engleski

Electrophysiological evidence for first and second language processing: thematic roles in Croatian

The aim of this study was to investigate first and second language sentence processing in Croatian based on the theory of the Competition Model using the electrophysiological method of event-related potentials (ERP) to gain some insight of brain activity during sentence comprehention. More precisely, the effects of different types of linguistic information on agent identification task were investigated. The linguistic information manipulated were the semantic feature of animacy and case, while word order was held constant using NVN transitive sentences. Native English speakers novice learners of Croatian were followed longitudinally through 2 experimental sessions during their two- months intensive course of Croatian, and one group of advance learners was added to gain cross-sectional data. The informative values of the linguistic cues were quantified through 750 NVN sentences in three different types of corpora while their strength and interaction effect on agent identification was assessed through behavioral measures: percentage of first noun choice and reaction time. Brain activity was recorded during agent identification task and analyzed using the method of event- related potentials. Same task and stimuli were presented to native Croatian speakers and English native speakers, with native English speakers having in addition three written tests to see if they had explicit knowledge of Croatian cases. Based on 750 Croatian active transitive noun-verb- noun sentences the following cue features for agentivity were defined: (1) Availability: preverbal position > animacy > case, and (2) Reliability: case > animacy > preverbal position. Overall, based on all results it seems that: (1) native Croatian speakers chose the agent in simple transitive NVN sentences relying on the relation structure built by the case cue. However, the identification can be facilitated or inhibited by other cues (animacy and word order). The magnitude of the facilitatory effect of animacy on agent identification is in the following order: animacy contrast converged with case forming a coalition representing a prototypical agent and patient > two animate arguments > animacy contrast in competition with case making a coalition that does not have a good thematic fit for agent and patient roles. Also, there is a preference for agent to be on initial position. (2) native English speakers learners of Croatian are sensitive to case, but they are using it on a more basic lexical level while retaining a semantic strategy relying on animacy which is a universal feature for agent identification. Thus, a previously learned cue blocks the attention towards a new cue even if the old cue is less reliable than the new one. Overall, it seems that the most difficult transition would be from using case only as a demand imposed by the syntactic structure to using case in thematic role assignment.

first and second language sentence processing ; ERP ; thematic roles

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