Enough time to get results? An ERP investigation of prediction with complex events

ABSTRACT

How quickly can verb-argument relations be computed to impact predictions of a subsequent argument? We take advantage of the substantial differences in verb-argument structure provided by Mandarin, whose compound verbs encode complex event relations, such as resultatives (Kid bit-broke lip: the kid bit his lip such that it broke) and coordinates (Store owner hit-scolded employee: the store owner hit and scolded an employee). We tested sentences in which the object noun could be predicted on the basis of the preceding compound verb, and used N400 responses to the noun to index successful prediction. By varying the delay between verb and noun, we show that prediction is delayed in the resultative context (broken-BY-biting) relative to the coordinate one (hitting-AND-scolding). These results present a first step towards temporally dissociating the fine-grained subcomputations required to parse and interpret verb-argument relations.

KEYWORDS:

• Sentence processing
• prediction
• argument structure
• compound verb
• N400

Acknowledgements

This research was supported by a National Science Foundation grant (BCS-1749407) to Ellen Lau and the William Orr Dingwall Dissertation Fellowship to Chia-Hsuan Liao. We would like to thank Alexander Williams and Colin Phillips for helpful discussions and Shiao-Hui Chan and her research assistants for the support for EEG data collection in Taiwan. We also thank the two anomalous reviewers for their constructive comments for an earlier version of this paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 The rejection rate was unusually high because (1) the epoch was fairly long (−100 to 1600 ms), and (2) the air conditioner in the lab was broken during data collection section. 10 out of the 20 excluded participants were removed because of sweat artifact.

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by a National Science Foundation grant (BCS-1749407) to Ellen Lau and the William Orr Dingwall Dissertation Fellowship to Chia-Hsuan Liao.