The Influence Of Connectives On Processing Chinese Causals And Conditionals:An ERPs Study

Connectives play an important role in sentence understanding and coherent discourse construction.In recent years,many scholars have studied connectives or sentences with causal,conditional or concessive relations.From the perspective of theoretical studies,scholars studied causals and conditionals from cognitive linguistics,pragmatics,syntactic and semantic perspectives.From the perspective of empirical studies,many scholars studied causals,conditionals and the contrast studies of causal connectives and concessive connectives on sentence comprehension by using eye-tracking and event-related potentials.There are also scholars finding that participants infer the relations between two clauses in a complex sentence as causal relations when reading a complex sentence,and putting forward conditional relations are a subcategory of causal relations.Their studies give guidance to the classifications,descriptions and contrast studies of causals and conditionals.Their studies lay the foundation for the empirical research on causals and conditionals,but no studies on the influence of connectives on comprehending and processing Chinese causals and conditionals have been conducted by using the technique of ERPs.By using the technique of event-related potentials(ERPs),this study studies the influence of connectives on causal and conditional sentences.The main purpose of this study is to explore the differences of brain mechanism and reaction time during processing logical causal sentences and logical conditional sentences by using or not using causal connectives�yinwei(??)...suoyi(??)...�and conditional connectives�ruguo(??)...name(??)...�respectively.At the same time,the processing differences between logical causal sentences and logical conditional sentences were discussed.By doing so,the results can testify whether they are consistent with the Connective Integration Model put forward by Millis and Just in1994,and testify whether connectives have positive influence on sentence processing and comprehension.This thesis takes Chinese causals and conditionals as the research object.The specific research question is:What is the influence of connectives�yinwei(??)...suoyi(??)...�and�ruguo(??)...name(??)...�on processing Chinese causals and conditionals?The experiment was completed in the Cognitive Neurology Laboratory of Foreign Language Learning of Sichuan International Studies University.In this study,a within subjects 2�2 paradigm(type of complex sentences: logical causal sentences,logical conditional sentences;connectives: with connectives,without connectives)was designed.The materials are all in Chinese and are presented randomly.First,a �+� appears in the center of the screen.Then there will be a complex sentence.Complex sentences are presented one after another according to the meaning groups.The subjects are asked to read and understand the complex sentences carefully in a fixed time.Then,when the last meaning group(with a period)appears,make an acceptability judgment as soon as possible on the content of the complex sentence(if it is �totally unacceptable�,press the �1� key;if it is �basically acceptable,press the �2� key;if it is �totally acceptable�,press the �3� key).The experiment was programmed with E-prime software.When the subjects' responses were recorded by computer,the EEG data were collected and recorded by Neruoscan 4.5 and SynAmps 2.Then the EEG data were analyzed offline,and the results were input into SPSS23.0 statistical software for statistical analysis.The experimental results are:The behavioral results: There are no differences between logical causals with and without connectives [t(19)=-0.114,p=.910>.01];However,there are great differences between logical conditionals with and without connectives [t(19)=-3.123,p=.006<.01],and this reveals connectives in logical causals have no positive and negative influence,but those in logical conditionals have negative influence.ERPs results: In the time window of 1000-2200 ms,there is significant main effect in sentences [F(2,38)=7.496,p=.002<0.05] and in regions [F(2,38)=3.949,p=.028<0.05],what's more,we can get that the main effect is extremely significant in hemispheres [F(2,38)=8.224,p=.001?0.01].The mean of sentences without connectives is-0.526,logical conditionals-3.189,and logical causals-4.267.So it can be known that the average value of sentences without connectives is the largest and that of logical causals is the smallest.In the time window of 2200-3200 ms,there is very significant main effect in sentences [F(2,38)=6.144,p=.005<.01] and we can also get that the main effect is extremely significant in region [F(2,38)=11.545,p=.000<.001] and hemispheres [F(2,38)=14.881,p=.000<.001].The average value of sentences without connectives is-1.985,logical conditionals is-5.092,and logical causals is-5.615.So it can be known that the average value of sentences without connectives is the largest,however,that of logical causals is the smallest.From the results of behavioral and ERPs data,this study draws the following conclusions:(1)Connectives do not promote the understanding and processing of Chinese logical causal sentences and logical conditional sentences;(2)There are differences in understanding and processing logical causal sentences with or without connectives and conditional sentences with or without connectives,and there are differences in processing of brain regions in frontal,central and parietal regions,as well as in left,middle and right hemispheres;(3)The differences of specific electrode sites of logical causal sentences with and without connectives are in F3,FZ,PZ,P4,CZ,C4.Likewise,logical conditional sentences with and without connectives are FZ,C3,C4,PZ and P4.