The Neural Mechanism Of The Processing Of Classifiers In Chinese Relative Clauses

Classifiers and head nouns in Chinese relative clauses are closely related in semantic congruence.Previous research manifested the effect of classifiers in processing relative clauses.However,this line of research only concerned about generic classifiers,but not about comparing or contrasting the distinctive influences between generic classifiers and specific classifiers.Few studies have so far examined the different effects of the classifier-noun distance in online processing.The present study,using event-related potentials(ERP),attempts to further examine the neural mechanism of the two types of classifiers in predicting Chinese relative clauses,and to reveal the neural effect of the classifiers-noun distance in processing relative clauses.Three pertinent aspects are involved:the predicting effect of the two types of classifiers in processing relative clauses;the effect of the classifiers-noun distance in comprehending relative clauses;the moderating effect of the classifier-noun distance in processing relative clauses.Compared with behavioral and neural imaging techniques,ERP has a relatively high temporal resolution and can measure cognitive processes with high efficiency and accuracy.Seven ERP experiments were conducted in this study.Two ERP components,N400 and P600 were utilized to present the online processing at each syntactic position of relative clauses.The N400 component is a negative deflection between 250 and 500 ms after the stimulus onset.The less a word fits into the semantically established context,the larger its amplitude.An enhanced negativity of N400 is associated with a more effortful integration process during sentence comprehension.The P600 is a positive deflection,observed between 600 and 800 ms post-stimulus onset reflecting a syntactic-related processing difficulty.It is activated by conditions associated with morph-syntax violations,syntactic ambiguity and a reintegration process connected with syntactic complexity.Experiment 1 examined the effect of classifiers in predicting subject relative clause(SRC);and Experiment 2 examined the effect in predicting object relative clause(ORC).Experiment 3 investigated the affecting mechanism of the long classifier-noun distance in processing RCs.Experiment 4 investigated the affecting mechanism of the short classifier-noun distance in processing RCs.The effect of generic and specific classifiers in affecting the processing asymmetry of Chinese relative clauses was studied by Experiment 5,Experiment 6 and Experiment 7.By summarizing the experiment results,the present study demonstrated three findings:1.Generic classifiers facilitate the processing of SRC and specific classifiers ease the processing complexity of ORC.2.The short classifier-noun distance causes a more effortful integration process during RC processing.3.Chinese ORC is relatively easier to process and the types of classifiers do not alter the ORC processing ease.These findings are reliable with the evidence from ERP data.They may enhance our knowledge and understanding on the effect of classifiers in processing Chinese relative clauses.They will also give certain new insights into the relationship between classifiers and the congruent nouns.