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One of the core issues in psycholinguistic research concerns the relationship between word category information and verb-argument structure (e.g. transitivity) information of verbs in the process of sentence parsing. In two experiments (visual versus auditory presentation) using event-related brain potentials (ERPs), we addressed this question by presenting sentences in which the critical word simultaneously realized both a word category and a transitivity violation. ERPs for sentences with both types of violation clustered with the patterns for sentences with a word category violation only, but were different from the patterns elicited by argument structure violations in isolation, since only the latter elicited an N400 ERP component. The finding that an argument structure violation evoked an N400 only if the phrase structure of the respective sentence was correct suggests that a successful integration of the word category information of a verb functionally precedes the application of its argument structure information. (C) 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved
We present two ERP experiments examining the resolution of language processing conflicts involving the multidimensional linguistic feature case, which determines processing in both syntactic and interpretive respects. Ungrammatical German structures with two identically case-marked arguments (double subject or double object constructions) were tested. In earlier studies, double subject constructions have been shown to elicit a biphasic pattern consisting of an N400 effect (a marker of thematic integration problems) followed by a P600 effect (a marker of syntactic ill-formedness). Here, we compare double nominative (subject case) constructions with double datives (indirect object case; Experiment 1) and double accusatives (direct object case; Experiment 2). All types of double case ungrammaticalities elicited a biphasic N400-P600 response. However, double datives differed from double nominatives in that they elicited a larger P600, suggesting that the ill-formedness is more salient in structures with two dative arguments. Double accusatives, by contrast, elicited a stronger N400 in comparison to double nominatives, suggesting that they induce more severe semantic-thematic integration problems. The results demonstrate that the human language comprehension system is sensitive to fine grained linguistic distinctions between different cases and utilizes these in its attempts to solve processing conflicts. (c) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved
We describe an experiment that investigated the failure to license polarity items in German using event-related brain potentials (ERPs). The results reveal distinct processing reflexes associated with failure to license positive polarity items in comparison to failure to license negative polarity items. Failure to license both negative and positive polarity items elicited an N400 component reflecting semantic integration cost. Failure to license positive polarity items, however, also elicited a P600 component. The additional P600 in the positive polarity violations may reflect higher processing complexity associated with a negative operator. This difference between the two types of violation suggests that the processing of negative and positive polarity items does not involve identical mechanisms. (C) 2003 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved
In the recent literature there is a hypothesis that the human parser uses number and case information in different ways to resolve an initially incorrect case assignment. This paper investigates what role morphological case information plays during the parser’s detection of an ungrammaticality or its recognition that a reanalysis is necessary. First, we compare double nominative with double accusative ungrammaticalities in a word by word, speeded grammaticality task and in this way show that only double nominatives lead to a so-called ”illusion of grammaticality” (a low rate of ungrammaticality detection). This illusion was found to disappear when the second argument was realized by a pronoun rather than by a full definite determiner phrase, i.e. when the saliency of the second argument was increased. Thus, the accuracy in recognizing an ungrammaticality induced by the case feature of the second argument is dependent on the type of this argument. Furthermore, we found that the accuracy in detecting such case ungrammaticalities is distance sensitive insofar as a shorter distance leads to a higher accuracy. The results are taken as support for an ”expectationdriven” parse strategy in which the way the parser uses the information of a current input item depends on the expectation resulting from the parse carried out so far. By contrast, ”input-driven” parse strategies, such as the diagnosis model (Fodor & Inoue, 1999) are unable to explain the data presented here.
The present paper addresses a current view in the psycholinguistic literature that case exhibits processing properties distinct from those of other morphological features such as number (cf. Fodor & Inoue, 2000; Meng & Bader, 2000a/b). In a speeded-acceptability judgement experiment, we show that the low performance previously found for case in contrast to number violations is limited to nominative case, whereas violations involving accusative and dative are judged more accurately. The data thus do not support the proposal that case per se is associated with special properties (in contrast to other features such as number) in reanalysis processes. Rather, there are significant judgement differences between the object cases accusative and dative on the one hand and the subject nominative case on the other. This may be explained by the fact that nominative has a specific status in German (and many other languages) as a default case.