Semantic and syntactic processing in Chinese sentence comprehension: Evidence from eventrelated pote

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Semantic and syntactic processing in Chinese
sentence comprehension Evidence from
event-related potentials Zheng Ye, Yue-kia
Luo, Angela D. Friederici, Xiaolin
ZhouPresenter Brian Lin
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Two models in sentence processing

• Syntax-first models
• Parser initially builds a syntactic structure on
  the basis of word category information
  independent of lexical-semantic information.
  Thematic role assignment takes place during a
  second stage.
• Interactive models
• Syntactic and semantic processes already interact
  at an early stage.

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Friedericis Neurocognitive model of auditory
sentence processing
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Components

• Components
• Early LAN (ELAN, 160 ms) word-category errors,
  and has a maximum over the left anterior scalp.
• LAN (100-500 ms) morphosyntactic errors
• N400 semantic errors or integration into the
  preceding context.
• P600 (600-1000 ms) outright syntactic violations
  
• Friederici claimed that phrase structural
  violations are correlated with ELAN followed
  P600.

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Syntactic semantic
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Syntactic semantic condition?

• What would happen in a syntactic semantic
  conditions?
• Friedericis predictions
• If syntactic and semantic processing occur in
  succession ?ELAN, N400 and P600
• Lexical-semantic info is used early and interacts
  with syntactic info ? different ELAN from pure
  syntactic violations.
• If semantic violation does not influence phrase
  structure building ? ELAN and N400 will be
  affected since lexical integration is not
  licensed.

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Hahne Friederici (2002)

• Passive German sentences, auditory presented.
• N 15 adult German college students
• Grammaticality judgment task

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Hahne Friederici (2002)
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Concerns about the 1st Expt

• Studies on word-word priming effects have shown
  that a modulation of the N400 component is
  dependent on attentional mechanisms.
• Thus the lack of N400 in the combined situation
  might be due to attentional aspect.

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Hahne Friedericis Expt 2

• N 16
• Procedures was identical to the first expt,
  except that subjects were told to ignore
  syntactic violations and focus on semantic
  coherence of the sentences only.

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Hahne Friedericis conclusions

• The task-induced emphasis on semantics did not
  affect ELAN.
• In the case of phrase structure violation
  semantic integration was not initiated
  automatically, but could still be initiated by
  attentional mechanisms.

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No ELAN on Takazawa et al. (2002)

• N 16 adult Japanese speakers.
• Stimuli
• correct
• Semantic anomalies
• Violating the dependency b/w a verb and its
  argument.
• Syntactic anomalies
• What-phrase followed by confirmative marker.
• Stimuli were presented phrase-by-phrase visually.
  Each phrase was presented for 500ms. ISI also
  500ms.
• Grammaticality judgment task.

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No ELAN on Takazawa et al. (2002)

• N400 for semantic anomalies and P600 for
  syntactic anomalies.
• But NO ELAN or LAN. Why?
• Due to visual presentation.
• Difference in syntactic violation types
• Neither phrase structure violations nor
  morphosyntactic violations.

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Ye et al.s experiment procedures

• N12 Chinese adult speakers
• Auditory presented stimuli (240 experimental BA
  sentences and 120 filler sentences).
• Grammaticality judgment of experimental sentences
  and only trials with correct responses were
  analyzed.
• Stimuli lasted for 1000 ms.

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Ba construction (disposal sentence)

• SVO sentence
• ? ? ? ???
• I sell le car
• (I have sold the car.)

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Ba construction (disposal sentence)

• SVO sentence
• ? ? ? ???
• I sell le car
• (I have sold the car.)
• Ba sentence (S BA O V) the direct object is
  placed immediately after BA and before the verb.
• ? ? ?? ? ?
• I BA car sell le
• (I have sold the car.)

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Ba construction (disposal sentence) continued

• Its not that simple! Its ok to say
• ? ? ? ? ? ??
• He buy le a CL car
• (He has bought a car.)

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Ba construction (disposal sentence)

• Its not that simple! Its ok to say
• ? ? ? ? ? ??
• He buy le a CL car
• (He has bought a car.)
• But weird to use Ba construction here!
• ? ? ? ? ? ? ??
• He BA a CL car buy le
• (He has bought a car.)

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Ye et al.s experimental conditions

• Correct
• ??? ?? ??, ? ?? ? ??
• Stylist make new clothes BA cloth tailor le
• (To make new dresses, the stylist tailored the
  cloth.)
• Semantically incorrect
• ??? ?? ??, ? ?? ? ??
• Timberjack exploit forest BA pine tailor le
• (Exploiting the forest, the timberjack tailored
  pine trees.)
• Syntactically incorrect
• ??? ?? ??, ? ? ??
• Stylist make new clothes BA tailor le
• (To make new dresses, the stylist tailored.)
• Combined incorrect
• ??? ?? ??, ? ? ??
• Timberjack exploit forest BA tailor le
• (Exploiting the forest, the timberjack tailored.)

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Predictions

• What would happen in a syntactic semantic
  conditions?
• If syntactic and semantic occur in succession
  ?ELAN, N400 and P600
• Syntactic phrase structure building independent
  of semantic processing ? ELAN followed by P600
• If semantic and syntactic processes interact in
  later processing stages ? N400 and P600 will be
  affected in some way.

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Ye et al. result
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Ye et al. result
ELAN for syn Combined.
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Ye et al. result
ELAN for syn Combined.
P600 ? Not sig.
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Ye et al. result
ELAN for syn Combined.
Early N400. Bigger for syn combined
P600 ? Not sig.
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Ye et al. results

• Syntactic violation ELAN but no P600 (no
  significant main effect, and could be due to
  possible overlap of largely distributed later
  negativity and P600.)
• Semantic violation Early N400
• May be due to monosyllabic words took less time
  to process.
• Context dependency from the first clause.

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Ye et al. results.

• Combined violations pattern similar to syntactic
  violation, but demonstrate a larger negativity in
  250-400 time window.
• Suggest that semantic and syntactic information
  are processed in parallel in an early phase of
  comprehension!
• In Mandarin, semantic and syntactic processes
  seem to be independent in an early time window
  and interact in a late processing phase.

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Questions and Comments

• The latency of a component only show the earliest
  time point when the machine reveals the
  differences but not necessarily the onset of the
  cognitive process!
• In this study, there were only 12 participants
  and they had all 4 conditions of each verb. Is
  this usual in ERP research?
• It takes less time to process the semantic
  information in monosyllabic than in
  polysyllabic. Shorter words don't necessarily
  mean that they have simpler information.
• In both syntactic violation and combined
  sentences, the violation word didn't exist in the
  sentence. The early negativity has already
  detected the violation. There is no need to do
  further analysis.
• Visual vs. auditory presentation. Is it possible
  that the visual presentation affords some small
  amount of parafoveal processing, however
  miniscule, that may alter the timing of the
  phrase processing (and additionally if that is
  different across the languages)?