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Exploring the EEG marker for syntactic structure building: evidence from Mandarin
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Poster D26 in Poster Session D, Wednesday, October 25, 4:45 - 6:30 pm CEST, Espace Vieux-Port
This poster is part of the Sandbox Series.
Xinchi Yu1, Xing Tian2,3,4, Ellen Lau1; 1University of Maryland, College Park, 2Division of Arts and Sciences, New York University Shanghai, 3Shanghai Key Laboratory of Brain Functional Genomics (Ministry of Education), School of Psychology and Cognitive Science, East China Normal University, 4NYU-ECNU Institute of Brain and Cognitive Science at NYU Shanghai
Although much research has focused on EEG markers for syntactic violations (i.e., LAN, P600), there is less consensus on an EEG marker for syntactic structure building. While several MEG studies have identified potential markers (Matchin et al., 2019; Law & Pylkkänen, 2021; Matar et al., 2021), EEG studies remain relatively lacking (Neufeld et al., 2016; Fló, Cabana & Valle-Lisboa, 2020). One challenge for such studies is varying syntactic complexity while holding semantic-conceptual content constant. In our current study, we aim to overcome this issue by comparing Mandarin Chinese expressions that differ in syntactic complexity, but share an opaque/idiomatic meaning likely to correspond to only one conceptual unit. We plan to run two pairs of such comparisons: Experiment 1: syntactically simple vs. complex verbs. In Experiment 1 we compare disyllabic inseparable verbs (syntactically simple) and “separable verbs” (syntactically more complex; Chao, 1968; Packard, 2000). “Separable verbs” are verb-like expressions that are syntactically separable, suggesting that they are syntactically complex; inseparable verbs are syntactically inseparable, suggesting that they consist of only 1 syntactic unit or are at least less complex. For example, for the separable verb zao4fan3 (造反, make-reverse, “rebel”), one can say 造了三次反 (zao4le0san1ci4fan3, /zao4/-ASP-three-CL-/fan3/, “rebelled three times”), where the two parts of the separable verb are syntactically apart. On the contrary, syntactic separation is unacceptable for inseparable verbs like tao2pao3 (逃跑, escape-run, “escape”): *逃了三次跑 (tao2le0san1ci4pao3, /tao2/-ASP-three-CL-/pao3/). Critically, both types of verb are semantically opaque. We embed these two types of verbs in neutral (i.e., low-prediction) sentential contexts with segment-by-segment presentation, e.g., 小范/很想/{造反，}/所以/他秘密组织了一支军队 (Fan/really wants to/{rebel,}/therefore/he organized a troop secretly. Critical segment in curly brackets.) The task is to judge whether the last part of the sentence is congruent, and we will compare the ERPs elicited by inseparable vs. separable verbs. Experiment 2: syntactically simple vs. complex nouns. Following the approach of distributed morphology, most Chinese compound nouns have internal syntactic structures (syntactically complex nouns, e.g., bai2cai4 [白菜], white-vegetable, “Napa cabbage”; Cheng & Liu, 2020), except for many transliteration-based loan words, which only consist of one unit (syntactically simple nouns, e.g., ji2ta0 [吉他], /ji2/-/ta0/, “guitar”; cf. Wei et al., 2023). We embed these two types of disyllabic nouns too in neutral sentential contexts, also with a continuation judgement task, e.g., 因为/{吉他}/是/木质的/乐器，/所以/很容易损坏或受潮。(Because/{guitar}/is/wooden/instrument,/therefore/easy to break or get wet.) We will compare the ERPs elicited by syntactically simple vs. complex nouns. We expect to finish subject recruitment and data analysis by SNL 2023.
Topic Areas: Syntax and Combinatorial Semantics, Reading