The time course of semantic and syntactic processing in reading Chinese: Evidence from ERPs

Abstract

The time course of semantic and syntactic processing in reading Chinese was examined by recording event-related brain potentials (ERPs) as native Chinese speakers read individually presented sentences for comprehension and performed semantic plausibility judgments. The transitivity of the verbs in Chinese ba/bei constructions was manipulated to form three types of stimuli: Congruent sentences (CON), sentences with semantic violation (SEM), and sentences with combined semantic and syntactic violation (SEM+SYN). Compared with the critical words in CON, those in SEM and SEM+SYN elicited an N400-P600 biphasic pattern. The N400 effects in both violation conditions were of similar size and distribution, but the P600 in SEM+SYN was bigger than that in SEM. Overall, the lack of a difference between SEM and SEM+SYN in the earlier time window (i.e., N400 window) suggested that syntactic processing in Chinese does not necessarily occur earlier than semantic processing.

Keywords:

• Semantic processing
• Syntactic processing
• ERPs
• N400
• P600

Acknowledgments

This research was supported by Grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (30970894) and the MOE Project of Key Research Institute of Humanities and Social Sciences in Universities in China (10JJDXLX005) to Suiping Wang, and grants from the Research Grants Council of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, China (CUHK441008 and 441811) to Hsuan-Chih Chen. Copies of the stimuli used in the experiment are available on request from the first author.

Notes

¹We also split the items into two groups according to the type of construction, i.e., ba and bei, each containing 60 sets of sentences, to see whether the two constructions would have different effects on our manipulation of the critical words. We added construction type as a factor in the ANOVA for the midline and lateral sites. None of the effects involving construction type was significant, indicating the pattern of results for ba and bei constructions was similar at the critical word. We, therefore, collapsed the two types of construction in our analyses.

²The global ANOVA for midline electrodes showed a significant main effect of condition [F(2, 34)=8.02, p <.01, η² _p=.32] and a significant condition × electrode interaction [F(14, 238)=2.76, p< .05, η=.14]. Separate ANOVAs at each electrode showed that the main effect of condition was significant at all the midline electrodes [all Fs> 3.24, ps<.05], but not at FPz [F < 1]. Planned comparisons carried out at the 7 electrodes with a significant main effect showed that, relative to the critical words in CON, those in SEM and SEM+SYN evoked a pronounced negativity [all Fs > 3.6, ps<.05], but no significant difference was found between the two violation conditions [all Fs < .3]. The global ANOVA for lateral sites yielded a significant main effect of condition [F(2, 34)=7.96, p<.01, η² _p=.32], and a significant condition × region interaction [F(4, 68)=3.90, p<.05, η² _p=.19]. Separate ANOVAs limited to each region showed that the main effect of condition reached significance in central [F(2, 34)=7.09, p<.01, η² _p=.29] and posterior [F(2, 34)=14.36, p<.001, η² _p=.46] regions, but not at anterior region [F(2, 34)=1.83]. Planned comparisons in each region revealed significant differences between SEM and CON in anterior

[F(1, 17)=4.62, p< .05, η² _p=.21], central [F(1, 17)=8.76, p<.01, η² _p=.34] and posterior [F(1, 17)=17.40, p<.01, η² _p=.51] regions, between SEM+SYN and CON in central [F(1, 17)=8.37, p<.05, η² _p=.33] and posterior [F(1, 17)=28.75, p<.001, η² _p=.63] regions, but no reliable difference was found between SEM and SEM+SYN in any region [Fs < 1]. Compared with the critical words in CON, those in SEM and SEM+SYN gave rise to an N400 of equal size and similar distribution. The two-way or three-way interactions involving hemisphere were not significant [Fs < 1], indicating that the N400 in both violation conditions was bilaterally distributed.