INVESTIGADORES
WAINSELBOIM Alejandro Javier
congresos y reuniones científicas
Título:
The role of prominence in Spanish sentence comprehension: an ERP study
Autor/es:
GATTEI, CAROLINA; TABULLO, ÁNGEL; PARÍS, LUIS; WAINSELBOIM, ALEJANDRO
Lugar:
Amsterdam
Reunión:
Congreso; Seventh Meeting of the Societry for Neurobiology of Language; 2014
Institución organizadora:
Society for Neurobiology of Language
Resumen:
One of the major tasks involved in comprehending sentences is
understanding ?who did what to whom?. In order to do so, readers need to
link sentential syntactic constituents to the appropriate thematic role
for each verb. Evidence from German, an SOV language, has shown that
the parser does not wait until the verb is read in order to form a
prediction about how such linking should proceed (Bader and Bayer,
2006). Moreover, a number of studies shows that appearance of an
unexpected verb after prominence (the hierarchical relationship between
sentential arguments) is wrongly computed entails differential
electrophysiological correlates due to thematic reanalysis effects
(Bornkessel, Schlesewsky and Friederici, 2003, Bornkessel- Schlesewsky
and Schlesewsky, 2009 among others). However, up to the best of our
knowledge, little is known about the role of prominence in SVO languages
that also allow word order variation. In order to fill this gap, we
conducted and ERP study in Spanish (N=23), and examined the role of
prominence for comprehension in this language by testing the interplay
between word order (SVO vs. OVS) and type of verb (Activity vs. Object
Experiencer psych verbs). While the verb in sentences (a) and (b) assign
the most prominent role (i.e. Agent) to the nominative constituent, the
verb in sentences (c) and (d) assign the most prominent role (i.e.
Experiencer) to the dative constituent. Agentive SVO: (a) María le grita
a Juan (MaríaNOM yells at JuanDAT); Agentive OVS: (b) A María le grita
Juan (JuanNOM yells at MaríaDAT). OE SVO: (c) María le gusta a Juan
(MaríaNOM appeals to JuanDAT); OE OVS: (d) A María le gusta Juan
(JuanNOM appeals to MaríaDAT); Predictions: If computation of prominence
indeed plays a role for comprehension in languages that allow word
order variation, an ERP effect should be found in both SVO sentences
with object experiencer (OE) verbs, and OVS sentences with activity
verbs, due to difficulty o f integration of these verbs after a
constituent that comprises the least prominent argument of the event.
Results: At the disambiguating region of the verb , subject-initial
sentences show a positivity for OE verbs (maximum at 600 ms;
centroparietal topography); and object-initial sentences show a
negativity (maximum at 400 ms, centroparietal topography), and a
positivity (maximum at 600 ms, broadly distributed topography) for
activity verbs. Conclusion: Results suggest that in context-free
declarative sentences, subject-initial arguments are firstly linked to
the Agent role, the highest ranked thematic role for nominative case in
Spanish. When an OE verb is encountered, thematic role for the previous
argument needs to be revised. Conversely, object-initial arguments are
firstly linked to the role of Experiencer, the most prominent thematic
role for this constituent in initial position. When an agentive verb is
encountered, this decision needs to be amended. All in all, results
demonstrate that thematic expectations -and thus, linking- are generated
incrementally, and may even be based upon the appearance of a single
argument, as it occurs in SVO languages.