Event-Related Brain Potentials and Case Information in Syntactic Ambiguities

Hopf, Jens‐Max; Bayer, Josef; Bader, Markus; Meng, Michael

doi:10.1162/089892998562690

Cited by 46 publications

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“…Previous research in German has indicated that disruption and/or reanalysis of thematic role assignment in on-line sentence processing also elicits an N400 response. An N400 is elicited when noun phrases are ambiguously case-marked, such that thematic role assignment cannot take place until sentence end in verb-final clauses (Hopf, Bayer, Bader & Meng, 1998;Bornkessel, McElree, Schlesewsky, & Friederici, 2004), and an N400 + P600 complex is elicited when two animate noun phrases in the same clause illicitly receive the same case marking, such that thematic role assignment becomes impossible (Frisch & Schlesewsky, 2001.…”

Section: Disruption Of Thematic Role Assignment: N400 Effects?mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The first two of these difficulties applied ceteris paribus to the German studies that used ambiguous case marking to obscure thematic relations (Hopf, Bayer, Bader & Meng, 1998;Bornkessel, McElree, Schlesewsky, & Friederici, 2004), and all three applied to the German studies that used illicit duplicate case marking to impede successful thematic role assignment (Frisch & Schlesewsky, 2001. It is thus reasonable to expect that these same three disruptions of thematic processing will conspire to elicit an N400 response when English language materials are used, even though English does not overtly case-mark its noun phrases (except of course for pronouns).…”

Section: Disruption Of Thematic Role Assignment: N400 Effects?mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For example, if the answers to wh-questions that violate focus constraints were to elicit an increase in N400 amplitude (Kutas & Hillyard, 1980), this would provide evidence that the N400 is sensitive not only to lexico-semantic, morphosyntactic, pragmatic, and world knowledge information (e.g. van Berkum, Hagoort & Brown, 1999;Federmeier & Kutas, 1999;Hagoort, Hald, Bastiaansen & Petersson, 2004, Hopf, Bayer, Bader & Meng, 1998Frisch & Schlesewsky, 2001Bornkessel, McElree, Schlesewsky, & Friederici, 2004), but also to focus distinctions encoded in the information packaging of an utterance.…”

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Violations of information structure: An electrophysiological study of answers to wh-questions

et al. 2007

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This study investigates brain responses to violations of information structure in wh-questionanswer pairs, with particular emphasis on violations of focus assignment in it-clefts (It was the queen that silenced the banker). Two types of ERP responses in answers to wh-questions were found. First, all words in the focus-marking (cleft) position elicited a large positivity (P3b) characteristic of sentence-final constituents, as did the final words of these sentences, which suggests that focused elements may trigger integration effects like those seen at sentence end. Second, the focusing of an inappropriate referent elicited a smaller, N400-like effect. The results show that comprehenders actively use structural focus cues and discourse-level restrictions during online sentence processing. These results, based on visual stimuli, were different from the brain response to auditory focus violations indicated by pitch-accent (Hruska et al. 2000), but similar to brain responses to newly introduced discourse referents (Bornkessel et al. 2003). This paper examines the contribution of information structure to sentence processing by investigating what kinds of ERP responses are elicited when focus is incorrectly assigned via syntactic structure. For example, the answers that speakers give to wh-questions of the kind shown in (1) are constrained not only in terms of their propositional content, but also in terms of how that content is packaged. (1a) is an acceptable (if somewhat verbose) answer to the question while (1b) is not, in spite of the fact that both answers provide the same information, namely that the agent of lettuce-eating was the rabbits.(1) What ate the lettuce in your garden, the deer or the rabbits? a. It was the rabbits that ate the lettuce.b. #It was the lettuce that the rabbits ate. NIH-PA Author ManuscriptNIH-PA Author Manuscript NIH-PA Author ManuscriptThe critical difference, then, lies not in the content of the answer, but in the form in which it is presented.This simple example shows that answers to wh-questions are constrained by information structure, namely the division of content into topic and focus. The informative part of an answer to a wh-question must present new or newly activated information, and thus have focus status. Cleft constructions in particular, like those shown in (1a) and (1b), provide a means of identifying the element in the clefted position as focus (e.g. Rochemont 1986;Lambrecht, 2001), and this is indicated in the example by means of underlining.Knowing the nature of the brain's response to information structure violations can give us a better understanding of the processes that underlie the comprehension of information structure categories like focus; it can also provide insight into the functional significance of the brain response that is elicited. For example, if the answers to wh-questions that violate focus constraints were to elicit an increase in N400 amplitude (Kutas & Hillyard, 1980), this would provide evidence that the N400 is sensitive not only to lexi...

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Section: Disruption Of Thematic Role Assignment: N400 Effects?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Disruption Of Thematic Role Assignment: N400 Effects?mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Violations of information structure: An electrophysiological study of answers to wh-questions

et al. 2007

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“…There have been only a few reports on N400-like effects elicited by syntactic anomalies (see, e.g., Osterhout & Holcomb, 1992;Osterhout, Holcomb, & Swinney, 1994). However, some of these anomalies involved subcategorization violations for which an additional lexical reaccess can be assumed (Frisch & Friederici, 1998;Hopf, Bayer, Bader, & Meng, 1998). Or, the negativity occurred at the final word of a word string, which could be interpreted as an incomplete sentence (e.g., The broker persuaded to sell the STOCK.…”

Section: Notesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Lexical integration: Sequential effects of syntactic and semantic information

1999

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Both semantic and syntactic context constraints can influence word processing at the level of lexical integration. In event-related brain potentials (ERPs), semantic integration is reflected by a negativity around 400 msec (N400), whereas phrase structure assignment and syntactic integration are assumed to be reflected by an early left anterior negativity and a late positivity (P600), respectively. An ERP study is presented in which participants read different types of sentences whose terminal verb was either congruent with the preceding context or incongruent due to a phrase structure violation, a semantic violation, or both. The main finding was that only the pure semantic violation condition, but not the combined semantic and syntactic violation condition, elicited a large N400. The two conditions containing phrase structure violations were predominantly characterized by a P600. Both semantic violation conditions, moreover, displayed a late negativity around 700 msec that overlapped with the P600 in the double violation condition. The absence of an N400 effect for elements that are syntactically as well as semantically incongruent with prior context suggests an early influence of phrase structure information on processes of lexical-semantic integration. The present data are discussed in comparison to previous ERP findings, and a new view of lexical integration processes is proposed.

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“…Experimental studies by Hopf, Bayer, Bader & Meng (1998) and Bader & Bayer (2006) have established that the HU-MAN SENTENCE PROCESSING MECHANISM (HSPM) has an on-line prefererence for assigning accusative (structural) Case to a Case-ambiguous NP/DP whereas dative (lexical) Case is dispreferred. Given that lexical Case in general has to be expressed morphologically, the proposal by Bayer, Bader & Meng (2001) has been that DPs with lexical Case require an extra shell which Bayer et al (2001) dubbed KP -cf.…”

Section: Evidence From Sentence Processingmentioning

confidence: 99%

On the Syntax of Prepositional Phrases

Bayer¹,

Bader²

Interfaces and Interface Conditions

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The standard view about the uniformity of Case assignment by verbs and prepositions is challenged with data from German and an analysis according to which P has a feature structure which involves a Case feature that may not only participate in Case checking but may supply the Case that is missing in the complement of P.Adopting a probe/goal relation of agreement a fair number of peculiarities of the syntax of PPs can be explained such as obligatory pied piping, semantic selection, copy movement, operator scope and the role of adverbial proforms in pronominal PPs. Finally, the asymmetry in Case assignment between V and P is supported by novel data from sentence processing. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- OverviewStandard assumptions about prepositions (P) and prepositional phrases (PP) are that (i) P is a lexical head on a par with V, A, N, and that (ii) PPs are on a par with VP, AP, NP. In particular, (iii) P is thought to assign Case to its complement just like V and A. We summarize some of the evidence indicating that these assumptions meet with a number of problems. Some of these problems have been noticed elsewhere, perhaps most lucidly in Grimshaw (1991).1 InGrimshaw's system of projection extension, PP is the highest extension of N such that N projects to N' and NP, then via D to D' and DP, and finally via P to P' and PP. The idea behind projection extension is that P shares with D and N the categorial feature (in Grimshaw's system [+N, −V]), a proposal that has been made in a more elaborate form by van Riemsdijk (1990;. In section 2 we will point out some of the notorious asymmetries between P/PP and other X/XP. These will encompass pied piping and selection as already discussed by Ross (1987) and Grimshaw (1991), but also novel evidence stemming from findings about copy movement, pronominal PPs, bare indefinites and quantifier binding. Taking up the idea that P is not only a lexical but also a functional head, a theoretical proposal will be made in section 3 which will in section 4 be applied to some of the cases which create a problem for the standard view about P as a lexical head and Case assigner. Evidence from sentence processing in 1 An earlier source is Ross (1967). Ross suggested that PPs undergo pied piping because they are simply a spe- Späth. Berlin, de Gruyter, 2 favor of the theoretical conclusions will be presented in section 5. The results are summarized in section 6.2. Distinctive Properties of P and PP Pied PipingThe data in (1) through (3) show that, in German, as in many other languages, wh-movement must not pied-pipe verbs or adjectives etc. while pied-piping of P is obligatory.( If P were a lexical head with Case assignment functions just like V and A, why should pied piping of PP be forced while pied piping of VP and AP is hardly ever possible? In Grimshaw's (1991) system "the PP is just as much a wh phrase as the DP" because PP is an extension of DP and as such representative of the wh featur...

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Event-Related Brain Potentials and Case Information in Syntactic Ambiguities

Cited by 46 publications

References 43 publications

Violations of information structure: An electrophysiological study of answers to wh-questions

Violations of information structure: An electrophysiological study of answers to wh-questions

Lexical integration: Sequential effects of syntactic and semantic information

On the Syntax of Prepositional Phrases

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