Chinese Syntactic Shift Neurolinguistic Study

Syntactic movement, an important hypothetical theory in the study of Generative Grammar, is considered as the core operation in the syntactic processing, but whether this hypothetical theory is consistent with the processing mechanism of language in the human brain need to be verified by the mechanism of the brain. In the current study, we explore the processing mechamism of Chinese relative clauses, passive structures and topic structures by ERP, in order to reveal the neural basis of Chinese syntactic movement, which may provides a further neuromechanism evidence for the development of linguistics.The study consists of the following four experiments:expement I to verify the neural processing mechanism of Chinese relative clauses; expement II to verify the neural processing mechanism of Chinese passive structure and topic structure and reveal the general processing mechanism of syntactic movement by using different types of syntactic movement for comparison; experiment III& IV to explore the animacy effect and referentiality effect in the processing of Chinese relative clauses and passive sentences with an aim to reveal the effect of animacy and referentiality in the neural processing mechanism of syntactic movement. Based on the results of the four experiments, the following conclusion has been drawn:In the syntactic processing of Chinese relative clauses, passive structures and topic structures, we observed some important ERP components regrading syntactic movement:firstly, sustained anterior negativity (SAN) reflects the processing of storing and maintaining the displaced element or trace in the working memory. Secondly, local anterior negativity (AN) reflects the reactivation and extraction of the displaced element from the working memory or the search for the trace in the working memory. Finally, a late positivity (P600) or a negativity (N400) reflects the configuring and integrating operation of the displaced element and trace.According to ERP, the neuromechanism of Chinese syntactic movement is composed of two parts:syntactic processing of memory and syntactic integrating operation, which is basically the same for the other languages. Trace and syntactic movement are the general grammar knowledge in the human brain.Animacy and referentiality of verbal arguments, the distance of displaced element and trace, the type of syntactic movement influence the processing mechanism of Chinese syntactic movement. Animacy effect makes the syntactic movement processing harder, while referentiality effect promotes the syntactic movement processing. The structural distance and linear distance between the displaced element and trace influences the processing costs of syntactic movement. The farther the distance is, the more the processing of syntactic costs.The processing of Chinese object-extracted relative clauses is more difficult than the subject-extracted relative clauses, which is also a universality in all languages. Animacy and referentiality of the arguments in clauses will change the difficulty level of of the two types of clause's processing. When the arguments have opposite animacy, it increases the difference of the difficulty level of of the two types of clause's processing. When one of the arguments in the clauses is a personal pronoun, it may remove the difference of the difficulty level of of the two types of clause's processing.