汉语句子理解中句法启动机制的眼动和ERP研究

语言产生的句法启动效应在近20年得到较深入研究。那么, 语言理解和语言产生中, 句法启动效应具有相同的加工机制吗？近些年, 研究者考察了印欧语系语言理解中的启动效应, 但还存在较多争论。这究竟是句法效应, 还是策略或者语义效应, 是词汇驱动还是词汇独立的？而且, 这是人类语言理解的语系特性还是普遍特性？单独采用行为技术、眼动技术或者ERP技术很难为这些争论提供坚实的实验证据和较深入的理论解释。鉴于此, 本项目拟采用眼动和ERP结合的技术, 从心理学、语言学和认知神经科学等多学科交叉的视角考查汉语句子理解的句法启动效应。通过分析眼动和ERP实验提供的一致性和差异性证据, 本项目力图阐明和揭示汉语句子理解中句法启动效应的认知特点和机制, 检验内隐学习理论和论元结构理论在解释句法启动效应时的适用性。

Syntactic Priming in Chinese Sentence Comprehention: Evidence from Eye Movements and ERP

The syntactic priming effect in language production has been profoundly investigated during the last 20 years. The question remains, however, as to whether the effect would trigger the same processing in comprehension and production. Researchers have recently investigated the priming effect in the comprehension of Indo-European languages, leaving many disputes unsolved. Is the priming effect syntactic, strategic, or semantic? Is the effect lexically driven or lexically independent? In addition, is it language specific or language universal in human language comprehension? Given that the employment of a mere behavioral technique, eye tracking or ERP may not provide solid empirical support or the insightful theoretical explanation regarding those disputes, this study intends to explore the syntactic priming effect in Chinese sentence comprehension from an interdisciplinary perspective, embracing psychology, linguistics, and neurocognitive science, using both eye tracking and ERP. Based on the analysis of the consistent and inconsistent evidences provided by the eye tracking and ERP experiments, the researchers aim at finding out the cognitive characteristics and mechanisms of the syntactic priming effect in Chinese sentence comprehension as well as examining the adaption of the theories of implicit learning and argument structure in accounting for the syntactic priming effects.