| The processing of anaphora is influenced by various factors such as semantics,syntax,and pragmatics.The Principle A of Chomsky’s Binding Theory requires the reflexive pronoun to be bound to its antecedent within its governing category.However,Chinese reflexive can refer to the local subject,depending on properties of the verb.This violation of Principle A comes with processing costs during sentence comprehension,eliciting P300 and P600.We investigate whether the reflexive of Chinese sign language,like Chinese,can refer to either the matrix subject or the local subject or both,depending on the verb in the sentence and,if so,how the syntax cue,the requirement of binding theory A,and the semantic cue,the property of the verb,interact during the anaphor comprehension.In study one,we asked our participants to make a forced choice on which antecedent the Chinese sign language ziji in the given sentences refer to.According to the result,Chinese sign language ziji do can refer back to the matrix subjects,and no significant correlation was found between verb’s semantic orientation and commonness.Based on study one,in study two,we investigated the time course of the reflexive comprehension in Chinese sign language.The ERP responds showed that,it was not the long-distance condition compared with the local condition that induce a larger central posterior P300,but the opposite.Also,compared with the local condition,the long-distance condition and the ambiguous condition elicited larger Nref effect.We discuss this result under the perspective of enhanced costs for attention causing by the congruent requirements from both binding theory A and the property of the verb.In addition,by analyzing the neural oscillations associated with the interpretation of sign language reflexive pronouns,we found an increased theta-band synchronization elicited by the local condition,which suggests a higher activation of local subject in the working memory. |
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