This study investigated the processing of direct Italian "who"-questions, containing a temporary ambiguity of the syntactic role (subject/object) of the initial pronoun. To this aim we measured event-related potentials (ERPs) evoked by the disambiguating verbal agreement word and by the following ones. Results showed two positive deflections, corresponding to a P300 and to a P600, only at the target verb of the object-first extraction, the condition which has been demonstrated to be less preferred by speakers. The functional meaning of this positive complex, similar to patterns already reported for German subject/object ambiguous relative clauses, was discussed with reference both to results obtained in other languages using similar sentences and to psycholinguistic parsing models.
Processing of temporary syntactic ambiguity in Italian "who"- questions: A study with event-related potentials
PENOLAZZI, Barbara;
2005
Abstract
This study investigated the processing of direct Italian "who"-questions, containing a temporary ambiguity of the syntactic role (subject/object) of the initial pronoun. To this aim we measured event-related potentials (ERPs) evoked by the disambiguating verbal agreement word and by the following ones. Results showed two positive deflections, corresponding to a P300 and to a P600, only at the target verb of the object-first extraction, the condition which has been demonstrated to be less preferred by speakers. The functional meaning of this positive complex, similar to patterns already reported for German subject/object ambiguous relative clauses, was discussed with reference both to results obtained in other languages using similar sentences and to psycholinguistic parsing models.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
