Left-edge boundary tone and main clause verb effects on syntactic processing in embedded clauses - An ERP study
Författare
Summary, in English
We examined the effects of main clause verb pragmatics and left-edge boundary tones on syntactic processing in Swedish embedded clauses, using listener judgments and Event-Related Potentials. When the syntactic structure did not match the expectation based on the occurrence of a left-edge boundary tone, the acceptance rate decreased significantly, and a biphasic positive effect with an early peak (P345) and a late peak (P600) showed increased processing load. A larger continuous positive effect (P600) was obtained by changing an assertive main clause verb to a nonassertive verb, thereby modifying the lexical pragmatic context of the embedded clause. Increased positivity was also seen at the left-edge boundary tone when it mismatched a preceding nonassertive verb. We conclude that left-edge boundary tones are used in addition to verb pragmatics to guide the syntactic processing of embedded clauses in Swedish, and that pragmatic and prosodic information is integrated immediately.
Avdelning/ar
Publiceringsår
2009
Språk
Engelska
Sidor
55-73
Publikation/Tidskrift/Serie
Journal of Neurolinguistics
Volym
22
Issue
1
Länkar
- Publication in Lund University research portal
- http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6VDV-4T3KTF9-1&_user=745831&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000041498&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=745831&md5=b5c9d51945d40fe76ffd9b05d86ab56a
- http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jneuroling.2008.06.001
Dokumenttyp
Artikel i tidskrift
Förlag
Elsevier
Ämne
- General Language Studies and Linguistics
- Psychology
Nyckelord
- ERP
- Prosody
- Syntax
- Pragmatics
- Boundary tone
- Intonation
- P600
Status
Published
Projekt
- Thinking in Time: Cognition, Communication and Learning
- Grammar, Prosody, Discourse and the Brain. ERP-studies of Language Processing
ISBN/ISSN/Övrigt
- ISSN: 0911-6044