Predicate-argument structure as a link between linguistic and nonlinguistic representations

We present a study wherein a severe Broca's aphasic patient was trained to learn symbols representing both pure transitive and dative predicates--predicates differing in argument structure--in a visually based artificial language (c-ViC). We found a decrease in performance when two symbols, rather than one, were used to depict these "verbs." However, this decrease in performance was more pronounced for symbols representing pure transitive verbs--those that allow only one argument structure--than for symbols representing dative verbs--those that allow two different argument structures. Also, dative "verbs" yielded better performance when they were inserted in more complex, three-argument "sentences" than when they were inserted in two-argument "sentences." The opposite pattern was found for pure transitives. These results are discussed in terms of our claim that argument structure serves as a point of connection between linguistic information and non-linguistic visual information and in terms of the possibility that argument structure entries are shaped by the form in which visual information is parsed.     

Modularity in locating Wh-gaps

In this paper we report our finding that the parsing routine responsible for locating the deep-structure position of a wh-phrase operates independently of semantic/pragmatic knowledge, suggesting a modular organization of the human sentence processor. Specifically, wh-phrases that were semantically implausible as a direct object of the matrix verb were nonetheless reactivated in that position. Further, reactivation of the wh-phrase was observed despite the fact that the matrix verbs were three-place predicates (e.g.,remind) — a class of verbs which, some experiments suggest, allow interactive effects (e.g., Tanenhaus, Boland, Garnsey, & Carlson, 1989). We argue that this disparity in findings is due to the difference between the cross-modal lexical priming (CMLP) task used in the present study, and the tasks used by Tanenhaus et al.We gratefully acknowledge Penny Prather, Catherine Stern, and David Swinney for their technical assistance, and also Brian Hickok. This work has also benefitted from helpful discussions with Michael Tanenhaus and Stephen Crain, as well as from the comments of two anonymous reviewers.     

Who Do You Love, Your Mother or Your Horse? An Event-Related Brain Potential Analysis of Tone Processing in Mandarin Chinese

In Mandarin Chinese, word meaning is partially determined by lexical tone (Wang, 1973). Previous studies suggest that lexical tone is processed as linguistic information and not as pure tonal information (Gandour, 1998; Van Lanker & Fromkin, 1973). The current study explored the online processing of lexical tones. Event-related potentials were obtained from 25 Mandarin speakers while they listened to normal and anomalous sentences containing one of three types of semantic anomalies created by manipulating the tone, the syllable, or both tone and syllable (double-anomaly) of sentence-final words. We hypothesized N400 effects elicited by all three types of anomalies and the largest by the double-anomaly. As expected, all three elicited N400 effects starting approximately 150 ms poststimulus and continuing until 1000 ms in some areas. Surprisingly, onset of the double-anomaly effect was approximately 50 ms later than the rest. Delayed detection of errors in this condition may be responsible for the apparent delay. Slight differences between syllable and tone conditions may be due to the relative timing of these acoustic cues.