Conjunctions play a crucial role in the construction of a coherent mental representation by signaling coherence relations between clauses, especially for second language users. By using event-related potentials (ERPs), this study aimed to investigate how different conjunctions ( so, and, although, or a full stop) affect the interpretation of a following ambiguous pronoun for both native and non-native speakers, in sentences such as Lily disappointed Nina, so she …. ERP results showed that relative to so, and, and full stop sentences, the pronoun in although clauses elicited a larger Nref (sustained negativity) response in both native (L1) readers and second language (L2) readers, irrespective of whether the verb in the first clause biased towards a particular noun phrase (NP) referent. Moreover, larger Nrefs to pronouns were seen in L2 than L1 readers when clauses were connected by so, although or a full stop. Additionally, larger Nref responses were evoked by pronouns in NP2- than NP1-biased conditions when the clauses were connected by the conjunction so or when sentences contained no overt conjunctions ( full stop). These findings indicate that different conjunctions exert different modulating effects on resolving referential uncertainty/ambiguity. Relative to native speakers, non-native speakers are more likely to encounter referential uncertainty when the sentences are conjoined by conjunctions with more complex semantics.

To investigate the grammatical constraints of code-switching (CS hereafter) under the disputes of the constraint-based account versus the constraint-free account, the effects of functional category on CS have long been investigated in the existing studies. Thus, the present study, by asking 47 participants to take part in an eye-movement experiment, examined the potential effects of functional category on Chinese-English CS. We found that differential switch costs at varying code-switched conditions as well as robust switch effects that last from the early to the late stage. The findings could tentatively give rise to the theoretical predictions of the minimalist program, a representative of the constraint-free account rather than the functional head constraint, a typical representative of the constraint-based account. Moreover, such switch effects might initiate from the early to the very late stage in terms of time-course of CS processing.

Counterfactuals are contrary-to-fact statements that are widely used in daily life to convey thoughts about what might have been. Different from fact-based processing, successful counterfactual comprehension requires readers to keep in mind both suppositional information and presupposed fact. Using event-related potentials, the present study investigates how the process of establishing a coreferential relation (i.e., pronoun resolution) is influenced by counterfactual context, and whether it will be modulated by individual difference in literature reading. We compared the P600 (a positive-going deflection, which often reaches its peak around 600 milliseconds after presentation of the stimulus) effects elicited by gender-mismatched pronouns in three conditionals (causal vs. hypothetical vs. counterfactual) between two groups (literature exposure high- vs. low-level group). Results show that for low-level group, incongruent pronouns elicited robust P600 effects across all three conditionals, while for high-level group, the P600 effects were pronounced only in causal and hypothetical conditionals, but not in counterfactual conditionals. These findings suggest (a) different from causal and hypothetical conditionals, the dual meaning and pragmatic implications of counterfactuals may prompt people to go beyond here and now to elaborate their mental models and entertain alternative interpretations, and (b) substantial literature exposure would further enhance pragmatic inference of counterfactual context, leading high-level readers more inclined to elaborate discourse with possible alternative inferences, while leaving low-level readers habitually resort to more straightforward coreferential interpretation. (PsycINFO Database Record

Counterfactuals describe imagined alternatives to reality that people know to be false. Successful counterfactual comprehension therefore requires people to keep in mind both an imagined hypothetical world and the presupposed real world. Counterfactual transparency, that is, the degree to which a context makes it easy to determine counterfactuality, might affect semantic processing. This might especially be the case for languages like Chinese which lack dedicated counterfactual markers and therefore are more context-dependent. Using event-related potentials, this study investigates the role of counterfactual transparency on the comprehension of Chinese counterfactuals. For transparent contexts (e.g., “If everything in the world could go back in time . . .”), in which the information needed to identify counterfactuality is highly accessible, discourse incongruent words elicited P600 effects. In contrast, for nontransparent contexts (e.g., “If better preparations were made at that time . . .”) in which readers must attend to specific discourse context and engage pragmatic information to arrive at the counterfactual interpretation, discourse incongruencies gave rise to N400 effects. These findings suggest that (a) provided a constraining context, semantic processing is not disrupted by the dual nature of counterfactuality (i.e., readers can rapidly make contextually appropriate inferences to interpret subsequent narratives) and (b) the degree of transparency of the counterfactual can affect the nature of subsequent semantic processing. Our findings support the usage-based view that Chinese counterfactual comprehension is highly context-dependent and pragmatics-driven.