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| Research article summary (published 30 Oct 2002): |
Electrophysiological estimates of biological and syntactic gender violation during pronoun processing.
Full Abstract
During comprehension, a personal pronoun (he, she, it) refers to a preceding referent (boy, girl, child). This co-reference could be established, among other ways, by using (i). conceptual/semantic information (biological gender agreement between the pronoun and its referent), (ii). syntactic information (syntactic gender agreement), or (iii). both. This event-related brain potential (ERP) study assesses this interplay of syntactic and semantic information. We focussed on the N400 component, related to semantic integration, and the SPS/P600 component, related to syntactic reanalysis. The study was conducted in German, because its rich syntactic gender system offers a means to dissociate between biological (MALE/FEMALE) and syntactic gender (masculine/feminine/neuter), especially in the case of diminutives (das(neuter) Bübchen(MALE) [the little boy]). German subjects read sentences in which a referent (Bübchen(MALE-neuter)/Bub(MALE-masculine) [boy]) was introduced. Later a personal pronoun was presented which either agreed with the referent in terms of syntactic gender, or in terms of biological gender, or both, or violated both agreements. Overall, results showed salient P600 effects for pronouns. This indicates that the establishment of reference involves syntactic reanalysis. Furthermore, we observed N400 effects in sentences with non-diminutives, but not with diminutives. This shows that conceptual/semantic integration is involved during non-diminutive but not during diminutive pronoun processing, or at least it could not be violated. The overall pattern of results supports the claim that for non-diminutives, both syntactic and conceptual information is used to establish co-reference, while for diminutives the process might be purely syntactically driven.
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Author information
Author/s: Schmitt, Bernadette M (BM); Lamers, Monique (M); Münte, Thomas F (TF);
Affiliation: Department of Neurocognition, Faculty of Psychology, Maastricht University, PO Box 616, 6200 MD, Maastricht, The Netherlands. b.schmitt(-atsign-)psychology.unimaas.nl
Journal and publication information
Publication Type: Journal Article; Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
Journal: Brain research. Cognitive brain research (Brain Res Cogn Brain Res), published in Netherlands. (Language: eng)
Reference: 2002-Nov; vol 14 (issue 3) : pp 333-46
Dates: Created 2002/11/07; Completed 2003/02/07; Revised 2006/11/15;
PMID: 12421657, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 11/6/2008)
Sourced from the National Library of Medicine. Abstract text and other information may be subject to copyright.
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