Wolpert Max, Zhang Hui, Baum Shari, Steinhauer Karsten
Key Laboratory for Biomedical Engineering of Ministry of Education, College of Biomedical Engineering and Instrument Sciences, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, China; Integrated Program in Neuroscience, McGill University, Room 302 Irving Ludmer Building, 1033 Pine Avenue West, Montreal, Quebec H3A 1A1, Canada; Centre for Research on Brain, Language and Music, 2001 Av. McGill College #6, Montreal, Quebec H3A 1G1, Canada.
School of Foreign Languages and Cultures, Nanjing Normal University, Suiyuan Campus, Building 500, Nanjing, Jiangsu 210024, China.
Brain Lang. 2024 Jul;254:105427. doi: 10.1016/j.bandl.2024.105427. Epub 2024 Jun 8.
Adjectives in English and Mandarin are typically prenominal, but the corresponding grammatical rules vary in subtle ways. Our event-related potential (ERP) study shows that native speakers of both languages rely on similar processing mechanisms when reading sentences with anomalous noun-adjective order (e.g., the vase *white) in their first language, reflected by a biphasic N400-P600 profile. Only Mandarin native speakers showed an additional N400 on grammatical adjectives (e.g., the white vase), potentially due to atypical word-by-word presentation of lexicalized compounds. English native speakers with advanced Mandarin proficiency were tested in both languages. They processed ungrammatical noun-adjective pairs in English like English monolinguals (N400-P600), but only exhibited an N400 in Mandarin. The absent P600 effect corresponded to their (surprisingly) low proficiency with noun-adjective violations in Mandarin, questioning simple rule transfer from English grammar.
英语和汉语中的形容词通常位于名词之前，但相应的语法规则在细微之处有所不同。我们的事件相关电位（ERP）研究表明，这两种语言的母语使用者在阅读母语中名词 - 形容词顺序异常的句子（例如，花瓶 *白色）时，依赖于相似的处理机制，这通过双相N400 - P600波形表现出来。只有汉语母语使用者在语法形容词（例如，白色的花瓶）上还表现出一个额外的N400，这可能是由于词汇化复合词非典型的逐词呈现方式所致。对具有高级汉语水平的英语母语使用者进行了双语测试。他们处理英语中不符合语法的名词 - 形容词对时，表现得与只会英语的人一样（N400 - P600），但在汉语中只表现出一个N400。缺失的P600效应与他们（令人惊讶地）较低的汉语名词 - 形容词搭配违规处理能力相对应，这对从英语语法简单转移规则提出了质疑。
