On the universality of language comprehension strategies: evidence from Turkish.
A fundamental question in psycholinguistic research concerns the universality of comprehension strategies. We investigated this issue by examining the so-called "subject preference" in Turkish, a language which allows for a natural (unmarked) object reading of an initial ambiguous argument. Using event-related brain potentials (ERPs), we observed increased processing difficulty in the form of a broadly distributed positivity when an initial ambiguous argument was disambiguated towards an object reading. This effect was independent of the animacy (i.e. semantic subject prototypicality) of the ambiguous argument. Our results therefore speak in favour of a universal tendency to interpret the first argument encountered as the "subject" of the clause, even in languages providing no obvious structural motivation for such a strategy. However, we argue that the underlying explanation for this preference must be modified in accordance with cross-linguistic considerations.
Demiral
Sükrü Bariş
SB
Independent Junior Research Group Neurotypology, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Stephanstrasse 1A, 04103 Leipzig, Germany. demiral@cbs.mpg.de
Schlesewsky
Matthias
M
Bornkessel-Schlesewsky
Ina
I
D000328:Adult; D002540:Cerebral Cortex / Q000502:physiology; D032882:Comprehension / Q000502:physiology*; D003431:Cross-Cultural Comparison; D003657:Decision Making / Q000502:physiology; D004569:Electroencephalography; D005071:Evoked Potentials / Q000502:physiology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007802:Language; D008297:Male; D011932:Reading; D012660:Semantics