title: Phonotactic constraint violations in German grammar are detected automatically in auditory speech processing: a human event-related potentials study.
abstract: In this human ERP study, effects of language-specific phonotactic restrictions on automatic auditory speech processing were investigated by means of the dorsal fricative assimilation (DFA) that is obligatory in German grammar. Using a multiple passive oddball paradigm, we studied the deviance-related processing of phonotactically ill-formed strings violating DFA. Eight VC-syllables were created by exhaustively combining the vowels [Y,..,...,...] and the dorsal fricatives [Ç X], resulting in four well-formed and four ill-formed stimuli that were contrasted in oddball blocks with changing probabilities of occurrence. Only the ill-formed deviants elicited a negative ERP deflection maximal at about 100 msec after the onset of the fricative. This negativity is considered to reflect a phonotactic evaluation process requiring the activation of implicit phonotactic knowledge from long-term memory and resulting in the automatic detection of a DFA violation.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Psychology, University of Leipzig, Leipzig, Germany Centre for General Linguistics (ZAS), Berlin, Germany. j.steinberg@uni-leipzig.de
authors.forename: Johanna
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Steinberg
authors.forename: Hubert
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Truckenbrodt
authors.forename: Thomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Jacobsen
mesh_terms: D000161:Acoustic Stimulation; D000328:Adult; D001931:Brain Mapping; D002540:Cerebral Cortex / Q000502:physiology*; D004569:Electroencephalography; D005072:Evoked Potentials, Auditory / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007802:Language; D008037:Linguistics; D008297:Male; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology; D013067:Speech Perception / Q000502:physiology*