| Inversion in syntax is defined as exchanging positions of constituents in a sentence without changing the basic meaning of the sentence.This study focuses on the processing of Chinese verb-object inversion structures(CVOI structures)by exploring the mechanism(including the rules/principles of processing)of CVOI from a cognitive perspective.Chinese inversion structures are different from those in English.In Chinese verb-object inversion sentences(CVOIS),the positions of object-nouns and verbs can be exchanged without causing any change to the basic meanings of the sentences.CVOI sentences have been used in Chinese for a long time,but there are not many studies looking into them systematically,much less with an empirical approach utilizing,for example,the time-course method,EEG/ERPs,or f MRI.The research questions this study attempts to address are as follows: i)How do inversion-types and sentence-types affect the processing of Chinese V-O inversion structures? ii)How do writing directions affect the processing of Chinese V-O inversion structures? iii)How do local contexts affect the processing of Chinese V-O inversion structures? And iv)How do global contexts affect the processing of Chinese V-O inversion structures?A total of 116 participants(60 native Chinese speakers(NCSs)and 56 native Uyghur speakers(NUSs)were recruited for the first experiment to investigate the component-processing of 40 CVOIS with a self-paced reading task of true/false judgements;the computer automatically recorded the length of response time(RT)and accuracy(ACC)data,which were compared in terms of ACC/RT(for components)in Chinese Verb-Object non-inversion sentence/sentences(CVONS).To further study how the transfer from first language(L1)to second language(L2)affects CVOI processing mechanism,an experiment with left oriented writing was conducted on 110participants(54 NCSs and 56 NUSs),which involved a reading task of true/false judgements of 40 CVOIS in the right-to-left writing direction with a self-paced reading task of true/false judgements;the computer automatically recorded the RT and accuracy data,which were compared in terms of ACC/RT(for components)in Chinese Verb-Object non-inversion sentence/sentences(CVONS).Furthermore,to examine how local contexts affect the processing of Chinese V-O inversion structures,an experiment with CVOIS having local contexts was conducted on 118 participants(66NCSs and 52 NUSs),which involved a reading task of true/false judgments of 80CVOIS/CVONS with local normal contexts;the computer automatically recorded the RT and accuracy data,which were examined in terms of ACC/RT(for components)in CVOIS/CVONS with local violence contexts.Finally,in order to find out how global contexts affect the processing of Chinese V-O inversion structures,an experiment with CVOIS having global contexts was conducted on 116 participants(64 NCSs and 52NUSs),which involved a reading task of true/false judgements of 160 CVOIS/CVONS with global normal contexts;the computer automatically recorded the RT and accuracy data,which were scrutinized in terms of ACC/RT(for components)in CVOIS/CVONS with global violence contexts.The results showed that both CVOI and the inversion structures received higher acceptability from NCSs whereas CVON inversion structures showed higher accuracy(ACC)in NCSs than in NUSs.The differences of CVOIS processing between NCSs and NUSs were first found in the time course testing,i.e.the processing of verbs,objects and ending parts in NCSs went faster than that in NUSs for simple regular sentences,simple inversion sentences,and “yijing” regular sentences,but not in“yijing” inversion sentences.The experiment on the right-to-left writing direction showed beneficial effects for NUSs and meanwhile it revealed that the rates of ACC in NUSs and NCSs were almost the same when processing inversion sentences,and that NUSs used less time to process the ending parts of most of the sentences than NCSs.Local contexts can obviously affect the ACC of CVOIS processing,and there was an interaction effect between local contexts and inversion types whereas there was no interaction effect between global contexts and sentence types.Global contexts brought about no differences in ACC between NUSs and NCSs,and there was no interaction effect between global contexts and inversion types;however,global contexts cause ed the processing time for all the constituents by NUSs to last longer than that by NCSs.By comparing and examining the results from the four CVOIS experiments,this study provided answers to the four research questions.Firstly,the VO inversion structure was evidenced to be the motivation of processing distinction of CVOIS.Secondly,CVOI structures were easier to process by NCSs than by NUSs in response,which was distinguished by verbs and ending parts.Left oriented writing can be beneficial to NUSs who processed CVOIS faster in some parts than NCSs because their L1(the Uyghur language)was written in the right-to-left direction.Local contexts affected ACC of CVOIS and also showed an interaction effect on inversion types.However,global contexts brought about no differences in terms of ACC,but they lead to the prolonging of processing time of CVOIS by NUSs.The inve rsion operation affected CVOIS processing as long as the varying operation of sentence types did,while the contexts decreased the operational influence of inversion and sentence types.This study has implications for the research on the acquisition of CVOIS,the theorizing about language transfer,the study of working memory,as well as for the teaching of Chinese to native speakers of languages other than Chinese and the study of their processing mechanisms for Chinese inversion sentences. |
