2024/02/17 by Qihang Yang, Yang, Qihang, Caimei Yang +5
Arts and Humanities · Neuroscience · Psychology · #Computation and Language (cs.CL) #FOS: Computer and information sciences #Neurobiology of Language and Bilingualism #Second Language Acquisition and Learning #Syntax, Semantics, Linguistic Variation
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2402.11282
openalex publication_date 2024/02/17 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
In several languages, omitting a verb phrase (VP) in double centre-embedded structures creates a grammaticality illusion. Similar illusion also exhibited in Mandarin missing-NP double centre-embedded structures. However, there is no consensus on its very nature. Instead of treating it as grammaticality illusion, we argue that ambiguous interpretations of verbs can best account for this phenomenon in Mandarin. To further support this hypothesis, we conducted two electroencephalography (EEG) experiments on quasi double centre-embedded structures whose complexity is reduced by placing the self-embedding relative clauses into the sentence's subject position. Experiment 1 showed that similar phenomenon even exhibited in this structure, evidenced by an absence of P600 effect and a presence of N400 effect. In Experiment 2, providing semantic cues to reduce ambiguity dispelled this illusion, as evidenced by a P600 effect. We interpret the results under garden-path theory and propose that word-order difference may account for this cross-linguistic variation.