title: Structural syntactic prediction measured with ELAN: evidence from ERPs.
abstract: The current study used event-related potentials (ERPs) to investigate how and when argument structure information is used during the processing of sentences with a filler-gap dependency. We hypothesize that one specific property - animacy (living vs. non-living) - is used by the parser during the building of the syntactic structure. Participants heard sentences that were rated off-line as having an expected noun (Who did the Lion King chase the caravan with?) or an unexpected noun (Who did Lion King chase the animal with?). This prediction is based on the animacy properties relation between the wh-word and the noun in the object position. ERPs from the noun in the unexpected condition (animal) elicited a typical Early Left Anterior Negativity (ELAN)/P600 complex compared to the noun in the expected condition (caravan). Firstly, these results demonstrate that the ELAN reflects not only grammatical category violation but also animacy property expectations in filler-gap dependency. Secondly, our data suggests that the language comprehension system is able to make detailed predictions about aspects of the upcoming words to build up the syntactic structure.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Cambridge, UK; Goldsmiths College, University of London, UK. ef309@cam.ac.uk
authors.forename: Elisabeth
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Fonteneau
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D032882:Comprehension; D004569:Electroencephalography; D005071:Evoked Potentials; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008037:Linguistics; D008297:Male; D013067:Speech Perception; D055815:Young Adult