EEG Correlates of Long-Distance Dependency Formation in Mandarin Wh -Questions

Event-related potential components are sensitive to the processes underlying how questions are understood. We use so-called "covert" -questions in Mandarin to probe how such components generalize across different kinds of constructions. This study shows that covert Mandarin -questions do n...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Frontiers in human neuroscience 2021-02, Vol.15, p.591613-591613
Main Authors: Lo, Chia-Wen, Brennan, Jonathan R
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
covert dependencies
EEG
Embedding
Event-related potentials
Human Neuroscience
long-distance dependency
Mandarin
Short term memory
sustained anterior negativity
Wh-question
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Summary:Event-related potential components are sensitive to the processes underlying how questions are understood. We use so-called "covert" -questions in Mandarin to probe how such components generalize across different kinds of constructions. This study shows that covert Mandarin -questions do not elicit anterior negativities associated with memory maintenance, even when such a dependency is unambiguously cued. = 37 native speakers of Mandarin Chinese read Chinese questions and declarative sentences word-by-word during EEG recording. In contrast to prior studies, no sustained anterior negativity (SAN) was observed between the cue word, such as the question-embedding verb "wonder," and the -filler. SANs have been linked with working memory maintenance, suggesting that grammatical features may not impose the same maintenance demands as the content words used in prior work.
ISSN:1662-5161
1662-5161
DOI:10.3389/fnhum.2021.591613