句子理解过程中词类加工的功能性质

句法优先理论假设词类加工功能上优先于语义、动词论元结构和话语信息加工。来自德语和法语的证据显示, 词类违反阻断语义整合和动词论元结构加工, 因而词类优先于语义和动词论元结构。关于词类加工在功能上是否优先于话语信息加工, 尚无来自任何语言的证据。汉语证据尽管显示词类并不优先于语义, 但未充分讨论任务因素的影响。将来研究有必要使用ERP技术和违反范式, 从语义整合、动词论元结构加工和话语水平加工等多个层面, 同时操纵词类的正确性和非句法因素, 考察句法特性上与德语和法语不同的语言, 如汉语和韩语。这方面研究将有助于洞察一个语言的语言学特性如何制约或调整词类加工的功能性质。

The Functional Status of Syntactic Category Processing in Sentence Comprehension

Syntax-first theories assume that the processing of syntactic category (SC) is functionally prior to that of lexical semantics, verb argument structure, and discourse information. Previous event-related brain potential (ERP) studies in German and French have demonstrated that SC violations block both semantic and argument structure processing and thus SC has a functional primacy over the other two processes. It is still unknown whether there is also a functional primacy of SC over discourse processing, for any language. Although previous studies in Chinese revealed no functional primacy of SC over semantics, they didn’t thoroughly address the possible influence of experimental tasks on the findings. Further studies need to investigate the functional status of SC relative to a variety of non-syntactic information such as lexical semantics, verb argument structure, as well as discourse information, in languages that differ from German and French in terms of syntactic properties, such as Chinese and Korean. In addition, these studies should record ERPs in the violation paradigm in which non-syntactic factors and the correctness of SC are manipulated simultaneously, as done in previous studies.