Human brain potentials to violations in morphologically complex Italian words

Event-related brain potentials were recorded while 12 Italian-speaking subjects read correctly and incorrectly inflected verb forms. Participle forms of three types of verbs were investigated: 1st conjugation verbs ( parlato `spoken'), 3rd conjugation verbs ( dormito `slept'), and irregula...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Neuroscience letters 1998-01, Vol.241 (2), p.83-86
Main Authors: Gross, Matthias, Say, Tessa, Kleingers, Michael, Clahsen, Harald, F. Münte, Thomas
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adult
Behavioral psychophysiology
Biological and medical sciences
Brain Mapping
Electrophysiology
Event-related potentials
Evoked Potentials, Auditory - physiology
Female
Frontal Lobe - physiology
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
Humans
Italian
Linguistic morphology
Linguistics
N400
Parietal Lobe - physiology
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychology. Psychophysiology
Verbal Behavior - physiology
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Summary:Event-related brain potentials were recorded while 12 Italian-speaking subjects read correctly and incorrectly inflected verb forms. Participle forms of three types of verbs were investigated: 1st conjugation verbs ( parlato `spoken'), 3rd conjugation verbs ( dormito `slept'), and irregular 2nd conjugation verbs ( preso `taken'). We compared correct and incorrect participle forms; the latter had stem formation errors and/or incorrect participle endings. Event-related potentials (ERP) showed different responses to incorrect regular and incorrect irregular participle forms: incorrect irregulars ( *prendato instead of preso) elicited a widespread negativity, whereas incorrect regulars (* parlito, *dormato) produced no effect. This difference replicates previous results on German inflection and supports the linguistic distinction between lexically-based and rule-based inflection.
ISSN:0304-3940
1872-7972
DOI:10.1016/S0304-3940(97)00971-3