scholarly journals Sentence processing: How words generate syntactic structures in the brain

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jordi Martorell ◽  
Piermatteo Morucci ◽  
Simona Mancini ◽  
Nicola Molinaro
Keyword(s):  
Sentence Processing ◽  
Event Related Potential ◽  
Syntactic Processing ◽  
Time Resolved ◽  
Syntactic Structures ◽  
Open Questions ◽  
Sentence Level ◽  
Critical Issues ◽  
On Line ◽  
The Brain

Language comprehension relies on the fundamental ability to create meaningful syntactic structures from single words during on-line processing. Time-resolved neuroimaging techniques can be used to measure electrophysiological activity revealing the neural dynamics underpinning these combinatorial processes in the brain. In the present chapter, we review and critically evaluate studies that have specifically investigated the electrophysiological bases of sentence-level syntactic processing using different types of analyses and paradigms. Besides reviewing event-related potential (ERP) studies, we focus on recent investigations of neural oscillations, highlighting their relevance and implications for our understanding of syntactic processing. Furthermore, we discuss critical issues related to the interpretation of current electrophysiological findings, including open questions such as the relationship between syntax and semantics and the link between ERPs and oscillations.

Native and Nonnative Speakers' Processing of a Miniature Version of Japanese as Revealed by ERPs

2005 ◽  
Vol 17 (8) ◽  
pp. 1229-1244 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jutta L. Mueller ◽  
Anja Hahne ◽  
Yugo Fujii ◽  
Angela D. Friederici
Keyword(s):  
Sentence Processing ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Event Related Potential ◽  
L2 Acquisition ◽  
Behavioral Skills ◽  
Word Category ◽  
L2 Processing ◽  
Proficiency Level ◽  
Before And After ◽  
On Line

Several event-related potential (ERP) studies in second language (L2) processing have revealed a differential vulnerability of syntax-related ERP effects in contrast to purely semantic ERP effects. However, it is still debated to what extent a potential critical period for L2 acquisition, as opposed to the attained proficiency level in the L2, contributes to the pattern of results reported in previous ERP studies. We studied L2 processing within the model of a miniature version of a natural language, namely Japanese, specifically constructed to assure high proficiency of the learners. In an auditory ERP experiment, we investigated sentence processing of the “Mini-Japanese” in Japanese native speakers and German volunteers before and after training. By making use of three different types of violation, namely, word category, case, and classifier violations, native and nonnative ERP patterns were compared. The three types of violation elicited three characteristic ERP patterns in Japanese native speakers. The word category violation elicited an anteriorly focused, broadly distributed early negativity followed by a P600, whereas the case violation evoked a P600 which was preceded by an N400. The classifier violation led solely to a late left distributed negativity with an anterior focus. Although the P600 was similar for Japanese natives and learners, the N400 and the anterior negativities were not present in the learner group. The differences across groups suggest deviant neural processes in on-line syntactic and thematic processing in the L2 learners despite high behavioral skills.

scholarly journals Electrophysiological Signatures of Visual Lexical Processing: Open-and Closed-Class Words

1999 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 261-281 ◽  
Author(s):  
Colin M. Brown ◽  
Peter Hagoort ◽  
Mariken ter Keurs
Keyword(s):  
Word Frequency ◽  
Sentence Processing ◽  
Word Length ◽  
Lexical Processing ◽  
Brain Potentials ◽  
Closed Class ◽  
Categorical Information ◽  
On Line ◽  
The Brain ◽  
Class Distinction

n This paper presents evidence of the disputed existence of an electrophysiological marker for the lexical-categorical distinction between open-and closed-class words. Event-related brain potentials were recorded from the scalp while subjects read a story. Separate waveforms were computed for open-and closed-class words. Two aspects of the waveforms could be reliably related to vocabulary class. The first was an early negativity in the 230-to 350-msec epoch, with a bilateral anterior predominance. This negativity was elicited by open-and closed-class words alike, was not affected by word frequency or word length, and had an earlier peak latency for closed-class words. The second was a frontal slow negative shift in the 350-to 500-msec epoch, largest over the left side of the scalp. This late negativity was only elicited by closed-class words. Although the early negativity cannot serve as a qualitative marker of the open-and closed-class distinction, it does reflect the earliest electrophysiological manifestation of the availability of categorical information from the mental lexicon. These results suggest that the brain honors the distinction between open-and closed-class words, in relation to the different roles that they play in on-line sentence processing.

Incremental interpretation in second language sentence processing

2006 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 71-88 ◽  
Author(s):  
JOHN N. WILLIAMS
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Structural Analysis ◽  
Sentence Processing ◽  
Similar Pattern ◽  
Memory Task ◽  
Task Demands ◽  
Syntactic Processing ◽  
On Line ◽  
Incremental Interpretation ◽  
And Task

The degree to which native and non-native readers interpret English sentences incrementally was investigated by examining plausibility effects on reanalysis processes. Experiment 1 required participants to read sentences word by word and to make on-line plausibility judgements. The results showed that natives and non-natives immediately computed the plausibility of the preferred structural analysis, which then affected ease of reanalysis. Experiment 2 required participants to read the same sentences word by word in order to perform a memory task. The natives showed a similar pattern of results to Experiment 1, whereas for the non-natives plausibility effects were delayed. However, the non-natives still appeared to be performing immediate syntactic reanalysis. It is concluded that syntactic processing was person- and task-independent, whereas the incrementality of interpretation was more dependent on task demands for the non-natives than for the natives.

scholarly journals On-line Processing of “Pop-Out” Words in Spoken French Dialogues

2005 ◽  
Vol 17 (5) ◽  
pp. 740-756 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cyrille Magne ◽  
Corine Astésano ◽  
Anne Lacheret-Dujour ◽  
Michel Morel ◽  
Kai Alter ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Time Course ◽  
Relevant Information ◽  
Event Related Potential ◽  
Prosodic Cues ◽  
Pragmatic Function ◽  
Language Communication ◽  
On Line ◽  
Integration Problems ◽  
The Brain ◽  
And Task

Highlighting relevant information in a discourse context is a major aim of spoken language communication. Prosodic cues such as focal prominences are used to fulfill this aim through the pragmatic function of prosody. To determine whether listeners make on-line use of focal prominences to build coherent representations of the informational structure of the utterances, we used the brain event-related potential (ERP) method. Short dialogues composed of a question and an answer were presented auditorily. The design of the experiment allowed us to examine precisely the time course of the processing of prosodic patterns of sentence-medial or -final words in the answer. These patterns were either congruous or incongruous with regard to the pragmatic context introduced by the question. Furthermore, the ERP effects were compared for words with or without focal prominences. Results showed that pragmatically congruous and incongruous prosodic patterns elicit clear differences in the ERPs, which were largely modulated in latency and polarity by their position within the answer. By showing that prosodic patterns are processed on-line by listeners in order to understand the informational structure of the message, the present results demonstrate the psychobiological validity of the pragmatic concept of focus, expressed via prosodic cues. Moreover, the functional significance of the positive-going effects found sentence medially and negative-going effects found sentence finally is discussed. Whereas the former may reflect the processing of surprising and task-relevant prosodic patterns, the latter may reflect the integration problems encountered in extracting the overall informational structure of the sentence.

Mental Representation of Verb Meaning: Behavioral and Electrophysiological Evidence

2006 ◽  
Vol 18 (10) ◽  
pp. 1774-1787 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xuesong Li ◽  
Hua Shu ◽  
Youyi Liu ◽  
Ping Li
Keyword(s):  
Sentence Processing ◽  
Mental Representation ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Event Related Potential ◽  
Semantic Features ◽  
Selectional Restrictions ◽  
On Line ◽  
Verb Meaning ◽  
Computational Semantic ◽  
Electrophysiological Methods

Previous psycholinguistic research has debated the nature of the mental representation of verbs and the access of relevant verb information in sentence processing. In this study, we used behavioral and electrophysiological methods to examine the representation of verbs in and out of sentence contexts. In five experiments, word naming and event-related potential (ERP) components were used to measure the speed and the amplitude, respectively, associated with different verb-object combinations that result in different degrees of fit between the verb and its object. Both naming speed and ERP amplitudes (N400) are proven to be sensitive indices of the degree of fit, varying as a function of how well the object fits the verb in terms of selectional restrictions. The results suggest that the semantic features of the verb's arguments are an integral part of the mental representation of verbs, and such information of the verb is accessed and used on-line during sentence processing. Implications of these results are discussed in light of recent computational semantic models that view the lexicon through high-order lexical co-occurrences in language use.

Sentence-level deficits in aphasia

2007 ◽  
pp. 424-440 ◽  
Author(s):  
Randi C. Martin ◽  
Loan C. Vuong ◽  
Jason E. Crowther
Keyword(s):  
Sentence Processing ◽  
Sentence Comprehension ◽  
Short Term Memory ◽  
Generative Grammar ◽  
Syntactic Processing ◽  
Single Word ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Sentence Level ◽  
Processing Module ◽  
Proper Interpretation

Studies in the 1970s and early 1980s demonstrated impaired sentence comprehension in conjunction with good single word comprehension in some aphasic patients. These findings generated a great deal of excitement among aphasiologists and psycholinguists because they seemed to provide support for linguistic theories that hypothesised a system of rules for specifying grammatical well-formedness which was independent of semantics. A number of findings quickly followed these initial findings which caused problems for interpreting the patient data in terms of a deficit to an independent syntactic processing module. The complications that surfaced have given rise to heated debates concerning the proper interpretation of sentence comprehension deficits—mirroring to some extent the debates in linguistics on generative vs. non-generative grammar and in psycholinguistics on syntax-first vs. constraint-based sentence processing theories. This article summarizes results from case studies on language deficits associated with aphasia. It also reviews the evidence regarding the complementary claim that syntactic comprehension deficits in patients without obvious syntactic difficulties in production could be attributed to a short-term memory deficit.

scholarly journals Electrophysiological correlates of second language processing

2005 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 152-174 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jutta L. Mueller
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Second Language Acquisition ◽  
Language Processing ◽  
Sentence Processing ◽  
Event Related Potential ◽  
Critical Periods ◽  
Complex Sentence ◽  
Second Language Processing ◽  
Phoneme Discrimination ◽  
On Line

The aim of this article is to provide a selective review of event-related potential (ERP) research on second language processing. As ERPs have been used in the investigation of a variety of linguistic domains, the reported studies cover different paradigms assessing processing mechanisms in the second language at various levels, ranging from phoneme discrimination to complex sentence processing. Differences between ERP patterns of first language (L1) and second language (L2) speakers can help to specify and to test predictions derived from models of L2 processing or hypotheses concerning critical periods for some aspects of second language acquisition. The studies currently available suggest that ERPs are indeed sensitive to qualitative and quantitative differences in L2 speakers with regard to on-line processing.

Cross-linguistic lexical and syntactic co-activation in L2 sentence processing

2016 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 96-130 ◽  
Author(s):  
Holger Hopp
Keyword(s):  
Sentence Processing ◽  
Word Order ◽  
Sentence Comprehension ◽  
Lexical Processing ◽  
First Language ◽  
Syntactic Processing ◽  
Lexical Activation ◽  
Co Activation ◽  
On Line ◽  
Embedded Clauses

Abstract This study investigates under which conditions the L1 syntax is activated in L2 on-line sentence comprehension. We study whether cross-linguistic syntactic activation of the L1 word order is affected by lexical activation of the first language (L1) by virtue of cognate words. In two eye-tracking experiments, German-English bilinguals and English natives read English sentences containing reduced relative clauses whose surface word order partially overlaps with German embedded clauses. The verbs used were either German-English cognates or matched control verbs. The results show lexical cognate facilitation and syntactic co-activation of L1 word order, with the latter being moderated by proficiency and cognate status. Critically, syntactic co-activation is found only with English control words. We argue that fleeting co-activation of the L1 syntax becomes measurable under higher demands of lexical processing, while cognate facilitation frees resources for inhibition of the L1 syntax and target-like syntactic processing.

scholarly journals Going Native? Yes, If Allowed by Cross-Linguistic Similarity

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gillen Martínez de la Hidalga ◽  
Adam Zawiszewski ◽  
Itziar Laka
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Sentence Processing ◽  
Argument Structure ◽  
Word Meaning ◽  
Order Type ◽  
Event Related Potential ◽  
Syntactic Processing ◽  
Verb Agreement ◽  
Subject Agreement ◽  
Degree Of Similarity

Can native competence be achieved in a second language? Here, we focus on the Language Distance Hypothesis that claims that early and proficient bilinguals can achieve native competence for grammatical properties shared by their two languages, whereas unshared grammatical properties pose a challenge for native-like syntactic processing. We present a novel behavioral and Event-Related Potential (ERP) study where early and proficient bilinguals behave native-like in their second language when processing (a) argument structure alternations in intransitive sentences involving agent vs. patient subjects and (b) subject verb agreement, both of which are grammatical properties shared by their two languages of these bilinguals. Compared to native Basque bilinguals (L2Spanish) on the same tasks, non-natives elicited similar sentence processing measures: (a) in the acceptability task they reacted faster and more accurately to unaccusative sentences than to unergatives and to person than number violations: (b) they generated a larger P600 for agreement violations in unaccusative sentences than unergatives; (c) they generated larger negativity and positivity effects for person than for number violations. Previous studies on Basque-Spanish bilinguals find that early and proficient non-natives display effects distinct from natives in both languages when processing grammatical properties where Basque and Spanish diverge, such as argument alignment (ergative/nominative) or word order type (OV/VO), but they perform native-like for shared properties such as subject agreement and word meaning. We contend that language distance, that is, the degree of similarity of the languages of the bilingual is a crucial factor that deserves further and detailed attention to advance our understanding of when and how bilinguals can go native in a second language.

Syntactic parsing

2007 ◽  
pp. 288-308 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roger P. G. van Gompel ◽  
Martin J. Pickering
Keyword(s):  
Sentence Processing ◽  
Syntactic Structure ◽  
Working Memory Capacity ◽  
Structural Complexity ◽  
Relevant Information ◽  
Syntactic Processing ◽  
Sources Of Information ◽  
Syntactic Structures ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Crucial Part

A crucial part of understanding a sentence is to construct its syntactic structure. Without this, it would be very difficult for language users to determine that sentence with different word orders. The processes involved in constructing syntactic structures during language comprehension are commonly referred to as parsing or syntactic processing. Sentence processing theories can roughly be divided into interactive accounts, in which all relevant information can be used immediately; and modular accounts, in which some information can be used immediately but some cannot. Modular models assume that the mind consists of modules which perform very specific processes. In contrast, interactive accounts assume that the processor immediately draws upon all possible sources of information during sentence processing, including semantics, discourse context, and information about the frequency of syntactic structures. In addition to the above, this article discusses syntax and semantics, lexical frequency, discourse effects, working memory capacity, structural complexity, and adoption of ungrammatical syntactic structures.

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