Bornkessel-Schlesewsky, I.

Muralikrishnan, R.

Schlesewsky, M.

English

MPG.PuRe

muralir@cbs.mpg.deDiscussionConclusionIntroductionResultsThe present studyI would if I could but I can't:  Different types of non-prototypical Actorarguments are processed in a qualitatively similar mannerR. Muralikrishnan1, Matthias Schlesewsky2, Ina Bornkessel-Schlesewsky1,3 1Research Group Neurotypology, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Germany2Department of English and Linguistics, Johannes Gutenberg-University, Mainz, Germany3Department of Germanic Linguistics, University of Marburg, GermanyLanguage is a uniquely human ability and also one of the most complex human cognitive skills. It thus appears plausible to assume that there is an intimate relationship between the structure of human language(s) and basic characteristics of human neurobiology / neurocognition. One possible way of shedding further light on this relationship is to draw conclusions about possible "universals" of language by identifying cross-linguistically recurring patterns of lan-guage processing. These universals can be con-sidered potential candidates for links between language and cognition / neurobiology.A potential universal of language processing that has been identified in this way is the en-deavour towards unambiguous identification of the "actor", i.e. the participant primarily responsible for the state of affairs described (Bornkessel-Schlesewsky & Schlesewsky, 2009). The aim of the present study was to provide a more fine-grained characterisation of linguistic actorhood and its neurocognitive ramifications by examining the role of "volitionality" as a key feature of prototypical actors.Actorhood and Volitionality:A Cross-linguistic ViewIn English, states of affairs such as (1) and (2) are encoded in a grammatically identical manner. Prima facie, this appears to suggest that linguistic structure is primarily attuned to encoding causality or the "starting point" of an event (MacWhinney, 1977): the protagonist, the old man, is treated identically whether he voli-tionally causes the event (example 1) or experi-ences it (example 2). In many other languages, by contrast, non-volitionality of an actor can be grammatically encoded, for example via dative case marking as in example (3) from Tamil: Similar structures occur in a range of other lan-guages, e.g. Hindi, Japanese, Icelandic, and Russian. This recurring pattern suggests that volitionality may be a key feature in the defini-tion of linguistic actors, since non-volitional actors are consistently flagged with additional morphological marking.Previous Neurocognitive FindingsPrevious studies examining the processing of non-volitional actors have focused on inanimate actors. In this regard, it has been demonstrated for several languages (including German, English, Chinese and Tamil) that inanimate actors engender an N400 effect in terms of event-related brain potentials (ERPs) and that this effect can be reduced neither to lexical differences between animates and inanimates nor to the infrequency of inanimate Actors (for an overview, see Bornkessel-Schlesewsky & Schlesewsky, 2009).However, inanimate actors are not only non-volitional but also lack other prototypical actor properties such as sentience and the capability for autonomous movement (Primus, 1999). Previous findings on inanimate actors are thus not suited to isolating the individual actor characteristic(s) that are particularly important for the cognitive definition of a prototypical actor.The aim of the present study was to isolate the neurophysiological response to non-volitional actors and to compare it to that for inanimate actors. To this end, we examined the processing of "dative subject" constructions in Tamil (cf. example 3).Participants listened to question-answer pairs such as those in Table 1. The context questions ensured that dative arguments would be inter-preted as actors rather than as indirect objects. All sentence types were also presented in a neu-tral context. The critical dialogues were interspersed with a range of fillers including intransitive sentences, transitive sentences with a dropped subject and sentences with dative indirect objects.Participants:30 right-handed, native speakers of Tamil from India, mostly students living in Germany at the time of the experiment.Materials:?? ??? ????? ??? ???? ??????????? ????????? ??? ?????-vided into two lists of 288 sentences each (36 per condition)?? ????? ????? ???? ????????????? ????? ???? ???????sentences and presented in two experi-mental sessions?? ?????????????????????????????????????????male and female native speaker of Tamil, re-spectivelyProcedure:?? ????????? ????????????? ??? ????????????????dialogues via loudspeakers?? ?????????????????????????????????????????????comprehension questionEEG Recording and Preprocessing:?? ??? ?????????????????? ??????? ?????????? ???the International 10-20 system (ground: AFz; reference: left mastoid, re-referenced to linked mastoids offline)?? EEG data were filtered with 0.3-20 Hz band-pass (offline) in order to remove slow signal driftsWhen a dative-marked noun was unambiguously designated as a non-volitional actor by the context, it engendered a broadly distributed negativity (N400) followed by a late positivity in com-parison to when the acoustically identical target sentence was presented in a non-specific context (Figure 1). Notably, this effect only occurred for dative-initial sentences.Inanimate actors engendered a qualitatively similar negativity (Figure 2), though for a non-specific vs. specific context. This effect was only observable for inanimate nominatives in the second po-sition, i.e. for inanimate nominatives preceded by an accusative.In contrast to the results for non-volitional (dative) and inanimate (nominative) actors, ERPs to dative indirect objects and animate nominatives were not modulated by context, thus attesting to Non-volitional animate actors (dative subjects) engendered an N400 - late positivity pattern when they occurred as the clause-initial argument in a target sentence following a spe-cific context question. This result attests to the language comprehension system's reluctance to analyse an animate dative as a non-volitional actor (dative subject) as such an interpretation appears to require both contextual and word order support. (Dative subjects typically occur in the clause-initial position). This is in line with the proposal that animate actors are preferentially interpreted as volitional agents via a pragmatic inference (Holisky, 1987). The assumption that, in addition to realising non-prototypical actors, the dative subjects in our experiment conflicted with a pragmatic preference is supported by the observation of a late positivity. These effects have been associated with prag-matic enrichment, e.g. as required in situations of reference transfer such as The ham sandwich over in the corner wants an-other coffee (Schumacher, to appear).Inanimate actors engendered a qualitatively similar negativity effect (N400) to non-volitional actors. This effect was observ-able in a non-specific vs. a specific context, i.e. when the inani-macy of the actor argument was not known in advance, and when the inanimate nominative argument was unambigu-ously identifiable as an actor because it was preceded by an accusative. Our findings suggest that volitionality plays a central role in the definition of a prototypical actor. Non-volitional animate actors engendered a qualitatively similar negativity effect (N400) to inanimate actors, thereby indicating that the language processing system's response to inanimate actors is conditioned by their lack of volitionality as opposed to their incapacity for autonomous movement or sentience. The additional late positivity observed for non-volitional animate actors likely reflects a pragmatic preference for animate actors to be interpreted as volitional.The neural language comprehension system thus appears to be attuned to volitionality as a key feature of actorhood: non-volitional actors are penalised and, conversely, animate event participants are preferentially interpreted as volitional (i.e. responsible for their actions).Bornkessel-Schlesewsky, I., & Schlesewsky, M. (2009). The role of prominence informa-tion in the real time comprehension of transitive constructions: A cross-linguistic approach. Language and Linguistics Compass, 3????????Holisky, D. A. (1987). The case of intransitive subject in Tsova-Tush (Batsbi). Lingua, 71, 103-132.MacWhinney, B. (1977). Starting points. Language, 53??????????Primus, B. (1999). Cases and thematic roles. Tübingen: Niemeyer.Schumacher, P. B. (to appear). The hepatitis called.: Electrophysiological evidence for enriched composition. In J. Meibauer & M. Steinbach (Eds.), Experimental pragmatics/semantics. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Figure 1: Grand average ERPs timelocked to the onset of an animate non-volitional actor ("dative subject"; onset at the vertical bar) in sentence-initial position for specific (SPEC) vs. non-specific (NEUT) contexts. Negativity is plotted upwards.Figure 2: Grand average ERPs timelocked to the onset of an inanimate actor (onset at the vertical bar) in NP2 position for specific (SPEC) vs. non-specific (NEUT) contexts. Negativity is plotted upwards.the fact that the effects in our critical conditions did not simply result from the comparison of target sentences in a specific and a non-specific context. ReferencesTable1: Example sentences for the critical conditions in the present study???????????F3 FZ F4FC1 FC2CZCP1 CP2P3 PZ P4Dat_SPEC (n=30)Dat_NEUT (n=30)–33sμV??? 1.0In_NEUT (n=30)In_SPEC (n=30)–33sμV??? 1.0F3 FZ F4FC1 FC2CZCP1 CP2P3 PZ P4Dative Subjects at NP1 Inanimate Subjects at NP2N400 N400POS

I would if I could but I can't: Different types of non-prototypical Actor arguments are processed in a qualitatively similar manner

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I would if I could but I can't: Different types of non-prototypical Actor arguments are processed in a qualitatively similar manner

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