Word order effects in German sentences and German pseudo-word sentences

Abstract

Summary: German belongs to those languages that allow a free permutation of subject, direct object and indirect object in verb final sentences. Five linear precedence (LP) principles have been postulated to describe preference patterns for the different word orders ( Uszkoreit, 1986 ). The present study tested if these rules are valid for meaningful German sentences only or also hold for pseudo-word sentences, i.e., if they are independent of semantic language aspects. Twelve students saw sentences in six different but legal word orders and in one illegal word order, either with normal German words or pronounceable pseudo-words. They had to answer a question focussing on the thematic role of one or more complements. In addition, they rated the acceptability of a subset of sentences in all experimental conditions. The canonical word order was processed fastest and processing times increased the more LP-principles were violated, both for normal and pseudo-word sentences. Moreover, acceptability ratings decreased monotonously with an increasing deviation of the sentences from its canonical word order, again irrespective of the stimulus material. The ungrammatical permutation received the lowest acceptability ruting. These results imply that the LP-principles describe syntactical preferences independent of meaning, at least in isolated sentences.

Speech processing activates visual cortex in congenitally blind humans

“…The bilateral rather than left‐lateralized activation of the classical language areas in the blind supplements earlier electrophysiological findings (Röder et al ., 2000). It could be hypothesized that the use of Braille, similar to the use of sign language in the deaf (Neville et al ., 1998), results in a stronger engagement of the right hemisphere for language processing, because Braille also relies more upon spatial components than printed or spoken language (Hermelin & O'Connor, 1971; Karavatos et al ., 1984).…”

“…Due to the case markers (der, dem and den) German allows a permutation of the order of the noun phrases: subject, indirect and direct object (S, IO and DO) without changing the literal meaning of a sentence. However, any deviation from the canonical word order (S–IO–DO) increases comprehension time and thus different noun phrase permutations can be used to systematically vary syntactic processing difficulty both for semantic and nonsemantic speech (for more details see Röder et al ., 2000; Röder et al ., 2002b). Here, we contrasted the syntactically most easy sequences (S‐IO‐DO, S‐DO‐IO) with the most difficult sequences (IO‐DO‐S, DO‐IO‐S).…”

“…Using brain imaging techniques it has been shown that the acquisition of a sign language leads to an altered cerebral organization of language functions in the deaf, thus demonstrating the close interaction between biological constraints and input conditions in the development of functional neuro‐cognitive systems (Neville et al ., 1998; Petitto et al ., 2000). Similarly, electrophysiological measurements which index lexical processing provided evidence for a bilateral rather than a left‐lateralized cerebral organization of language in congenitally blind adults and, moreover, indicated a stronger activation of posterior cortex areas which are usually associated with visual processing in sighted individuals (Röder et al ., 2000). During Braille reading activations similar to those observed during reading print were reported in the blind but an additional ‘visual’ cortex activation was observed (Sadato et al ., 1996; Büchel et al ., 1998b).…”

The emergence of the unmarked: A new perspective on the language‐specific function of Broca's area

“…The ungrammatical fillers were of a similar form as the critical sentences but contained an incorrectly positioned participle. As previous studies have shown that sentences involving multiple permutations are judged to be very close to unacceptable on multipoint judgment scales [e.g., Fiebach et al, 2004; Pechmann et al, 1996; Röder et al, 2000], participants were thus confronted with 102 acceptable sentences (conditions N‐SO, P‐SO, and P‐OS), 68 sentences of a markedly degraded acceptability (condition COMB and the filler sentences), and 34 sentences of medium acceptability (condition N‐OS). Finally, 34 null events (empty trials) were introduced to improve statistical evaluation of the data [Miezin et al, 2000], thus resulting in a total number of 238 trials per participant.…”

“…These considerations, which are standard in the theoretical literature on German [Hoberg, 1981; Lenerz, 1977, 1993; Müller, 1995; Wöllstein‐Leisten et al, 1997], are also supported by a number of empirical findings using a variety of experimental methods. On the one hand, sentences such as Sentence 1 are judged to be less acceptable than are their subject‐initial counterparts [e.g., Pechmann et al, 1996; Röder et al, 2000], engender higher activation in the pars opercularis of the left IFG (i.e., part of Broca's region [Fiebach et al, 2004; Röder et al, 2002]), and elicit a left, frontocentral negativity in terms of event‐related brain potential (ERP) measures at the position of the permuted object [Bornkessel et al, 2002; Rösler et al, 1998; Schlesewsky et al, 2003]. In striking contrast to these findings, the permutation of object pronouns (as in Sentence 2) leads neither to a comparable reduction of sentence acceptability [Bader and Meng, 1999], nor to any ERP effect in comparison to subject‐initial control sentences [Schlesewsky et al, 2003].…”