Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-2xdlg Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-06-28T12:21:26.221Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Context influences the processing of verb transitivity in French sentences: more evidence for semantic−syntax interactions*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 March 2014

CYRILLE MAGNE ,
MIREILLE BESSON  and
STÉPHANE ROBERT
CYRILLE MAGNE*
Affiliation:
Psychology Department, Middle Tennessee State University, Murfreesboro, TN, USA
MIREILLE BESSON
Affiliation:
Laboratoire de Neurosciences Cognitives, CNRS & Aix-Marseille Université, Fédération 3C, Marseille, France, and Cuban Neuroscience Center, Habana, Cuba
STÉPHANE ROBERT
Affiliation:
LLACAN, CNRS and INALCO, Paris, France
*
†Address for correspondence: e-mail: Cyrille.Magne@mtsu.edu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The influence of semantic context on verb argument structure processing was investigated in two experiments using both ERP and behavioral measures. Participants were presented with sentences ending with syntactically and/or semantically congruous or incongruous noun phrases and they were asked to judge the overall acceptability of the sentences. Syntactically incongruous sentences contained an intransitive verb followed by a direct object (e.g., *L’ennemi a conspiré (INTR) un complot *‘The enemy conspired a scheme’). In line with our hypothesis, results showed that the processing of syntactic incongruities was influenced by the degree of semantic congruency between the different sentence constituents (strong in Experiment 1 and weak in Experiment 2). Thus, the same syntactic incongruity was processed differently depending upon the semantic context of the sentence, thereby demonstrating the influence of semantic context on syntactic processing. We propose a linguistic account of the differential effects of verb transitivity as a function of the semantic context based upon Cognitive Construction Grammar and Frame Semantics.

Keywords

ERPsyntaxsemanticscontext effectN400P600
Type
Research Article
Information
Language and Cognition , Volume 6 , Issue 2 , June 2014 , pp. 181 - 216
Copyright
Copyright © UK Cognitive Linguistics Association 2014 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

This research was supported by the research program from the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), ‘Diversité des langues: enjeux cognitifs’ (GDR 1955), supervised by Stéphane Robert, and by a grant from the Human Frontier Science Program to Mireille Besson (HSFP: RGP0053). Cyrille Magne was supported by a research grant from the Cognitive program (French Ministry of research). The authors thank Monique Chiambretto for her methodological assistance, Michel Charolles for inspiring and initiating this experiment, and Catherine Fuchs, Jean-Luc Nespoulous, Bernard Pachoud, Bernard Victorri, and Yves-Marie Visetti for fruitful discussions and critical comments on a previous version of the manuscript.

References

references

Barlow, M., & Kemmer, S. (2000). Usage-based models of language. Stanford: CSLI Publications.Google Scholar
Bescherelle (1990). Bescherelle 3: La grammaire pour tous. Paris: Editions Hatier.Google Scholar
Boons, J. P., Guillet, A., & Leclerc, C. (1976). La structure des phrases simples en français: Constructions intransitives. Genève: Droz.Google Scholar
Bornkessel, I., & Schlesewsky, M. (2006). The extended argument dependency model: a neurocognitive approach to sentence comprehension across languages. Psychological Review, 113 (4), 787–821.Google Scholar
Bornkessel, I., Schlesewsky, M., & Friederici, A. D. (2002). Beyond syntax: language-related positivities reflect the revision of hierarchies. Neuroreport, 13 (3), 361–364.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bornkessel-Schlesewsky, I., & Schlesewsky, M. (2008). An alternative perspective on ‘semantic P600’ effects in language comprehension. Brain Research Reviews, 59 (1), 55–73.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bresnan, J. (2001). Lexical-functional syntax. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Brouwer, H., Fitz, H., & Hoeks, J. (2012). Getting real about semantic illusions: rethinking the functional role of the P600 in language comprehension. Brain Research, 1446, 127–143.Google Scholar
Brown, C. M., & Hagoort, P. (1999). The cognitive neuroscience of language: challenges and future directions. In Brown, C. M., & Hagoort, P. (Eds.), The neurocognition of language (pp. 3–14). Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Brown, C. M., Hagoort, P. & Kutas, M. (2000). Postlexical integration processes in language comprehension: evidence from brain-imaging research. In Gazzaniga, M. S. (Ed.), The new cognitive neurosciences (pp. 881–895). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Chomsky, N. (1965). Aspects of the theory of syntax. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Comrie, B. (1993). Argument structure. In Jacobs, J., von Stechow, A., Sternefeld, W., & Venneman, T. (Eds.), Syntax: Ein internationales handbuch zeitgenössischer forschung: Halbband 1 [An international handbook of contemporary research: Volume 1] (pp. 905–914). Berlin/New York: Walter de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Conjugaison (2005). Collection Le Robert et Nathan. Paris: Nathan.Google Scholar
Coulson, S., King, J., & Kutas, M. (1998). Expect the unexpected: event-related brain response to morphosyntactic violations. Language and Cognitive Processes, 13 (1), 21–58.Google Scholar
De Swart, P. (2007). Cross-linguistic variation in object marking. Unpublished dissertation, University of Nijmegen.Google Scholar
Deutsch, V., & Bentin, S. (2001). Syntactic and semantic factors in processing gender agreement in Hebrew: evidence from ERPs and eye movements. Journal of Memory and Language, 45, 200–224.Google Scholar
Dixon, R. M. W., & Aikhenvald, A. Y. (2000). Introduction. In Dixon, R. M. W., & Aikhenvald, A. Y. (Eds.), Changing valency: case studies in transitivity (pp. 1–29). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Eckstein, K., & Friederici, A. D. (2005). Late interaction of syntactic and prosodic processes in sentence comprehension as revealed by ERPs. Cognitive Brain Research, 25 (1), 130–143.Google Scholar
Fillmore, C. J. (1982). Frame Semantics. In Linguistic Society of Korea (Ed.), Linguistics in the morning calm (pp. 111–138). Seoul: Hanshin.Google Scholar
Fillmore, C. J., Lee-Goldman, R., & Rhodes, R. (2012). The FrameNet Constructicon. In Sag, I. A., & Boas, H. C. (Eds.), Sign-based Construction Grammar. Stanford: CSLI Publications.Google Scholar
Frazier, L., & Clifton, C. Jr. (1996). Construal. Boston: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Friederici, A. D. (2002). Towards a neural basis of auditory sentence processing. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 6 (2), 78–84.Google Scholar
Friederici, A. D., & Frisch, S. (2000). Verb argument structure processing: the role of verb specific and argument-specific information. Journal of Memory and Language, 43 (3). 476–507.Google Scholar
Friederici, A. D., Gunter, T. C., Hahne, A., & Mauth, K. (2004). The relative timing of syntactic and semantic processes in sentence comprehension. NeuroReport, 15 (1), 165–169.Google Scholar
Friederici, A. D., Pfeifer, E., & Hahne, A. (1993). Event-related brain potentials during natural speech processing: effects of semantic, morphological and syntactic violations. Cognitive Brain Research, 1 (3). 183–192.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Frisch, S., Hahne, A., & Friederici, A. D. (2004). Word category and verb-argument structure information in the dynamics of parsing. Cognition, 91 (3), 191–219.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Geyer, A., Holcomb, P., Kuperberg, G., & Perlmutter, N. (2006). Plausibility and sentence comprehension: an ERP study. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, Supplement 2006.Google Scholar
Givón, T. (2001). Syntax: an introduction. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Goldberg, A. (1995). Constructions: a construction grammar approach to argument structure. Chicago/London: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Goldberg, A. (1997). The relationships between verbs and constructions. In Verspoor, M., & Sweetser, E. (Eds.), Lexicon and grammar (pp. 383–398). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Goldberg, A. (2005). Argument realization: the role of constructions, lexical semantics and discourse factors. In Östman, J. O, & Fried, M. (Eds.), Construction Grammars: cognitive grounding and theoretical extensions (pp. 17–43). Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Goldberg, A. (2006). Construction at work: the nature of generalization in language. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Gunter, T. C., Friederici, A. D., & Schriefers, H. (2000). Syntactic gender and semantic expectancy: ERPs reveal early autonomy and late interaction. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 12 (4), 556–568.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gunter, T. C., Stowe, L. A, & Mulder, G. (1997). When syntax meets semantics. Psychophysiology, 34 (6), 660–676.Google Scholar
Hagoort, P. (2003). Interplay between syntax and semantics during sentence comprehension: ERP effects of combining syntactic and semantic violations. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 15 (6), 883–899.Google Scholar
Hagoort, P. (2008). The fractionation of spoken language understanding by measuring electrical and magnetic brain signals. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London B: Biological Sciences, 363, 1055–1069.Google Scholar
Hagoort, P., Brown, C. M., & Groothusen, J. (1993). The Syntactic Positive Shift (SPS) as an ERP measure of syntactic processing. Language and Cognitive Processes, 8 (4), 439–484.Google Scholar
Hahne, A., & Friederici, A. D. (1999). Electrophysiological evidence for two steps in syntactic analysis: early automatic and late controlled processes. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 11 (2), 194–205.Google Scholar
Hahne, A., & Friederici, A. D. (2002). Differential task effects on semantic and syntactic processes as revealed by ERPs. Cognitive Brain Research, 13 (3), 339–356.Google Scholar
Hoeks, J. C., Stowe, L. A., & Doedens, G. (2004). Seeing words in context: the interaction of lexical and sentence level information during reading. Cognitive Brain Research, 19 (1), 59–73.Google Scholar
Hopper, P. J., & Thompson, S. A. (1980). Transitivity in grammar and discourse. Language, 56 (2), 251–299.Google Scholar
Kaan, E., Harris, A., Gibson, E., & Holcomb, P. J. (2000). The P600 as an index of syntactic integration difficulty. Language and Cognitive Processes, 15 (2), 159–201.Google Scholar
Kibort, A. (2008). Transitivity. Online: <http://www.grammaticalfeatures.net/features/transitivity.html> (last accessed 7 January 2008).+(last+accessed+7+January+2008).>Google Scholar
Kittilä, S. (2002). Transitivity: towards a comprehensive typology. Turku/Åbo: Åbo Akademis Tryckeri.Google Scholar
Kittilä, S. (2011). Transitivity typology. In Song, J. J. (Ed.), The Oxford handbook of linguistic typology (pp. 346–367). Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Kim, A., & Osterhout, L. (2005). The independence of combinatory semantic processing: evidence from event-related potentials. Journal of Memory and Language, 52 (2), 205–225.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kim, A., & Sikos, L. (2011). Conflict and surrender during sentence processing: an ERP study of syntax−semantics interaction. Brain and Language, 118, 15–22.Google Scholar
Kolk, H. H., Chwilla, D. J., van Herten, M., & Oor, P. J. (2003). Structure and limited capacity in verbal working memory: a study with event-related potentials. Brain and Language, 85, 1–36.Google Scholar
Kos, M., Vosse, T., Van den Brink, D., & Hagoort, P. (2010). About edible restaurants: conflicts between syntax and semantics as revealed by ERPs. Frontiers in Psychology, 1:222. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2010.00222 (last accessed 4 September 2012).CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kuperberg, G. R., Caplan, D., Sitnikova, T., Eddy, M., & Holcomb, P. J. (2006). Neural correlates of processing syntactic, semantic and thematic relationships in sentences. Language and Cognitive Processes, 21 (5), 489–530.Google Scholar
Kuperberg, G. R., Kreher, D. A., Sitnikova, T., Caplan, D. N., & Holcomb, P. J. (2007). The role of animacy and thematic relationships in processing active English sentences: evidence from event-related potentials. Brain and Language, 100, 223–237.Google Scholar
Kuperberg, G. R., Sitnikova, T., Caplan, D., & Holcomb, P. J. (2003). Electrophysiological distinctions in processing conceptual relationships within simple sentences. Cognitive Brain Research, 17 (1), 117–129.Google Scholar
Kutas, M., & Federmeier, K. D. (2011). Thirty years and counting: finding meaning in the N400 component of the event-related brain potential (ERP). Annual Review of Psychology, 62, 621–647.Google Scholar
Kutas, M., Federmeier, K. D., Coulson, S., King, J. W., & Münte, T. F. (2000). Language. In Cacioppo, J. T., Tassinary, G., & Berntson, G. G. (Eds.), Handbook of psychophysiology (pp. 576–601). New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Kutas, M., & Hillyard, S. A. (1980). Reading senseless sentences: brain potentials reflect semantic incongruity. Science, 207, 203–204.Google Scholar
Kutas, M., & Hillyard, S. A. (1984). Event-related brain potentials (ERPs) elicited by novel stimuli during sentence processing. Annals of the New York Academy of Science, 425, 236–241.Google Scholar
Larousse, (Ed.) (1996). Le Petit Larousse Illustré. Paris: Larousse.Google Scholar
MacWhinney, B. (1987). The competition model. In MacWhinney, B. (Ed.), Mechanisms of language acquisition (pp. 73–136). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
MacWhinney, B., & Bates, E. (1989). The crosslinguistic study of sentence processing. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Magne, C., Astésano, C., Aramaki, M., Ystad, S., Kronland-Martinet, R., & Besson, M. (2007). Influence of syllabic lengthening on semantic processing in spoken French: behavioral and electrophysiological evidence. Cerebral Cortex, 17 (11), 2659–2668.Google Scholar
Malchukov, A. (2006). Transitivity parameters and transitivity alternations: constraining co-variation. In Kulikov, L., Malchukov, A., & de Swart, P. (Eds.), Studies on case, valency and transitivity (pp. 329–359). Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Martín-Loeches, M., Nigbur, R., Casado, P., Hohlfeld, A., & Sommer, W. (2006). Semantics prevalence over syntax during sentence processing: a brain potential study of noun–adjective agreement in Spanish. Brain Research, 1093 (1), 178–189.Google Scholar
McClelland, J. L., St John, M., & Taraban, R. (1989). Sentence comprehension: a parallel distributed processing approach. Language and Cognitive Processes, 4 (3/4), 287–335.Google Scholar
Michaelis, L. (2003). Word meaning, sentence meaning, and syntactic meaning. In Cuykens, H.Dirven, R., & Taylor, J. R. (Eds.), Cognitive approaches to lexical semantics (pp. 163–210). Berlin / New York: Mouton de Guyter.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Michaelis, L. (2004). Type-shifting in Construction Grammar: an integrated approach to aspectual coercion. Cognitive Linguistics, 15 (1), 1–67.Google Scholar
Mithun, M., & Chafe, W. (1999). What are S, A, and O? Studies in Language, 23 (3), 569–596.Google Scholar
Münte, T. F., Heinze, H. J., Matzke, M., Wieringa, M. B., & Johannes, S. (1998). Brain potentials and syntactic violations revisited: no evidence for specificity of the syntactic positive shift. Neuropsychologia, 36 (3), 217–226.Google Scholar
Næss, A. (2007). Prototypical transitivity. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Nieuwland, M. S., & van Berkum, J. J. A. (2005). Testing the limits of the semantic illusion phenomenon: ERPs reveal temporary change deafness in discourse comprehension. Cognitive Brain Research, 24 (3), 691–701.Google Scholar
Osterhout, L., & Hagoort, P. (1999). A superficial resemblance does not necessarily mean you are part of the family: counterarguments to Coulson, King, and Kutas (1998) in the P600/SPSP300 debate. Language and Cognitive Processes, 14 (1), 1–14.Google Scholar
Osterhout, L., & Holcomb, P. J. (1992). Event-Related brain potentials elicited by syntactic anomaly. Journal of Memory and Language, 31, 785–804.Google Scholar
Osterhout, L., & Nicol, J. (1999). On the distinctiveness, independence, and time course of the brain responses to syntactic and semantic anomalies. Language and Cognitive Processes, 14 (3), 283–317.Google Scholar
Palolahti, M., Leino, S., Jokela, M., Kopra, K., & Paavilainen, P. (2005). Event-related potentials suggest early interaction between syntax and semantics during on-line sentence comprehension. Neuroscience Letter, 384 (3), 222–227.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Patel, A., Gibson, E., Ratner, J., Besson, M., & Holcomb, P. (1998). Processing syntactic relations in language and music: an Event-Related Potential study. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 10 (6), 717–733.Google Scholar
Piñango, M., Zurif, E., & Jackendoff, R. (1999). Real-Time processing implications of enriched composition at the syntax−semantics interface. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 28 (4), 395–434.Google Scholar
Raettig, T., Frisch, S., Friederici, A. D., & Kotz, S. (2010). Neural correlates of morphosyntactic and verb−argument structure processing: an EfMRI study. Cortex, 46 (5), 613−620.Google Scholar
Robert, S. (1999). Cognitive invariants and linguistic variability: from units to utterance. In Fuchs, C., & Robert, S. (Eds.), Language diversity and cognitive representations (pp. 21–35). Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Robert, S. (2008). Words and their meanings: principles of variation and stabilization. In Vanhove, M. (Ed.), From polysemy to semantic change: towards a typology of lexical semantic associations (pp. 55–92). Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Rösler, F., Pütz, P., Friederici, A., & Hahne, A. (1993). Event-Related brain Potentials while encountering semantic and syntactic constraint violations. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 5 (3), 345–362.Google Scholar
Sanford, A. J., & Garrod, S. C. (1998). The role of scenario mapping in text comprehension. Discourse Processes, 26 (2/3), 159–190.Google Scholar
Sanford, A. J., Leuthold, H., Bohan, J., & Sanford, A. J. S. (2011). Anomalies at the borderline of awareness: an ERP study. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 23 (3), 514–523.Google Scholar
Tomasello, M. (1998). The new psychology of language: cognitive and functional approaches to language structure. Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum.Google Scholar
van de Meerendonk, N., Kolk, H. H. J., Vissers, C. Th. W. M., & Chwilla, D. J. (2010). Monitoring in language perception: mild and strong conflicts elicit different ERP patterns. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 22 (1), 67–82.Google Scholar
van Herten, M., Chwilla, D. J., & Kolk, H. H. (2006). When heuristics clash with parsing routines: ERP evidence for conflict monitoring in sentence perception. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 18 (7), 1181–1197.Google Scholar
Victorri, B. (1997). La polysémie: un artefact de la linguistique ? [Polysemy: an artefact from linguistics?]. Revue de Sémantique et de Pragmatique, 2, 41–62.Google Scholar
Vissers, C. Th. W. M., Chwilla, D. J, & Kolk, H. H. J. (2006). Monitoring in language perception: the effect of misspellings of words in highly constrained sentences. Brain Research, 1106 (1), 150–163.Google Scholar
Vissers, C. Th. W. M., Chwilla, D. J, & Kolk, H. H. J. (2007). The interplay of heuristics and parsing routines in sentence comprehension: evidence from ERPs and reaction times. Biological Psychology, 75 (1), 8–18.Google Scholar
Wicha, N. Y. Y., Moreno, E. M., & Kutas, M. (2004). Anticipating words and their gender: an Event-related Brain Potential study of semantic integration, gender expectancy, and gender agreement in Spanish sentence reading. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 16 (7), 1272–1288.Google Scholar
Ye, Z., Luo, J. Y., Friederici, A.D., & Zhou, X. (2006). Semantic and syntactic processing in Chinese sentence comprehension: evidence from event-related potentials. Brain Research, 1071 (1), 186–196.Google Scholar
Ye, Z., Zhan, W., & Zhou, X. (2007). The semantic processing of syntactic structure in sentence comprehension: an ERP study. Brain Research, 1142, 135–145.Google Scholar