Jessen Anna, Festman Julia, Boxell Oliver, Felser Claudia
Potsdam Research Institute for Multilingualism, University of Potsdam, Karl-Liebknecht-Strasse 24-25, 14476, Potsdam, Germany.
J Psycholinguist Res. 2017 Oct;46(5):1319-1338. doi: 10.1007/s10936-017-9496-9.
We examined native and non-native English speakers' processing of indirect object wh-dependencies using a filled-gap paradigm while recording event-related potentials (ERPs). The non-native group was comprised of native German-speaking, proficient non-native speakers of English. Both participant groups showed evidence of linking fronted indirect objects to the subcategorizing verb when this was encountered, reflected in an N400 component. Evidence for continued filler activation beyond the verb was seen only in the non-native group, in the shape of a prolonged left-anterior negativity. Both participant groups showed sensitivity to filled indirect object gaps reflected in a P600 response, which was more pronounced and more globally distributed in our non-native group. Taken together, our results indicate that resolving indirect object dependencies is a two-step process in both native and non-native sentence comprehension, with greater processing cost incurred in non-native compared to native comprehension.
我们使用填空范式，在记录事件相关电位（ERP）的同时，研究了以英语为母语和非英语母语者对间接宾语wh-依存关系的处理。非英语母语组由以德语为母语、精通英语的非英语母语者组成。当遇到前置间接宾语与次范畴化动词的连接时，两个参与者组都表现出将其联系起来的证据，这反映在N400成分中。只有在非英语母语组中，才出现了动词之后持续的填充词激活的证据，表现为延长的左前负波。两个参与者组都对间接宾语填空表现出敏感性，反映在P600反应中，在我们的非英语母语组中，这种反应更明显且分布更广泛。综上所述，我们的结果表明，在母语和非母语句子理解中，解决间接宾语依存关系都是一个两步过程，与母语理解相比，非母语理解会产生更大的处理成本。
