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Abstract:
In contrast to English, morphological case is marked overtly
in German. The present event-related brain potential (ERP) study
investigated effects of case information on the processing of
verbs. Accusative and dative case-marked wh-pronouns were used to
constrain processing of the verb. The main verb was presented in
clause-final position, realizing a violation between the case
information given by the pronoun and the argument structure of the
verb in half of the sentences. The other half consisted of correct
sentences. A 120 channel EEG was recorded while participants (N=16)
read the 200 sentences in a word-by-word RSVP setting at 500 ms per
word. Grammatical acceptability judgments were used to ensure
sentence reading. The ERPs for the clause final past participles
revealed effects of case and correctness. Incorrect case led to a
more negative N400-like wave form for both case violation
conditions compared to correct sentences in the time range of 450
to 600 ms after onset of the verb. Within the correct sentences
accusative verbs showed a more negative going wave than dative
verbs. The observed ERP effects suggest that case marking provided
by prior context affects the lexical integration of verbs.
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