Briem Daniela, Balliel Britta, Rockstroh Brigitte, Butt Miriam, Schulte im Walde Sabine, Assadollahi Ramin
University of Konstanz, Department of Psychology, Germany.
Brain Res. 2009 Jan 16;1249:173-80. doi: 10.1016/j.brainres.2008.10.027. Epub 2008 Oct 28.
A subset of German function verbs can be used either in a full, concrete, 'heavy' ("take a computer") or in a more metaphorical, abstract or 'light' meaning ("take a shower", no actual 'taking' involved). The present magnetoencephalographic (MEG) study explored whether this subset of 'light' verbs is represented in distinct cortical processes. A random sequence of German 'heavy', 'light', and pseudo verbs was visually presented in three runs to 22 native German speakers, who performed lexical decision task on real versus pseudo verbs. Across runs, verbs were presented (a) in isolation, (b) in minimal context of a personal pronoun, and (c) 'light' verbs only in a disambiguating context sentence. Central posterior activity 95-135 ms after stimulus onset was more pronounced for 'heavy' than for 'light' uses, whether presented in isolation or in minimal context. Minimal context produced a similar heavy>light differentiation in the left visual word form area at 160-200 ms. 'Light' verbs presented in sentence context allowing only for a 'heavy reading' evoked larger left-temporal activation around 270-340 ms than the corresponding 'light reading'. Across runs, real verbs provoked more pronounced activation than pseudo verbs in left-occipital regions at 110-150 ms. Thus, 'heavy' versus 'light readings' of verbs already modulate early posterior visual evoked response even when verbs are presented in isolation. This response becomes clearer in the disambiguating contextual condition. This type of study shows for the first time that language processing is sensitive to representational differences between two readings of one and the same verb stem.
德语中的一部分功能动词既可以用于完整、具体、“实在”的意义（如“拿一台电脑”），也可以用于更具隐喻性、抽象或“虚化”的意义（如“洗个澡”，实际并无真正的“拿取”动作）。本脑磁图（MEG）研究探讨了这部分“虚化”动词在不同的皮层过程中是否有不同的表征。以随机顺序向22名以德语为母语的人分三次视觉呈现德语中的“实在”动词、“虚化”动词和伪动词，让他们对真实动词与伪动词进行词汇判断任务。在不同的实验流程中，动词呈现方式如下：（a）单独呈现；（b）在带有一个人称代词的最简语境中呈现；（c）“虚化”动词仅在能消除歧义的语境句子中呈现。刺激开始后95 - 135毫秒时，无论是单独呈现还是在最简语境中呈现，“实在”用法的动词引发的中央后区活动都比“虚化”用法的更明显。在160 - 200毫秒时，最简语境在左侧视觉词形区也产生了类似的“实在”>“虚化”的区分。在句子语境中呈现的“虚化”动词，若只能作“实在”解读，在270 - 340毫秒左右比相应的“虚化”解读引发更大的左侧颞叶激活。在不同的实验流程中，真实动词在110 - 150毫秒时比伪动词在左侧枕叶区域引发更明显的激活。因此，即使动词单独呈现，其“实在”与“虚化”解读也已能调节早期后部视觉诱发电位。在消除歧义的语境条件下，这种反应会更清晰。此类研究首次表明，语言处理对同一动词词干的两种解读之间的表征差异很敏感。
