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a b st r a c tThe semantics of focus particles like only requires a set of alternatives (Rooth, 1992 ). In two experiments, we investigated the impact of such particles on the retrieval of alternatives that are mentioned in the prior context or unmentioned. The fi rst experiment used a probe recognition task and showed that focus particles interfere with the recognition of mentioned alternatives and the rejection of unmentioned alternatives relative to a condition without a particle. A second lexical decision experiment demonstrated priming eff ects for mentioned and unmentioned alternatives (compared with an unrelated condition) while focus particles caused additional interference eff ects. Overall, our results indicate that focus particles trigger an active search for alternatives and lead to a competition between mentioned alternatives, unmentioned alternatives, and the focused element.k e y w o r d s : focus particles , alternative-set semantics , probe recognition task , lexical decision task , competitive inhibition .[ * ] We are grateful to

To communicate efficiently, speakers typically link their utterances to the discourse environment and adapt their utterances to the listener's discourse representation. Information structure describes how linguistic information is packaged within a discourse to optimize information transfer. The present study investigates the nature and time course of context integration (i.e., aboutness topic vs. neutral context) on the comprehension of German declarative sentences with either subject-before-object (SO) or object-before-subject (OS) word order using offline comprehensibility judgments and online event-related potentials (ERPs). Comprehensibility judgments revealed that the topic context selectively facilitated comprehension of stories containing OS (i.e., non-canonical) sentences. In the ERPs, the topic context effect was reflected in a less pronounced late positivity at the sentence-initial object. In line with the Syntax-Discourse Model, we argue that these context-induced effects are attributable to reduced processing costs for updating the current discourse model. The results support recent approaches of neurocognitive models of discourse processing.

We used fMRI to investigate competition during language production in two word production tasks: object naming and color naming of achromatic line drawings. Generally, fMRI activation was higher for color naming. The line drawings were followed by a word (the distractor word) that referred to either the object, a related object, or an unrelated object. The effect of the distractor word on the BOLD response was qualitatively different for the two tasks. The activation pattern suggests two different kinds of competition during lexical retrieval: (1) Task-relevant responses (e.g., red in color naming) compete with task-irrelevant responses (i.e., the object's name). This competition effect was dominant in prefrontal cortex. (2) Multiple task-relevant responses (i.e., target word and distractor word) compete for selection. This competition effect was dominant in ventral temporal cortex. This study provides further evidence for the distinct roles of frontal and temporal cortex in language production, while highlighting the effects of competition, albeit from different sources, in both regions.