态水平。包含语义和语音级别证实了一个级别在结构层次中的位置决定了它的范围。