Information structure effects on the processing of nouns and verbs: evidence from event-related brain potentials

Electroencephalographic (EEG) signals can reveal the cost required to deal with information structure mismatches in speech or in text contexts. The present study investigates the costs related to the processing of different associations between the syntactic categories of Noun and Verb and the information categories of Topic and Focus. It is hypothesized that – due to the very nature (respectively, predicative and non-predicative) of verbal and nominal reference – sentences with Topics realized by verbs, and Focuses realized by nouns, should impose greater processing demands, compared to the decoding of nominal Topics and verbal Focuses. Data from event-related potential (ERP) measurements revealed an N400 effect in response to both nouns encoded as Focus and verbs packaged as Topic, confirming that the cost associated with information structure processing follows discourse-driven expectations also with respect to the word-class level.

Embryologic Comparisons in the Architektonikkapitel

In 1781, prior to any Kantian reference in favor of the epigenesis – a direct, nominal reference, published in life –, two comparative passages of the “Architectonic of Pure Reason” will have drawn no attention from his readers. But, despite omitting that “augmentation” [Vermehrung], such passages shall lead, both on its own and jointly, to the possibility of a retrospective conflict regarding that theory; a conflict of a conceptual nature which may have repercussions on Kant’s position on the epigenesis, be it directly, on a metaphorical-speculative level, be it indirectly, on an embryological level. The present, ongoing study shall deal with the collocation of the problem, the presentation of some elements in view of its analysis and, finally, a possible solution for the difficulties which the two passages of both editions of the Critique indirectly raise.

Marcello lächelt sein Mastroianni-Lächeln

Sentences with a cognate object typically consist of an intransitive activity verb, its subject NP and a second NP in the accusative. Its nominal core is typically derived as nomen actionis and/or nomen acti from the verb. Essential questions are: How are cognate objects licensed? What role do they play in verbal activity? Which nouns and which verbs come into question? Can the reading of cognitive objects be predicted as an event or object? In this paper I will propose a constructional grammatical analysis. Different readings of the cognate object as well as the temporal constitution as a telic or atelic situation are explained within the construction by compositional processes. These are essentially analyzed as a transfer of the nominal reference mode to the entire VP. The nominal reference method also results from compositional processes within the NP. An important focus of the analysis is on overrides and adjustments (coercion) in case of semantic conflicts.