The child the apple eats: processing of argument structure in Mandarin verb-final sentences.

ABSTRACT: Mandarin Chinese is typologically unusual among the world's languages in having flexible word order despite a near absence of inflectional morphology. These features of Mandarin challenge conventional linguistic notions such as subject and object and the divide between syntax and semantics. In the present study, we tested monolingual processing of argument structure in Mandarin verb-final sentences, where word order alone is not a reliable cue. We collected participants' responses to a forced agent-assignment task while measuring their electroencephalography data to capture real-time processing throughout each sentence. We found that sentence interpretation was not informed by word order in the absence of other cues, and while the coverbs BA and BEI were strong signals for agent selection,

SUBMITTER: Wolpert M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11372106 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature