Same Sentences, Different Grammars, Different Brain Responses: An MEG study on Case and Agreement Encoding in Hindi and Nepali Split-Ergative Structures

Chacón, Dustin A.; Shrestha, Subhekshya; Dillon, Brian W.; Bhatt, Rajesh; Marantz, Alec

doi:10.1101/2024.02.12.579942

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“…This problem is harder given the wide range of linguistic diversity. Across languages, comprehenders must manipulate different information at different times, depending on the grammatical properties of the language (see Chacón et al 2024). Nonetheless, a relatively uniform network of left fronto-temporal and temporo-parietal areas appear to support language processing across different languages (Malik-Moraleda et al 2022), and careful cross-language comparison of different languages has proven to be fruitful for understanding how the universal relates to the language-particular (e.g., Bornkessel-Schlesewsky & Schlesewsky 2016).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Quick, Don’t Move!: Wh-Movement and Wh-In-Situ Structures in Rapid Parallel Reading – EEG studies in English, Urdu, and Mandarin Chinese

Chacón,

Dunagan,

McLendon

et al. 2024

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A fundamental question in the cognitive neuroscience of language is how grammatical representations are reflected in the organization and activity of the brain. This is challenging in part because superficial differences between languages, e.g., word order, exert different demands on the memory systems that process these structures. Here, we present an electroencephalography (EEG) study to investigate the brain's responses to wh-constructions in English, Urdu, and Mandarin Chinese. In addition to the different word orders, writing systems, and morphological typologies of the 3 languages, these languages diverge with regard to how wh-constructions are formed: English requires filler-gap dependencies for wh-objects, whereas Urdu and Mandarin Chinese do not. We use a rapid parallel reading task, in which short sentences are displayed in parallel for 200ms to mitigate the different demands placed on memory systems. We show that neural responses distinguish wh-object constructions from their controls in midline anterior (Urdu, Mandarin Chinese) and right posterior sensors (English, Mandarin Chinese), from 200-400ms (English, Mandarin Chinese) and 500-800ms (English, Urdu). Although there is no detectable uniform, language-invariant response to wh-constructions across languages, there are a number of shared features in the evoked response between any pair of languages, i.e., wh-in-situ constructions generate an evoked response in midline anterior sensors. Moreover, behavioral evidence shows a robust cross-language cost of processing wh-object constructions, regardless of their surface form. This demonstrates that readers of diverse languages can process some grammatical information in a short 200ms fixation, and that the RPVP methodology may enable new ways of linking cognitive neuroscience of language to comparative syntax, i.e., the systematic description of similarities and differences between grammatical structures.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%