title: The time course of semantic and syntactic processing in Chinese sentence comprehension: evidence from eye movements.
abstract: In the present study, we examined the time course of semantic and syntactic processing when Chinese is read. Readers' eye movements were monitored, and the relation between a single-character critical word and the sentence context was manipulated such that three kinds of sentences were developed: (1) congruent, (2) those with a semantic violation, and (3) those with both a semantic and a syntactic violation. The eye movement data showed that the first-pass reading times were significantly longer for the target region in the two violation conditions than in the congruent condition. Moreover, the semantic+syntactic violation caused more severe disruption than did the pure semantic violation, as reflected by longer first-pass reading times for the target region and by longer go-past times for the target region and posttarget region in the former than in the latter condition. These results suggest that the effects of, at least, a semantic violation can be detected immediately by Chinese readers and that the processing of syntactic and semantic information is distinct in both first-pass and second-pass reading.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, South China Normal University, Guangzhou, China.
authors.forename: Jinmian
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.forename: Suiping
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: Hsuan-Chih
authors.initials: HC
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.forename: Keith
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Rayner
mesh_terms: D001288:Attention; D002681:China; D032882:Comprehension; D005133:Eye Movements; D006801:Humans; D007802:Language; D011578:Psycholinguistics; D011930:Reaction Time; D011932:Reading; D012660:Semantics; D012718:Set, Psychology