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Updated: Jun 24, 2025

Examining Online Syntactic Processing of Spoken Complex Sentences in Chinese Using Dual-Modal Interference Tasks
Published on: September 5, 2019
Native and non-native parsing of adjective placement - An ERP study of Mandarin and English sentence processing
Max Wolpert1, Hui Zhang2, Shari Baum3
1Key Laboratory for Biomedical Engineering of Ministry of Education, College of Biomedical Engineering and Instrument Sciences, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, China; Integrated Program in Neuroscience, McGill University, Room 302 Irving Ludmer Building, 1033 Pine Avenue West, Montreal, Quebec H3A 1A1, Canada; Centre for Research on Brain, Language and Music, 2001 Av. McGill College #6, Montreal, Quebec H3A 1G1, Canada.
Abstract:
Adjectives in English and Mandarin are typically prenominal, but the corresponding grammatical rules vary in subtle ways. Our event-related potential (ERP) study shows that native speakers of both languages rely on similar processing mechanisms when reading sentences with anomalous noun-adjective order (e.g., the vase *white) in their first language, reflected by a biphasic N400-P600 profile. Only Mandarin native speakers showed an additional N400 on grammatical adjectives (e.g., the white vase), potentially due to atypical word-by-word presentation of lexicalized compounds. English native speakers with advanced Mandarin proficiency were tested in both languages. They processed ungrammatical noun-adjective pairs in English like English monolinguals (N400-P600), but only exhibited an N400 in Mandarin. The absent P600 effect corresponded to their (surprisingly) low proficiency with noun-adjective violations in Mandarin, questioning simple rule transfer from English grammar.
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