| dc.description.abstract | There is still a gap in our knowledge about how the brain composes form and meaning in language, but we do know that the ability to compose individual syntactic units into complex utterances is uniquely human. Manipulating syntactic units in simple phrases may help us understand composition in language more clearly. This study is concerned with how syntactic modulation impact composition of minimal phrases. Adjective-noun phrases are investigated using EEG. We studied online event related potentials (ERPs) and offline behavioural responses for 30 Norwegian Bokmål language users using compositional phrases such as “en autentisk maler” (“an authentic painter”) and “en falsk lærer” (“a fake teacher”), and grammar violation phrases such as “en australsk band” (“a Australian band”) and “en cirka professor” (“a circa professor”). This study focuses on one composition comparison composed of three semantic conditions, and two grammar violations: a submodifier violation in a [Det Adv N] construction where the adverb requires an adjective to create meaning, and an agreement violation with the [Det Adj N] construction where the determiner does not follow the inflection of the noun.
The ERPs were derived from the critical noun. A P600 effect were found for both the composition comparisons and the grammar violation comparisons against the baselines. Unexpectedly, we found the P600 effect to be processed similarly for all the conditions mentioned. The results in compositional phrases with and without grammar violations indicate that the P600 might reflect the interplay between syntax and semantics. Additionally, the P600 effect in the submodifier violation condition indicates that participants processed the adverb as a word in which the noun could derive meaning, whether this was derived successfully or not. | |
