The status of subject–object reanalyses in the language comprehension architecture

• Published in: Journal of memory and language Vol. 59; no. 1; pp. 54 - 96
• Main Authors: Haupt, Friederike S., Schlesewsky, Matthias, Roehm, Dietmar, Friederici, Angela D., Bornkessel-Schlesewsky, Ina
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: San Diego, CA Elsevier Inc 01.07.2008; Elsevier; Elsevier BV
• Subjects: Argument Structure; Behavioral psychophysiology; Biological and medical sciences; Complements; Comprehension; Correlation; Electrophysiology; Event Related Potentials; Experimental psychology; Extended Argument Dependency Model; Form Classes (Languages); Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; German; German language; Grammar; Grammatical function reanalysis; Hypothesis Testing; Language; Language Processing; Language Research; Late positivity; Linguistics; Listening comprehension; Miscellaneous; N400; P600; Phrase Structure; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychology. Psychophysiology; Semantics; Sentences; Subject; Subject–object ambiguity; Syntax Semantics Relationship; Late positivity; N400; P600; Subject–object ambiguity; Extended Argument Dependency Model; Grammatical function reanalysis; Human; Verbal comprehension; Subject-object ambiguity; Architecture; Central nervous system; Electrophysiology; German; Cognition; Grammar; Experimental study; Encephalon; Language; Models; Event evoked potential; Ambiguity
• ISSN: 0749-596X; 1096-0821
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jml.2008.02.003

This paper examines the hypothesis that grammatical function reanalyses in simple sentences should not be treated as phrase structure revisions, but rather as increased costs in “linking” an argument from a syntactic to a semantic representation. To this end, we investigated whether subject–object reanalyses in German verb-final sentences can be associated with an electrophysiological processing signature that is distinct from the response typically engendered by structure-affecting reanalyses (the P600). We hypothesized that the previously observed heterogeneous ERP component pattern for subject-object reanalyses in German might be due to task- or strategy-related interactions between the critical processing mechanisms and the experimental environment. In order to minimize specific task influences, Experiment 1 therefore embedded subject–object ambiguities into short stories (presented auditorily). Constructions with dative and accusative objects both showed a biphasic N400-late positivity pattern for disambiguation towards an object-initial structure. These results thus contrast with previous findings, in showing that there is no principled difference in the component pattern for the two types of structures. This conclusion was confirmed by the results of Experiment 2, which presented the identical accusative sentences from Experiment 1 in isolation using two different tasks (comprehension vs. acceptability) and again revealed N400-late positivity responses. From the overall data pattern, we conclude that the N400 is a robust correlate of grammatical function reanalysis that occurs independently of any lexical factors and, consequently, that grammatical function reanalysis is functionally distinct from phrase structure reanalysis.