In an eye-tracking reading study (N = 32), we investigated whether situation-formality information would rapidly impact comprehension and whether the processing of situation-formality-register and verb-argument congruence is (dis)similar. We compared congruence between a) situation-formality and linguistic register and b) a verb and its argument during real-time sentence reading. Participants were primed with (in)formal context sentences and object depictions. Target sentences contained manipulations resulting from crossing a) and b) with 2 levels each (match vs. mismatch). A picture-sentence verification task informed about reaction times and accuracy. We found significant rapid effects of verb-argument (in)congruence, with increased reading and reaction times, as well as decreased picture-sentence-verification accuracy for  mismatches (vs. matches). When verb-argument congruence mismatched, processing efforts were likely directed toward integrating and re-evaluating the conflicting information. Unexpectedly, participants read register-matching conditions (vs. mismatching) significantly slower, possibly reflecting competition of strongly activated concepts. Moreover, accuracy decreased for conditions including both verb-argument and register mismatches (vs. only verb-argument mismatches), resulting in a register-by-verb-argument interaction. Overall the findings suggest that register may impact comprehension at a later stage, and that along with verb-argument congruence, it could have had an additive effect on comprehension.