School of Foreign Languages and Literature, Shandong University, China; Leiden University Center for Linguistics, The Netherlands; Leiden Institute for Brain and Cognition, The Netherlands.
Leiden University Center for Linguistics, The Netherlands; Leiden Institute for Brain and Cognition, The Netherlands.
Cortex. 2019 Jul;116:294-307. doi: 10.1016/j.cortex.2018.05.014. Epub 2018 May 31.
To produce a word, speakers need to retrieve the lexico-syntactic representation of the word and encode the phonological form for articulation. It is not precisely known yet if a word's syntactic features (e.g., number, gender, etc.) are automatically activated and selected in bare noun production. Cubelli, Lotto, Paolieri, Girelli, and Job (2005) proposed that only in languages that have a complex morphological structure (e.g., Italian), the selection of grammatical gender is required. In languages with a relatively simpler morphological structure, the selection of grammatical gender is by-passed. Here, we investigated this issue further by employing a language with an extremely simple morphological structure, i.e., Mandarin Chinese. Using the picture-word interference paradigm, we manipulated the congruency of the lexico-syntactic classifier feature (comparable to grammatical gender) between the target picture and the superimposed distractor word. We measured participants' naming latencies and their electroencephalogram (EEG). As a result, relative to the classifier-congruent condition, classifier incongruency elicited a stronger N400 effect in the ERP analyses, suggesting the automatic activation of lexico-syntactic features in bare noun production. However, classifier congruency did not affect naming latencies, suggesting that the lexico-syntactic feature is not selected in bare noun naming when it is irrelevant for production.
为了生成一个单词，说话者需要检索该单词的词汇句法表示，并对发音进行编码。目前还不完全清楚在裸词生成中，是否会自动激活和选择单词的句法特征（例如，数、性等）。Cubelli、Lotto、Paolieri、Girelli 和 Job（2005）提出，只有在具有复杂形态结构的语言中（例如意大利语），才需要选择语法性别。在形态结构相对简单的语言中，语法性别选择是被绕过的。在这里，我们通过使用一种形态结构极其简单的语言，即汉语普通话，进一步研究了这个问题。我们采用图片-词汇干扰范式，操纵目标图片和叠加的干扰词之间的词汇句法分类器特征（类似于语法性别）的一致性。我们测量了参与者的命名潜伏期和脑电图（EEG）。结果表明，与分类器一致的条件相比，分类器不一致在 ERP 分析中引起了更强的 N400 效应，表明在裸词生成中自动激活了词汇句法特征。然而，分类器一致性并不影响命名潜伏期，这表明在与生成无关时，词汇句法特征在裸词命名中不会被选择。
