Object-initial clauses (OCs) are associated with more processing difficulties than subject-initial clauses (SCs) in a number of languages (e.g. English, German and Finnish), but a supportive context can reduce or neutralize the difference between SCs and OCs with respect to reading times. Still, it is unresolved how context can affect the comprehension of OCs. In the present self-paced reading study of Danish, we therefore investigated both reading times, comprehension accuracy and response times for OCs and SCs. In line with previous studies on word order processing, OCs in an unsupportive context showed longer reading times than SCs, longer response times and a comprehension accuracy as poor as chance level. A manipulation of context showed no effect of reading time, but a supportive context had a stronger facilitating effect on comprehension (response accuracy and response time) for OCs than for SCs.

a b s t r a c tIn languages that have subject-before-object as their canonical word order, e.g. German, English and Danish, behavioral experiments have shown more processing difficulties for object-initial clauses (OCs) than for subject-initial clauses (SCs). For processing of OCs in such languages, neuroimaging experiments have shown more activation in the left inferior frontal gyrus (L-IFG) compared to SCs. The increased activation in L-IFG has been explained in terms of syntactic transformation demands, increased argument hierarchization demands, and increased load on working memory. Behavioral findings have indicated that context may facilitate syntactic processing, but it has not been investigated whether a supportive context can decrease the activity in L-IFG. With L-IFG as a region of interest (ROI), the present fMRI study of 21 Danish participants investigated how a supportive linguistic context would affect the processing of Danish main clauses with either an initial subject or an initial object. We found more activity in BA 44, BA 45 and BA 47 for OCs compared to SCs. The processing of Danish OCs is thereby seen to elicit effects in L-IFG comparable to previously investigated languages. The context manipulation showed reduced activity in BA 47 for SCs and OCs occurring after a supportive linguistic context, suggesting less pragmatic Journal of Neurolinguistics 26 (2013) 73-88 processing difficulties for sentence processing in a supportive context. Outside the ROI, the lack of context affected several regions in both the frontal, temporal and parietal lobes.

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The function of the left inferior frontal gyrus (L-IFG) is highly disputed. A number of language processing studies have linked the region to the processing of syntactical structure. Still, there is little agreement when it comes to defining why linguistic structures differ in their effects on the L-IFG. In a number of languages, the processing of object-initial sentences affects the L-IFG more than the processing of subject-initial ones, but frequency and distribution differences may act as confounding variables. Syntactically complex structures (like the object-initial construction in Danish) are often less frequent and only viable in certain contexts. With this confound in mind, the L-IFG activation may be sensitive to other variables than a syntax manipulation on its own. The present fMRI study investigates the effect of a pragmatically appropriate context on the processing of subject-initial and object-initial clauses with the IFG as our ROI. We find that Danish object-initial clauses yield a higher BOLD response in L-IFG, but we also find an interaction between appropriateness of context and word order. This interaction overlaps with traditional syntax areas in the IFG. For object-initial clauses, the effect of an appropriate context is bigger than for subject-initial clauses. This result is supported by an acceptability study that shows that, given appropriate contexts, object-initial clauses are considered more appropriate than subject-initial clauses. The increased L-IFG activation for processing object-initial clauses without a supportive context may be interpreted as reflecting either reinterpretation or the recipients' failure to correctly predict word order from contextual cues.

Abstract:In gesture studies character viewpoint and observer viewpoint (McNeill 1992) characterize co-speech gestures depending on whether the gesturer's hand and body imitate a referent's hand and body or the hand represents a referent in its entirety. In sign languages, handling handshapes and entity handshapes are used in depicting predicates. Narratives in Danish Sign Language (DTS) elicited to make signers describe an event from either the agent's or the patient's perspective demonstrate that discourse perspective is expressed by which referent, the agent or the patient, the signers represent at their own locus. This is reflected in the orientation and movement direction of the manual articulator, not by the type of representation in the articulator. Signers may also imitate the gaze direction of the referent represented at their locus or have eye contact with the addressees. When they represent a referent by their own locus and simultaneously have eye contact with the addressee, the construction mixes referent perspective and narrator perspective. This description accords with an understanding of linguistic perspective as grounded in bodily perspective within a physical scene (Sweetser 2012) and relates the deictic and attitudinal means for expressing perspective in sign languages to the way perspective is expressed in spoken languages.