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Abstract:
Abstract: Behavioral studies investigating NP/S attachment
ambiguities indicate that there is an NP preference. The experiment
explored this ambiguity in German, a language in which case marking
can disambiguate very efficiently. ERPs were measured in sentences
which either contained an unambiguous case marked NP (a/c) or had
an ambiguous case marking (b/d). Der Dirigent besucht den
Apotheker, The conductor visits the pharmacist, a. der Trainer
besucht den Bruder, und ... themasc, nom trainermasc visits the
brother, and ... b. die Trainerin besucht den Bruder, und ...
thefem, nom/acc trainerfem visits the brother, and .... c. den
Trainer und den Bruder auch gerne ... themasc, acc trainermasc and
the brother especially ... d.die Trainerin und den Bruder auch
gerne ... thefem, nom/acc trainerfem and the brother especially ...
The nominative NP der Trainer indicates an S conjunction, whereas
the accusative NP den Trainer signals another NP to come. In the
case-ambiguous NP, die Trainerin, there is no disambiguation until
the verb (b) or the conjunction (d). At the conjunction, (d)
compared to (c) elicited a large P600. At the verb, (b) compared to
(a) elicited a larger N400. Thus, even though behavioral measures
demonstrate an NP-preference, ERPs indicate that developing this
preference is not without mental effort. The data furthermore
suggest that the way in which syntactic disambiguation is achieved
depends on the structure of the target sentence.
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