title: The Electrophysiology of Basic Phrase Building.
abstract: A defining trait of linguistic competence is the ability to combine elements into increasingly complex structures to denote, and to comprehend, a potentially infinite number of meanings. Recent magnetoencephalography (MEG) work has investigated these processes by comparing the response to nouns in combinatorial (blue car) and non-combinatorial (rnsh car) contexts. In the current study we extended this paradigm using electroencephalography (EEG) to dissociate the role of semantic content from phonological well-formedness (yerl car). We used event-related potential (ERP) recordings in order to better relate the observed neurophysiological correlates of basic combinatorial operations to prior ERP work on comprehension. We found that nouns in combinatorial contexts (blue car) elicited a greater centro-parietal negativity between 180-400ms, independent of the phonological well-formedness of the context word. We discuss the potential relationship between this 'combinatorial' effect and classic N400 effects. We also report preliminary evidence for an early anterior negative deflection immediately preceding the critical noun in combinatorial contexts, which we tentatively interpret as an electrophysiological reflex of syntactic structure initialization.
authors.affiliation: Department of Linguistics, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland, United States of America.
authors.forename: Chris
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Neufeld
authors.affiliation: Department of Linguistics, Georgetown University, Washington, District of Colombia, United States of America.
authors.forename: Stephanie E
authors.initials: SE
authors.lastname: Kramer
authors.affiliation: Department of Linguistics, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland, United States of America.
authors.forename: Natalia
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Lapinskaya
authors.affiliation: Program in Neuroscience and Cognitive Science, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland, United States of America.|Department of Linguistics, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland, United States of America.|Department of Hearing and Speech Sciences, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland, United States of America.
authors.forename: Christopher C
authors.initials: CC
authors.lastname: Heffner
authors.affiliation: Department of Linguistics, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland, United States of America.
authors.forename: Anton
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Malko
authors.affiliation: Department of Linguistics, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland, United States of America.|Program in Neuroscience and Cognitive Science, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland, United States of America.
authors.forename: Ellen F
authors.initials: EF
authors.lastname: Lau
mesh_terms: D032882:Comprehension / Q000502:physiology; D004569:Electroencephalography; D005071:Evoked Potentials; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007802:Language; D008297:Male; D011578:Psycholinguistics; D013702:Temporal Lobe / Q000502:physiology; D055815:Young Adult