Research Group Neurobiology of Language, Department of Linguistics, University of Salzburg.
Department of Communicative Disorders, University of Alabama.
J Exp Psychol Learn Mem Cogn. 2021 Jun;47(6):998-1011. doi: 10.1037/xlm0000958. Epub 2020 Nov 19.
Nonsigners viewing sign language are sometimes able to guess the meaning of signs by relying on the overt connection between form and meaning, or iconicity (cf. Ortega, Özyürek, & Peeters, 2020; Strickland et al., 2015). One word class in sign languages that appears to be highly iconic is classifiers: verb-like signs that can refer to location change or handling. Classifier use and meaning are governed by linguistic rules, yet in comparison with lexical verb signs, classifiers are highly variable in their morpho-phonology (variety of potential handshapes and motion direction within the sign). These open-class linguistic items in sign languages prompt a question about the mechanisms of their processing: Are they part of a gestural-semiotic system (processed like the gestures of nonsigners), or are they processed as linguistic verbs? To examine the psychological mechanisms of classifier comprehension, we recorded the electroencephalogram (EEG) activity of signers who watched videos of signed sentences with classifiers. We manipulated the sentence word order of the stimuli (subject-object-verb [SOV] vs. object-subject-verb [OSV]), contrasting the two conditions, which, according to different processing hypotheses, should incur increased processing costs for OSV orders. As previously reported for lexical signs, we observed an N400 effect for OSV compared with SOV, reflecting increased cognitive load for linguistic processing. These findings support the hypothesis that classifiers are a linguistic part of speech in sign language, extending the current understanding of processing mechanisms at the interface of linguistic form and meaning. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).
观看手语的非手语使用者有时能够通过形式和意义之间的明显联系（即象似性）来猜测手语的含义（参见 Ortega、Özyürek 和 Peeters，2020；Strickland 等人，2015）。手语中有一类词似乎具有高度的象似性，即类别词：指位置变化或处理的动词类符号。类别词的使用和含义受语言规则支配，但与词汇动词符号相比，类别词在形态和语音上具有高度的可变性（签名中的潜在手势形状和运动方向的多样性）。这些手语中的开放类语言项目引发了一个关于它们处理机制的问题：它们是手势-符号系统的一部分（像非手语使用者的手势一样处理），还是作为语言动词处理？为了研究类别词理解的心理机制，我们记录了观看带有类别词的签名句子视频的手语使用者的脑电图（EEG）活动。我们操纵了刺激的句子词序（主语-宾语-动词 [SOV] 与宾语-主语-动词 [OSV]），对比两种条件，根据不同的处理假设，OSV 词序应该会增加处理成本。正如之前对词汇符号的研究报告，我们观察到 OSV 与 SOV 相比出现 N400 效应，这反映了语言处理的认知负荷增加。这些发现支持了类别词是手语中一种语言词性的假设，扩展了当前对语言形式和意义接口处理机制的理解。（PsycInfo 数据库记录（c）2021 APA，保留所有权利）。
