An ERPs Study On The Processing Of Adjective Animcy

The issue of lexical animacy is a topic heatedly discussed by linguistics andneruoscience. Most of the studies lay the emphasis on neural mechanism of animatenoun and inanimate noun,and are concerned about the e ffect of noun argument animacyon syntactic processing and verb choices from the perspective of noun animacy.Adjective is an important modifying element of noun. Based on the animacy of noun,adjective can be divided into adjective[+animate],adjective[±animate]and adjective[-animate].Therefore, the semantic feature classification of adjective is correlated with nounanimacy. However, in most studies of adjective-noun collocation, the researchers areconcerned about prenominal order and lack of sufficient emphasis on the semanticfeature of adjective animacy.The present study aims at the effect of animacy semantic feature on adjectiveprocessing and semantic restriction of adjective-noun collocation. According toanimistic semantic feature, combined with classification method of the predecessors, wedivide the adjective into animistic adjective, non-animistic adjective and universaladjective and divide the noun into animistic noun and non-animistic noun. Based on thecorpus above, we design ERPs experiment concerned and check the concrete conditionsof the comprehension processing of animacy in adjective-noun phrasal semanticsubcategorial collocation. On the basis, we try to make a tentative discussion andexplanation toward the evoked ERPs component such as N400, P600and LPC etc.The conclusions of this study are as follows: Adjective, based on the classificationof semantic subcategory feature, is divided into animate adjective, non-animateadjective and universal adjective has the psychological reality. They have differentneural mechanisms in language processing. In the collocational study of semanticsubcategory between lexicals, animacy as an important semantic feature, plays aconstraint and restrictional role in the semantic subcategory choice between adjectiveand noun. The processing of animacy selectional violation, based on the collocation of adjective and noun, is an interaction between semantic processing and syntacticprocessing. Adjective-noun phase combinated by animate adjective and animate nounhas the same neural processing mechanism with adjective noun phrase combinated byA[-animate]and N[-animate]. Contrasted with the phrase A[-animate]+N[-animate], A[animate]+N[animate]elicited a typical semantic P600component in central brain region and right brainregion. It shows that animacy, as a prominent semantic feature, can have an effect onsyntactic processing.