Current theories of language production disagree about the way in which conceptual accessibility influences syntactic processing (e.g. Bock, 1987; De Smedt, 1990). We present theoretical arguments that the assumption of highly incremental processing can only be reconciled with theories in which conceptual accessibility influences word order. We report a sentence recall experiment in Modern Greek that provides empirical support for this position. Our results demonstrate that Greek speakers prefer to place conceptually accessible entities in early word order positions, irrespective of grammatical function, contrary to previous findings for English (Bock & Warren, 1985; McDonald, Bock & Kelly, 1993). We interpret our results as evidence for highly incremental processing.

How does interaction affect categorization, and how might this vary between native and non-native speakers? Whenpeople use shared labels to categorize objects, they categorize more similarly to each other. We investigated whether interactionleads non-native speakers to categorize in the same way as native speakers. In six rounds, L1-English and L2-English/L1-Mandarin speakers individually categorized dishware using labels (BOWL, PLATE), then discussed their categories or anunrelated topic after each round. L2 speakers’ categories shifted following category-relevant interaction with L1 speakers, buttheir categories did not become more L1-like. Unexpectedly, category-relevant interaction reduced alignment within pairs andwithin language groups; however, this effect was weaker in the L2 than L1 group. Hence, L2 speakers showed a strongertendency than L1 speakers to use categories that were similar to other speakers from their language group. This suggests thatinteraction in an L2 can reinforce L2 speakers’ categories in their L1.

Novel labels provide feedback that may enhance categoricalalignment between interlocutors. However, the nature of thisfeedback may not always be linguistic. Lupyan (2008) hasdemonstrated the effects of labels on individualcategorization, and even non-word labels have seeminglyproduced greater consistency in sorting strategies (Lupyan &Casasanto, 2014). We extend this to alignment bydemonstrating that arbitrary labels can increase sortingconsistency to bring people’s categories closer together, evenwithout dialogue. Importantly, we argue that increasedalignment is not always due to labeling in a linguistic sense.Results suggest that it is not the content of the non-wordlabels driving the alignment effects, but the very presence ofthe labels acting as ‘anchors’ for category formation. Thisdemonstrates a more general cognitive effect of arbitrarylabels on categorization.