Conventionality determines the time course of indirect replies comprehension: An ERP study

Indirect language comprehension requires decoding both the literal meaning and the intended meaning of an utterance, in which pragmatic inference is involved. This study tests the role of conventionality in the time course of indirect reply processing by comparing conventional and non-conventional indirect replies with direct reply, respectively. We constructed discourses which consist of a context and a dialogue with one question (e.g., May I buy a necklace for you) and one reply (e.g., I really have too many). The reply utterance was segmented into three phrases and presented orderly for EEG recording, e.g., with the subject as the first phrase (e.g., I), the adverbial as the second phrase (e.g., really), and the predicate as the third phrase (e.g., have too many). Our results showed that for conventional indirect replies, the second phrase elicited a larger anterior negativity, and the third phrase elicited a larger anterior N400 compared with those in direct replies. By contrast, for the non-conventional indirect reply, only the third phrase elicited a larger late negativity than the direct replies. These findings suggest that conventionality determines the time course of the pragmatic inferences for the most relevant interpretation during indirect replies comprehension.