Department of Applied Linguistics, Brock University, 500 Glenridge Avenue Street, Catharines, Ontario, Canada.
Brain Res. 2010 Jan 22;1311:93-109. doi: 10.1016/j.brainres.2009.09.102. Epub 2009 Oct 23.
We used event-related brain potentials (ERPs) in order to investigate how definite NP anaphors are integrated into semantically ambiguous contexts. Although sentences such as Every kid climbed a tree lack any syntactic or lexical ambiguity, these structures exhibit two possible meanings, where either many trees or only one tree was climbed. This semantic ambiguity is the result of quantifier scope ambiguity. Previous behavioural studies have shown that a plural definite NP continuation is preferred (as reflected in a continuation sentence, e.g., The trees were in the park) over singular NPs (e.g., The tree was in the park). This study aimed to identify the neurophysiological pattern associated with the integration of the continuation sentences, as well as the time course of this process. We examined ERPs elicited by the noun and verb in continuation sentences following ambiguous and unambiguous context sentences. A sustained negative shift was most evident at the Verb position in sentences exhibiting scope ambiguity. Furthermore, this waveform did not differentiate itself until 900 ms after the presentation of the Noun, suggesting that the parser waits to assign meaning in contexts exhibiting quantifier scope ambiguity, such that such contexts are left as underspecified representations.
我们使用事件相关脑电位（ERPs）来研究定指名词如何融入语义上模棱两可的语境。虽然像 Every kid climbed a tree 这样的句子没有任何句法或词汇上的歧义，但这些结构有两种可能的含义，即许多树或只有一棵树被爬。这种语义歧义是量词范围歧义的结果。之前的行为研究表明，复数定指 NP 的延续更受欢迎（如在延续句中反映，例如，The trees were in the park），而不是单数 NPs（例如，The tree was in the park）。本研究旨在确定与延续句整合相关的神经生理模式，以及这个过程的时间进程。我们检查了在模棱两可和非模棱两可的上下文句子之后，延续句子中的名词和动词引发的 ERPs。在表现出范围歧义的句子中，动词位置的持续负移最为明显。此外，这种波形直到名词呈现后 900 毫秒才显现出来，这表明解析器在表现出量词范围歧义的上下文中等待赋予意义，以便这些上下文被保留为未指定的表示。
