syntactic and semantic factors in processing...

Journal of Memory and Language 45,200–224 (2001)doi:10.1006/jmla.2000.2768, available online at http://www.academicpress.com on

Syntactic and Semantic Factors in Processing Gender Agreement in Hebrew: Evidence from ERPs and Eye Movements

Avital Deutsch and Shlomo Bentin

The Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel

The interrelation between syntactic analysis of agreement and semantic processing was examined by recordingeye movements and event-related potentials. Subject–predicate gender agreement was manipulated within He-

subject’sn of con-fect wasgender in-d the am-positivewas sig- the se-

marked-ss. Theework set

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brew sentences. The subject was either animate or inanimate, with conceptual gender denoted by themorphological structure. First-pass reading time was found to be longer for incongruent predicates thagruent predicates but only if the predicate’s gender was morphologically marked. Furthermore, this eflarger in the animate than in the inanimate condition. Second-pass reading time was also prolonged by congruity but this effect was not affected by either markedness or animacy. Gender incongruity enhanceplitude of an early negative potential (ostensibly ELAN), of a later negative potential (N400), and of a potential (P600). Like first-pass reading time, the congruity effect on the syntactically modulated P600 nificant only for marked predicates, but it did not interact with animacy. In contrast, the congruity effect onmantically modulated N400 was significant only in the animate condition. The N400 was not affected by ness. The congruity effect on the early negativity did not interact with either animacy or markedneinteraction between semantic and syntactic processing and its time course are discussed within the framby interactive, constraint-based models for online sentence processing.© 2001 Academic Press

Key Words:gender agreement; eye movements; ERP; P600; N400.

he morphological structure of words ap-this process is affected by semantic infor
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pearing in a sentence is constrained by syntic rules that use inflectional morphologymark the grammatical roles of the words withthe sentence. These syntactic constraintsagreement rules that involve various grammcal dependencies (such as gender, numcase, person, and definiteness) between sential elements (such as the noun and its modias reflected in the agreement between a suband its attribute). Although languages varythe extent to which they use agreement ruthese rules constitute a general principle ofsyntax of many languages.

A fundamental question concerning the pcessing of agreement rules is the extent to wh

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his study was supported by a grant from the National te for Psychobiology in Israel, founded by the Char

Smith Family to A.D., and by Grant # 01994 fromHD to S.B. through Haskins Laboratories. We thaar Aharony, Gad On, Irit Shapira, and Nomi Wexler f

r extensive help and assistance in preparing the stim running the experiments.ddress correspondence and reprint requests to Avtsch, School of Education, The Hebrew Universisalem 91905. E-mail: [email protected].

0749-596X/01 $35.00

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Although agreement relates to abstract grammical relations, the inflections that determineagreement also denote semantic properties,as number and/or sex. Therefore, findings ccerning the involvement of semantic factorsprocessing agreement are likely to contributthe more general debate regarding the indepence of the syntactic process. One view mtains that the syntactic processing is modularthat it interacts with other linguistic informatioonly at the output level (e.g., Clifton, Speer,Abney, 1991; Frazier, 1987). An alternative viposits mutual influence between the syntacticmain and multiple sources of linguistic costraints throughout the computation of sentemeaning (e.g., MacDonald, 1994; TanenhaSpivey-Knowlton, Eberhard, & Sedivy, 1995).the case of agreement rules, the proponents omodular view suggest that agreement analysgoverned only by formal principles, which aapplied, for example, via a process of inflectifeature checking. In contrast, proponents ofinteractive, multiple-constraint-based modposit that agreement analysis is affected bysemantic properties of a word as well as its fo

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Copyright © 2001 by Academic PressAll rights of reproduction in any form reserved.

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PROCESSING GE

The question whether the processingagreement is, or is not, influenced by lexical-mantic factors has been examined using diffent experimental paradigms primarily in thcontext of language production. These studfocused on different types of agreement in dferent languages. The overall pattern of finings, however, is equivocal and apparentlyfluenced by the language in which the stuwas conducted. For example, findings sugging that the processing of subject–predicnumber agreement in English is basically unfected by semantic factors (Bock, 1995; Bo& Miller, 1991; Nicol, Forster, & Veres, 1997Vigliocco, Butterworth, & Garrett 1996a; Pearmutter, Garnsey, & Bock, 1999; but see Ebhard, 1999) are contradicted by evidencetained for Italian, Spanish, Dutch, and Fren(Vigliocco, et al., 1996a; Vigliocco, Butterworth, & Semenza, 1995; Vigliocco, Harsuiker, Jarema, & Kolk 1996b) as well as fgender agreement in Italian and Fren(Vigliocco & Franck, 1999). This inconsistenchas been attributed to linguistic differences btween the languages studied, such as the exof use of agreement rules and their salienceeach language (see, Vigliocco et al., 1991995, 1966b). The languages in which conctual factors influenced the processing of agrment are relatively highly inflected, and the roof agreement as a syntactic tool in these lguages is much more central than in EngliThis suggestion could be further supportedfindings obtained in Hebrew. Although Hebreas a Semitic language, is very different frothe above-mentioned Indo-European langualike them, it is a highly inflected languagAgreement rules are important and form highreliable syntactic cues. Converging evidenfrom remotely related languages may cotribute to the ability to distinguish between laguage-specific and general psycholinguisprinciples. Indeed, previous language comphension studies in Hebrew showed that the stactic analysis of subject–predicate agreemis susceptible to semantic influence (Deuts1998; Deutsch, Bentin, & Katz, 1999). Thefindings form the starting point for the prese
investigation of possible semantic influence
NDER AGREEMENT 201

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processing agreement while reading Hebrsentences.

Another factor that should be consideredwhether the processing of agreement was exined in the course of language production or laguage comprehension. The comparison betwthe processing of agreement in language pduction and comprehension is not triviaWhereas, in language production, the speaneeds to create the correct inflections in ordetranslate the grammatical roles of the words insyntactic structure, in language comprehensithe listener (or reader) needs to compute agreement on the basis of given inflected forin order to identify the grammatical role of thvarious words in the sentence. Unfortunatestudies of processing agreement during comphension are scarce. In fact, except of our oprevious study cited above, we are aware of otwo studies examining agreement processduring sentence comprehension (Nicol et a1997; Pearlmutter et al., 1999). These studwhich were carried out in English, suggestthat, at least in English, the processing of agrment in comprehension is, like in productioinsensitive to conceptual information. Therfore, in addition to providing information focross-linguistic comparisons, the present stuwhich focused on language comprehensprocesses, may enrich the very limited findinavailable on agreement computation in tcourse of language comprehension.

Most nouns and adjectives in Hebrew are flected for gender and number. Verbs are alsoflected for gender and number as well as for pson and tense. The inflection is formed by taffixation of a suffix and or a prefix to a baform, often synthetically so that the morphembinding entails changes in the phonologicstructure of the base form. The base to which inflectional suffixes are appended is the masline singular form in the nominal system and tmasculine singular form in the verbal systeHence, the masculine singular constitutes morphologicallyunmarked form. The femininemarking morpheme is usually one of the thrpossible suffixes, /a/, /et/, or /it /, used by bothnouns and verbs. For instance, the femin

onform of the noun “yeled” (masc. sing., “a boy”)

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202 DEUTSCH A

is “yalda” (sing. fem., “a girl”); in the verbasystem the feminine form of a verb such “nopel” (masc. sing. present: “is falling downis “nopelet” (fem. sing.). The plural-markingmorpheme is /im/ or /ot/, where /im/ is usuallyused for masculine forms and /ot/ for feminineforms. In the above example, the plural form“yeled” (masc. sing.) is “yladim” (masc. pl.)and the plural form of “yalda” (fem. sing.) is“yladot” (fem. pl.). Indeed, there are excetional cases in which feminine nominal formare not marked by one of the feminine infletional markers. Furthermore, there are alsfew cases in which the plural suffix /ot/ is usedfor masculine forms and the suffix /im/ for fem-inine forms. However, because most exceptiocases involve inanimate rather than animnouns, these exceptions do not reduce the rbility of the inflections as markers of conceptgender.

Being a highly inflected language, syntacrelations in Hebrew are denoted primarily matching inflectional affixes (imposed by tagreement), relying far less on other structufactors such as, for example, word order.

The main agreement rules operating in Hbrew are between the subject and the predicand the subject and the attribute.1 The predicateand the attribute must agree with regard to gder and number with the subject (and also wregard to person if the predicate is a verb inpast, future, or imperative forms). In additiothe subject and attribute also agree with regto article. For example, the sentence, “The cboy is falling into the pond,” which translateinto Hebrew as “Hayeled (sub.—article “ha” —masc. sing. “the boy”) hanexmad (attrib.—arcle “ha” — masc. sing. “cute”) nopel (pred.—masc. sing. present “is falling”) letoch habrec(“into the pool”) becomes, when referring togirl, “Hayalda hanexmada nopelet letochhabrecha.” As can be seen in the example,

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masculine singular forms (the noun, the adje

1Agreement rules are similarly applied, in other forms grammatical relations, such as between an object and itstribute or a verb and its adverbial modifier. However, we dnot specify these rules, as they are not crucial for the undstanding of the present experiments.

ND BENTIN

tive, and the verb) are morphologically unmarked, whereas the feminine forms aremarked by a suffix. Furthermore, whereas tsubject (hayalda) and the predicate (nopelet)agree only with regard to gender and numb(the suffixes /a/ and /et/), the subject (hayalda)and the attribute (hanexmada) also take thesame article. Thus, in most sentential structurthe agreement rules provide a reliable cueidentifying the basic syntactic categories in thsentence and for constructing the subject–precate structure. In addition to their role in specfying the relationship between words, the grammatical markers of inflectional morphology alsconvey semantic information. This informatiomay pertain to concepts such as person, numor, particularly relevant to the present study, tsex of animate nouns. Disentangling the effeof syntactic and semantic information conveyeby inflectional markers on processing the agrement is difficult. A possible solution is providedby gender agreement in languages like Hebrwhereby the same inflectional suffixes are usfor marking the gender of both animate aninanimate nouns. It should be noted, howevthat in Hebrew, with few exceptions, the sex corelates with the grammatical gender denotedinflectional morphology. Hence, by using identcal inflectional tools, it is possible to disentanggrammatical and conceptual consequencWhereas gender agreement between subjectpredicate reflects only grammatical matchinfor inanimate nouns, it is also associated withe semantic feature of sex when the nounsanimate.

Using this feature of Hebrew, Deutsch et a(1999) used a syntactic priming paradigm to eamine the sensitivity of syntactic agreemeanalysis to semantic factors. Participants realist of sentences, half of which violated subject–predicate gender agreement and, therefowere syntactically incongruent. The effect ofword’s semantic content on gender-agreemprocessing was assessed by comparing thefect of agreement violation in sentenceswhich the sentential subject was an animanoun and in sentences in which the subject wan inanimate noun. The working hypothes

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PROCESSING GE

animate nouns involves, in addition to the gramatical violation, a semantic mismatch betwethe biological sex denoted by the subject andincongruent predicate. Therefore, if the proceing of agreement is sensitive to semantic fators, then the interference effect induced byviolation of the agreement should be greatersentences in which the sentential subject is amate than for sentences in which it is inanimaThe results showed, as expected, that the cgruity effect on naming latency was larger whthe same predicate was coupled with an animsubject than when it was coupled with an inamate subject. In light of this result, it was sugested that semantic information interacts wthe processing of subject–predicate agreeme

The results of Deutsch et al. (1999) suppan interactive approach to agreement procesbut they do not specify the time course of tinteraction. Does the influence of semantic ftors on agreement processing reflect mutualfluences during lexical access and/or during initial integration of the word within the contexor does it reflect processes that take placlater stages, such as more global processesentence integration? To answer this quesand obtain a more comprehensive accountthe interaction, the process of sentence comhension needs to be examined throughoutprogression. Examination of this type cannotbased only on off-line measures, such as namlatency. It requires on-line data collection of tprocess involved, using measures that allowgood temporal resolution.

Another common shortcoming of most padigms used in studies of sentence processinthat they use stimulus presentation methods disrupt the natural flow of reading (for examp“word-by-word” presentation). This shortcoming could have been particularly deleterious examining the involvement of semantic infomation in processing the agreement. This is cause the extent of semantic involvement mibe biased by temporal factors, such as expotime and rate of presentation. Therefore, exaining the interaction between semantic and stactic factors in the processing of agreemenlikely to benefit from evidence obtained in
more natural setting.
DER AGREEMENT 203

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Finally, additional limitation of conclusionsbased only on performance measures such asaction time and accuracy is that they may reflea composite effect of the processes under invtigation. In particular, ascribing the longer reation time required to name animate as opposto inanimate incongruent predicates to the dferential involvement of semantic factors in thtwo conditions was mainly based on the asumption that the manipulation of animacy rflects semantic factors (Deutsch et al., 199However, the validity of the interpretation othese results is likely to be enhanced by vaables that are independently influenced by mantic and syntactic processes.

With the above concerns in mind, in the preent study we recorded eye movements and brevent-related potentials (ERPs) while subjecread sentences. The subject–predicate genagreement and semantic factors were manilated in these sentences using the same produre as in Deutsch et al. (1999). Both measuhave been shown to provide reliable on-linmeasures of reading performance (see followreview). In addition, the ERPs are expected provide independent indexes of semantic asyntactic processes, and eye movements will hance the ecological validity of the naturprocess of reading.

Following is a brief description of the maifeatures of each of these two methods, with scial focus on studies in which these methowere used to explore the syntactic processagreement analysis and its interaction with smantic factors. Because the present study exained only the processing of subject–predicaagreement, the following survey will be limiteto findings based on the investigation of thtype of agreement.

Eye Movements in the Study ofSubject–Predicate Agreement

The main advantage of the eye-movemetechnique is that data are collected in almonatural conditions—silent reading of complesentences, with participants in control of thereading rate. The principal measure used in investigation of reading processes is the du
tion of eye fixations on target words. Because

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204 DEUTSCH A

the spatial location of each fixation is monitoron-line, this procedure has the capacity to tinguish between at least two major phasesreading: “first-pass duration” and “total fixatiotime” on a target. First-pass duration (atermed “gaze duration”) refers to the durationall the fixations on the target word from the fitime the reader’s eyes encounter it until the emove to preceding or following parts of the setence. Because the first-pass duration oftencludes more than one fixation, it is possibledistinguish the “first fixation duration” from thsubsequent fixations included in the first-pduration. Total time refers to the summed dution of all fixations made on the target word,cluding later fixations resulting from regressmovements from subsequent words in the stence or rereading of the sentence startinwords prior to the target. Operationally, it possible to calculate the “second-pass duratiwhich includes all fixations on the target areaa second encounter, but not the duration offirst pass. It should be noted that although it mbe tempting to link lexical access, initial intgration of a word in its local context, and setence reanalysis directly with first fixation durtion, first-pass duration, and total-time duratiosuch attempts are probably unwarrantNonetheless, it is commonly accepted (Ray& Pollatsek, 1989; Reichle, Pollatsek, Fisher,Rayner, 1998) that processes associated single word analysis and on-line integrationthe word into its immediate local context mainaffect the first-pass duration (as well as first ation duration) and that later processes of glosentence integration and/or reanalysis of sentence mainly affect the total time (as welsecond-pass duration). Thus, the monitoringeye movements may help throw light on the teraction between syntactic and semaprocesses taking place during the on-lprocess of word identification and its integratin the immediate context, as well as procesthat take place later, during sentence comhension. The sensitivity of eye movementssubject–predicate agreement processing waported in Hebrew (Deutsch, 1998) and in Elish (Pearlmutter et al., 1999). In these stud
participants were instructed to read senten
ND BENTIN

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that were either syntactically (and semanticaintact or syntactically incorrect due to violatioof the subject–predicate agreement in respecgender and/or number. In the Hebrew stuwhen the predicate immediately followed tsubject, both the first-pass duration (gaze dution) and the total time duration were longduring the processing of syntactically incongent as opposed to congruent predicates. Hever, this congruity effect disappeared whenattributive phrase of five words was embeddbetween the subject and the predicate. Assing that the “distance” manipulation implied thconceptual mapping of the sentential subjand its semantic analysis prior to reading predicate, Deutsch (1998) suggested that processing of agreement in Hebrew might susceptible to on-line semantic and/or conctual processes.

In the present study, we applied the animamanipulation (Deutsch et al., 1999) to furthexplore the susceptibility of agreement proceing to semantic factors, focusing primarily othe temporal aspects of this interaction. If mantic factors interact with the immediate, oline process of agreement analysis, then theteraction between animacy and agreemcongruity should emerge already in the firpass duration. Specifically, the violation of geder agreement should interfere more with first-pass duration of the predicate in animateopposed to inanimate contexts. If, however,immediate, on-line process of agreement ansis is restricted to form agreement and is opato other sources of information, then measuof first-pass duration should reflect the interfence of agreement independently of the semtic features of the sentential subject. Speccally, the interaction between animacy acongruity should not emerge in the first-pass ration analysis, but rather in the total timand/or second pass, the measures assocwith the reanalysis of the sentence triggereddifficulties in global sentence integration.

ERPs in the Study of Subject–PredicateAgreement

Event-related brain potentials reflect proce
cesing-induced changes in brain activity and pro-

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PROCESSING GE

vide an on-line index of processing with hitemporal resolution. Therefore, ERPs may hcharting the time course of various cognitprocesses. In addition, because different cotive processes modulate brain activity in diffent ways, the recording of ERPs can assisseparating qualitatively different processesdemonstrating their association with differeERP components.

ERPs have been used extensively in wperception and reading research and showebe sensitive to semantic and syntactic facduring the course of comprehension (eAinsworth-Darnell, Shulman, & Boland, 199Neville, Nicol, Barss, Forster, & Garrett, 199Osterhout & Mobley, 1995; for a review seKutas & Van Petten, 1994). The most docmented component associated with semaprocessing is the N400, a negative trough inwaveform, peaking at about 400 ms from stimlus onset. Its particular association with semtic processes was first demonstrated by Kuand Hillyard (1980), who found that its amptude is modulated by the semantic coherencthe final word in a sentence, but not by its phical match with the other words. Since its dcovery, much effort has been invested towunderstanding its association with lexical actity elicited by single-word processing (e.gBentin, 1987; Bentin, McCarthy, & Wood1985; Nobre & McCarthy, 1994; Rugg & Nag1987; Van Peten & Kutas, 1990, 1991) and wcontextual semantic processes (e.g., HolcomNeville, 1990; Kutas & Hillyard, 1984; KutasLindamood, & Hillyard, 1984; Van PettenKutas, 1990). Although the precise cognitmechanism underlying its sensitivity to sematic factors is not fully understood, there is ampevidence demonstrating its validity in indexiword-related semantic activity (Kutas, 1993;a review, see Kutas & Van Petten, 1994). Parularly relevant to the present study is the fthat, in contrast to its sensitivity to semanmanipulations, N400 was not modulated by mnipulation of syntactic factors (Ainsworth-Danell et al., 1998; Gunter, Stowe, & Mulde1997; Kutas & Hillyard, 1983; Neville at al1991; Osterhout & Mobley, 1995). Hence, r
gardless of the exact interpretation of the mec
DER AGREEMENT 205

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anisms involved in its elicitation, the N400 hthe capacity to distinguish between semanand syntactic processes occurring during stence comprehension.

Syntactic manipulations usually modulatwo ERP components: One is the P600, a ptive peak around 500–600 ms from word on(Osterhout & Holcomb, 1992). This compone[also labeled “syntactic positive shift” (SPSHagoort, Brown, & Groothusen, 1993], is usally largest at central and parietal sites (eCoulson, King, & Kutas, 1998; FriedericHahne, & Mecklinger, 1996; Osterhout & Mobely, 1995), although one study reported a rianterior maximum (Osterhout & Holcom1992). The other component is the LAN, a lanterior negativity initially reported by Kluender and Kutas (1993), which was later assated by some authors with syntactic process(e.g., Friederici, Pfeifer, & Hahne, 199Neville et al., 1991). In some studies, the LAwas found between 200 and 500 ms from wonset (Coulson et al., 1998; Münte, Matzke,Johannes, 1997; Münte, Heinze, & Mangu1993; Neville et al., 1991; Osterhout & Hocomb, 1992; Osterhout & Mobley, 1995; RöslPütz, Friederici, & Hahne, 1993), whereas others it was found even earlier, between and 300 ms from word onset (Friederici et 1993, 1996; Hahne & Friederici, 1999; Neviet al., 1991). Given this considerable tempovariation, the earlier negative trough was serately labeled ELAN to reflect its early ons(Friederici et al., 1993; Hahne & Friederic1999).2 The LAN and the P600 have been fouto coexist in some cases (Coulson et al., 19Friederici et al., 1996; Gunter et al., 1997; Oterhout & Holcomb, 1992; Osterhout & Moble1995; Neville et al., 1991; Rösler et al., 199The multitude of ERP manifestations of synttic processing is probably accounted for by variability in the syntactic rules manipulateddifferent studies.

Previous ERP studies of subject–verb agr

h-comes available (Friederici et al., 1996).

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206 DEUTSCH A

These studies were carried out in various lguages, such as English (Coulson et al., 19Osterhout, McKinnon, Bersick, & Corey 199Osterhout, & Mobley, 1995), Dutch (Hagoortal., 1993), and German (Münte et al., 1997).all these studies, violation of agreement wassociated with enhanced P600. Indeed, in twothese studies, LAN was also evident (Coulset al., 1998; Osterhout & Mobley, 1995). However, the effects of violation of agreementthe size of the LAN (to be refered to as “modlation of the LAN”) were found only under specific circumstances: In the Osterhout and Moley (1995) study, the LAN was modulated whthe participants performed an acceptabitask, but not when they simply read sentencIn the Coulson et al., (1998) study, violationagreement involved the inflection ofclosedclasswords (pronouns). When syntactic anoaly was induced by violation of agreement btween the inflection of twoopen classwords(constituting the subject and the predicatethe sentence) the modulation of the LAN wunstable or not evident at all, whereas the Pwas enhanced (Hagoort et al., 1993; Münteal., 1997; Osterhout et al., 1996). In line withe relative higher consistency of the agreemeffects on the P600, at least in the case of oclass words, our predictions in the presstudy focused primarily on this ERP compnent.

Despite the apparently evident associatbetween syntactic processing and the P600,cognitive mechanism that underlies its modution is still debatable. One question is wheththe enhanced positivity in response to syntaviolations is uniquely related to syntactic prcessing or, alternatively, whether the P600 imember of a late positive potentials (e.P300), which are sensitive to unexpected, tarelevant events (e.g., Coulson et al., 19Gunter et al., 1997; Hagoort et al., 1993; Osthout et al., 1996). Although, this debate is nsolved, it is usually agreed that, at the very leathe P600 can reliably index syntactic process(Osterhout et al., 1996). Another questionwhat exactly is the syntactic process that molates the P600: Is it the mere detection of u
grammaticality, or is it the reanalysis of un
ND BENTIN

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grammatical or ambiguous structures? In ligof its fairly late occurrence (500–600 ms aftword onset) and its elicitation by disambiguaing words in garden-path sentences, manysearchers consider the P600 as being assocwith additional processing of local ungrammacality and/or global reanalysis of ungrammaticsentences.

On the basis of the differential associationN400 with semantic processes and the LAN aP600 with syntactic processes, we predicted ferent patterns of ERP in sentences in whichgender agreement correlates with semantic tures (the animate condition) and sentencewhich the manipulation of gender agreemhas no semantic consequences (the inanimcondition). Specifically, we predicted that icongruent predicates would modulate all of above components in the animate conditiwhereas in the inanimate condition the incogruent predicates will modulate only the syntaassociated components.

Although the ERP data seem capable of pviding a distinct index of brain activity involv-ing semantic and syntactic processes, theirterpretation in the context of natural readingweakened because ERPs are usually recoin unnatural reading conditions, namely whsentences are presented word by word afairly slow pace. This shortcoming is overcomby the eye-movement technique. Thus, in adtion to the separate contribution of eachthese techniques to the understanding of stence comprehension processes, contrasand converging evidence from both typesdata is important for a general theory of reaing. Furthermore, correspondence betweenspecific measures of eye movements (i.e., fipass and second-pass) and specific ERP cponents, namely the LAN and the P600, mhelp illuminate the processes of syntacanalysis and sentence comprehension assated with each of these two components. Infollowing two experiments, we recorded eymovements (Experiment 1) and ERPs (Expement 2) while participants read sentenceswhich agreement congruity for sentencescluding an animate or an inanimate subject w
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ossrgetrget

un-re

bye-

am-

ideon-atater-ith-

ye res-an

half a degree. Participants were seated 46 cm

4 Previous studies which examined the processing of sub-ject–predicate agreement revealed morphological effects ofmarkedness on the implementation of agreement rules inlanguage production (Bock & Eberhard, 1993; Eberhard,1997; Vigliocco et al., 1995). It has been suggested that theexplicit appearance of an inflectional morpheme triggers theprocess of feature matching between the forms under agree-ment (Eberhard, 1997). Accordingly, the actual way agree-ment is processed may differ for marked and unmarked

PROCESSING GE

EXPERIMENT 1

Methods

Participants. Thirty-two adult native Hebrewspeakers, students at the Hebrew Univerparticipated in the experiment for course creor payment.

Stimuli. The critical stimuli were 104 targwords embedded in sentences. All sentencesa complex structure. Each began with a mclause of three to four words followed by a stential object complement. An English examwould be the following: “The woman saw ththe boy had fallen into the pool.” The targetword in each sentence was the predicate osentential object complement clause (“hfallen”); it was never the last word of the setence and it was always adjacent to its subCongruity and animacy were manipulawithin the object-complement clause. Althouthe sentential object complement was locatea syntactically subordinate part of the senteit played an essential role in the sentence text, independent of the main clause. In fact,subordinate clause carried the primary conof the sentence.3 Each target word appearedfour different sentence-context conditions:animate-congruent, (2) animate-incongrue(3) inanimate-congruent, and (4) inanimatecongruent. In the animate conditions, the sject of the sentence was an animate noun, athe inanimate conditions, it was an inanimnoun. In the congruent conditions the taragreed with regard to gender with the suband in the incongruent conditions it did not. Tgrammatical gender of all the subjects, precates, and attributes, as well as the concepgender of all animate subjects, used in this scould be deduced on the basis of their morplogical structure.

All targets were masculine forms. In ordercontrol for specific effects of morphologicmarkedness on the rules of agreement, 52 tapredicates were singular (unmarked) ver
forms, such as “napal” ([he] fell), and 52 target
3 This specific sentential structure was chosen becauseeye-movement technique used in the experiment doesallow for target areas to be located at the beginning of a gle sentence.

DER AGREEMENT 207

ity,dit

thadinn-let

thed

n-ct.dh ince,on-hent

n1)nt,n-b-d inteet

predicates included the suffix “im” [i.e., denoing a plural (marked), form, such as “masimim” ([they] fascinate].4 The four experimen-tal conditions with morphologically unmarke(1a–1d) and marked (2a–2d) predicates arelustrated in Table 1.

The resulting 416 sentences were divided ifour experimental lists. Each list included 1different sentences, 52 unmarked (masc. sipredicates, and 52 marked predicates (mpl.). Within each list, there were 26 sentenc(13 in the “marked” and 13 “unmarked” formin each of the four (animacy 3 congruity) con-ditions. The target words were rotated acrlists so that each participant saw each taonly once, but across participants, each tawas presented in all animacy 3 congruity con-ditions (once in the marked and once in the marked form). Eight different participants werandomly assigned to each list.

Apparatus. Eye movements was recorded a SR Research Ltd. (Canada) EYELINK eytracker, a videobased tracking system that sples pupil location at the rate of 250 Hz.

The sentences were presented on a vmonitor (EIZO FlexScan F563/T) and cotrolled by a 586 computer. Eye-movement dwere collected by a second 586 computer infaced to the eye-tracker and synchronized wthe stimulus-control computer. Although viewing was binocular, only data from the right ewere used for analysis purposes. The spatialolution of the eye-tracking system was less th

the notsin-

forms. Although the effect of markedness was not the maininterest of the present study, we controlled for a possiblemarkedness effect on the processing of agreement by creat-ing two sets of stimuli in which the target word (the predi-cate), which is supposed to agree with the subject, is eithermorphologically marked (plural/masculine forms) or un-marked (singular/masculine forms).

o

c

enetohrarn

if-%

eoft-sededperi-nces

-talsingnt.cks

een

.”

.”

Note. The Hebrew examples with the English translations are shown.

from the video monitor, with 1.7 characters sutending a visual angle of 1°.

Procedure. The eye-tracking system was caibrated for each participant and the calibratiwas checked prior to the presentation of easentence. Participants were told that sentenwould appear on the video monitor one attime and that they should read each sentencthey would normally do for comprehensioThe participants were instructed to move theyes to a green square (located at the botleft-hand side of the monitor) after reading tsentence. In order to maintain participant aleness, a comprehension question occasionappeared after a sentence to which theysponded by pressing a “yes” or “no” butto
Twenty-five percent of the sentences were fo
b-

l-nchesaas

.irm

et-llye-.

lowed by a question and participants had no dficulty answering them correctly (above 95accuracy).

Each trial started with a fixation point on thright-hand side of the monitor, the location which coincided with the location of the first leter in the sentence. Once the participant focuon the fixation point, the calibration was verifiand the sentence was presented. Each exmental session began with 10 practice sente(2 of which were followed by a question). Immediately following practice, the experimensentences were presented in random order, ua different randomization for each participaThe 104 sentences were presented in two bloof 52 sentences, with a short break betw

208 DEUTSCH AND BENTIN

TABLE 1

Examples of Sentences Used in the Four Experimental Conditions of Congruity 3 Animacy for Unmarked and Marked Predicates.

Animate Inanimate

Unmarked

Congruent “The woman saw that the boy had “The woman saw that thefallen into the pond.” diamond had fallen into the pond.”

“H i ∫a ra ata ki hayeled(article “H i∫a ra ata ki hayahalom“ha” 1 subject masc. sing. “the boy”) (article “ha”1 subject masc.napal (predicate masc. sing. sing. “the diamond”) napal (predicate“had fallen”) letox habrexa.” masc. sing. “had fallen”) letox habrexa

Incongruent “The woman saw that the girl had “The woman saw that thefallen into the pond.” necklace had fallen into the pond.”

“H i ∫a ra ata ki hayalda (article “H i∫a ra ata ki ha∫ar∫eret“ha” 1 subject fem. sing. “the (article “ha”1 subject fem. sing.girl”) napal (predicate masc. sing. “the necklace”) napal (predicate“had fallen”) letox habrexa.” masc. sing. “had fallen”) letox habrexa

Marked

Congruent “I enjoyed seeing how the actors “I enjoyed seeing how the movieswere enchanting the tired audience.” were enchanting the tired audience.”

“ ani neheneti lir ot keytzad “ ani neheneti lir ot keitzadhasaxkanim (article “ha”1 subject hasratim (article “ha”1 subjectmasc. pl. “the actors”) maksimim masc. pl. “the movies”) (predicate masc. pl. “enchanting”) maksimim (predicate masc. pl.

et hakahal ha§ayef.” “enchanting”) et hakahal ha§ayef.”Incongruent “I enjoyed seeing how the actresses “I enjoyed seeing how the pictures

were enchanting the tired audience.” were enchanting the tired audience.”“ ani neheneti lir ot keytzad “ ani neheneti lir ot keytzad

hasaxkaniot (article “ha”1 subject hatmunot (article “ha”1 subject fem. pl. “the actresses”) maksimim fem. pl. “the pictures”) maksimim(predicate masc. pl. “enchanting”) (predicate masc. pl. “enchanting”)

et hakahal ha§ayef.” et hakahal ha§ayef”.

l-blocks.

PROCESSING GENDER AGREEMENT 209

r

orsnicnisnthreo eth taaeen

liee

aa

n. fec

nsr

-

fe

nt

nthenndi-

foritytheteses

t

f

in-

-ifi-

on-ion

henanid

on-tes

ns.ityun-ect

(Table 2). A three-way (congruity 3 animacy 3

5 The same two-way ANOVA for unmarked predicates in-

Results

The assessment of the initial reading timethe target was based on gaze duration (i.e., fipass duration) and duration of the first fixatiwhereas the rereading and renalysis of the tawas assessed by calculating the second-pasration, i.e., the difference between total time afirst pass. (We chose to conduct the statistanalysis on second-pass duration rather thatotal time because second-pass duration “cleaner” measure of rereading, as it does includes first-pass duration.) Because no ointeresting eye-tracking effects, such as plonged fixation on the word following the targword (“spillover” effects), were observed, nother measures are reported. Cutoff points140 and 800 ms were used to eliminate vshort or very long single fixations. Trials wizero-fixations in first pass were not includedthe computation of the first-pass or the totime measures. Separate averages were clated for each participant and item for markand unmarked congruent and incongruent prcates, in the animate and inanimate conditioFor each of the three measurements, outlonger than 2 SD (based on the mean calculatfor each participant and for each item) in eacondition were eliminated and the mean recculated. Table 2 presents these data, averacross participants.

Gaze duration (first pass) and first fixatio.As revealed by Table 2, in the marked (mascpred.) condition, gaze duration was longer incongruent predicates than for congruent pricates. This congruity effect was more conspious in the animate than in the inanimate contion. In contrast, in the unmarked conditiogaze duration was almost equal for predicatethe congruent and incongruent conditions,gardless of animacy. A congruity 3 animacy 3markedness ANOVA across participants (F1)and across items (F2) showed a significant congruity effect [F1(1, 31) 5 15.79,MSe 5 1669,p , .001; F2(1, 102) 5 16.08,MSe 5 2946,p ,.001] as well as a significant markedness ef[F1(1, 31) 5 20.21, MSe 5 1891, p , .001;F2(1, 102) 5 11.07,MSe 5 3755,p , .001].The three-way interaction was not significa
[F1(1, 31) 5 1.90,MSe 5 2312,p . .05; F2(1,
ofst-n,get du-dal

on aotero-t

ofry

inl-lcu-ddi-s.rs

dchl-

ged

pl.ord-u-di-, ine-

ct

102) 5 1.72,MSe 5 3544,p . .05]. However, asignificant congruity 3 markedness interactiowas revealed, stemming from the fact that congruity effect was significantly different ithe marked (masc. pl.) and the unmarked cotions [F1(1, 31) 5 18.72, MSe 5 1359, p ,.001; F2(1, 102) 5 7.24,MSe 5 2946,p , .01].Because no congruity effects were observedunmarked predicates, the effects of congruand animacy and the interaction between two were computed only for marked predicaby a two-way ANOVA in a repeated-measurdesign.5

The two-way ANOVA revealed a significanmain effect of congruity [F1(1, 31) 5 24.35,MSe 5 2127, p , .001; F2(1, 51) 5 19.83,MSe 5 3335,p , .001] and no main effect oanimacy [F1(1, 31) 5 1.50,MSe 5 1508,p 50.23; F2(1, 51) 5 2.15,MSe 5 3199,p 5 .15].The most important result was the significant teraction between congruity and animacy [F1(1,31) 5 4.26,MSe 5 2766,p , .05; F2(1, 51) 55.05,MSe 5 3667,p , .05]. Planned comparisons showed that gaze duration was signcantly longer for incongruent as opposed to cgruent predicates in the animate condit[F1(1, 31) 5 21.20, MSe 5 5329, p , .001;F2(1, 51) 5 23.89,MSe 5 6474,p , .001], butnot in the inanimate condition [F1(1, 31) 53.18,MSe 5 4457,p 5 .08; F2(1, 51) 5 1.95,MSe 5 7529,p 5 .17].

A similar pattern emerged for duration of tfirst fixation. Although the congruity effect ithe animate marked condition was bigger thin the inanimate condition, this interaction dnot reach statistical significance [F1(1, 31) 51.56,MSe 5 570,p 5 .22; F2(1, 102) 5 3.11,MSe 5 1354,p 5 .08].

Second-pass duration. Like gaze durationthe second-pass duration was longer for inc

gruent predicates than for congruent predicafor the animate and the inanimate conditioUnlike gaze duration, however, the congrueffect was conspicuous for marked and marked predicates for both types of subj

deed showed no significant main effects or interactions.

s

hta

-

vue

lu

terra-d

atei-ti-u-ed-i-

eon

ayofxtni-re-n-ctss-hetohm-otl-i-g,

ong.)tions

markedness) ANOVA showed a significant cogruity effect [F1(1, 31) 5 49.7, MSe 5 4539,p , .001; F2(1, 102) 5 88.8,MSe 5 3025,p ,.001], which did not interact with markedne(F1 , 1, F2 , 1). Planned comparison showethat the congruity effect was significant for tmarked as well as for the unmarked predicafor animate and inanimate subjects [marked,imate:F1(1, 31) 5 12.7,MSe 5 9954,p , .001,F2(1, 51) 5 25.6, MSe 5 12563, p , .001;marked, inanimate:F1(1, 31) 5 17.9, MSe 55827, p , .001, F2(1, 51) 5 15.1, MSe 512207, p , .001 unmarked, animate:F1(1,31) 5 20.5,MSe 5 8254,p , .001,F2(1, 51) 524.1,MSe 5 8399,p , .001; unmarked, inanimate:F1(1, 31) 5 16.0,MSe 5 5091,p , .001,F2(1, 51) 5 15.2,MSe 5 10069,p , .001].

Discussion

The results of Experiment 1 revealed a signicant congruity effect induced by manipulatinsubject–predicate gender agreement. Howethe manifestation of this effect in the variomeasures of fixation duration differs for markcondition (sentences in which the predicate cluded an inflectional suffix of a masculine pral form) and unmarked condition (sentenceswhich the target denoted a masculine, singuform). For the marked predicates, the congru
effect emerged in measuring first-fixation dur
n-

sdees,n-

if-ger,sd

in--

inlarity

tion and first-pass duration as well as in the lameasure of rereading (i.e., second-pass dution). Furthermore, the congruity effect tendeto be bigger for conceptual gender (the animcondition) than for grammatical gender (inanmate condition). This tendency reached statiscal significance only in the first-pass (gaze) dration. For the unmarked predicates, thcongruity was observed only in the later seconpass duration, and it did not differ for the anmate and the inanimate condition.

The emergence of the congruity effect in thmeasure of first pass in the marked conditisuggests that the processing of agreement mtake place already during the initial process integrating a word in its immediate local conteas part of the on-line process of word recogtion in sentence reading. Furthermore, the sults of the marked condition show that sematic information may be available and may affethe processing of agreement in its early proceing. However, this analysis of agreement and tinteraction with semantic information seems be mediated by morphological factors, whicprobably enhance the prominence of the gramatical incongruity. When the predicate is nmorphologically marked for gender and pluraity, the syntactic incongruity maybe less promnent, at least on the level of feature matchin


TABLE 2

Mean Latency (in Milliseconds) of Gaze Duration, First Fixation, Total Time, and Second Pass for the Congruent (Cand Incongruent (Incong.) Predicates of Animate and Inanimate Sentences in the Marked and Unmarked Condi

Marked Unmarked

Animate Inanimate Animate Inanimate

Cong. Incong. Cong. Incong. Cong. Incong. Cong. Incong.

Gaze duration 260 320 271 292 263 266 260 257

Congruity effect 60 21 3 –3

First fixation 226 244 238 239 233 234 228 231

Congruity effect 19 1 1 3

Total time 317 439 331 403 301 376 308 356


Second pass 57 120 60 111 38 111 48 99


a-and therefore it emerges only later, during the


t

h

e

ef-

50-ff-as

be-orle of

continuous process of comprehension. The mphological factor may be less essential in later processes of reanalysis of the unsolvedcongruity, as indicated by the significant cogruity effect for both marked and unmarkepredicates on the second-pass measure, wno interaction with markedness is observed.

We resume the discussion of the implicatioof these findings to more general principlesthe process of comprehension under Gen

ona

e

o

r

sn

i-

2caphetemasthever

chheimu-Psub-

lus inand

nu-lowi-

andni-

ing.thee.

in-ive

herdenrd16

eri-in

ofeach block participants were tested for recogni-

6 The drastic low-pass filtering was necessary in order toreduce alpha activity which, in the present experiment, wasrelative high in all subjects. Note, however, that because thewaveforms of interest in the present study (N400 and P600)are of very low frequency (2–4 Hz) and because the same fil-ter bandpass was used for all conditions, the distortion effectof the low-pass filter was not large and did not affect the in-tercondition differences.

Discussion.

EXPERIMENT 2

Methods

Participants. Twenty-four native Hebrewspeakers, students at the Hebrew Universparticipated in the experiment for course creor payment.

Stimuli. In this experiment we used the samstimuli as in Experiment 1, with the addition 12 new sentences in each experimental cotion. This addition was necessary to incresignal-to-noise ratio following the within-subject averaging of the EEG epochs in each contion. Thus, the Experiment included 200 targwords, each of which was embedded in 8 diffent sentences comprising the 8 experimentalimacy 3 congruity 3 markedness conditionsThe resulting 800 sentences were divided intexperimental lists. Each list included 200 diffeent sentences, 100 with unmarked predicaand 100 with marked predicates. Within ealist, there were 50 sentences (25 in the plumarked and 25 singular, unmarked form’s) each of the four (animacy 3 congruity) condi-tions. As in Experiment 1, the target words werotated across lists so that each participant each target only once, but across participaeach target was presented in all animacy 3 con-gruity conditions (once in the marked and onin the unmarked form). Six different particpants were randomly assigned to each list.

Apparatus. The EEG was recorded from 3tin electrodes mounted on a custom-made (ECI) and referenced to the tip of the nose. Trecording sites were based on the 10-20 syswith 12 additions (see Fig. 1). The EOG wrecorded by 2 electrodes, 1 located over outer cantus of the right eye and the other o

or-he in-n-dere

nsofral

ity,dit

efdi-se-di-etr-

an-. 4

r-teschal,in

reawts,

ce

the infraorbital region of the same eye, both rerenced to the tip of the nose.

The EEG was continuously sampled at 2Hz, amplified 3 20,000 with an analog bandpass filter of 0.1 to 100 Hz, and stored for oline analysis. For ERP averaging, the EEG wparsed to 1000-ms epochs starting 100 msfore the target stimulus. Epochs with EEG EOG exceeding 6100 mV, or exceeding a leveof variance (measured as a root-mean-squaramplitudes) individually determined for easubject, were excluded from averaging. Tepochs were averaged separately for each stlus condition, resulting in eight averaged ERper subject. The baseline was adjusted by stracting the mean amplitude of the prestimuperiod of each ERP from all the data pointsthe epoch. Frequencies lower than 0.5 Hz higher than 7 Hz (23 dB points) were digitallyfiltered out from the ERPs after averaging.6

Procedure. The experiment was run in aelectrically shielded dimly lit and sound-attenated room. Electrode impedance was kept be5 kV throughout the experiment. The particpants were instructed to read the sentencestry to memorize them for subsequent recogtion tasks. No special instructions concernthe structure of the sentences were provided

Sentences were presented word by word atcenter of the screen within a rectangular framEach word was exposed for 600 ms, with anterval of 300 ms between each two successwords. Short function words appeared togetwith the following content word. A trial startewith a fixation point at the center of the screfor 500 ms, which was replaced by the first woof the sentence. The session started withpractice sentences after which the 200 expmental sentences were randomly presentedthree approximately equal blocks. At the end

frcs

n t

e- ac-calpl-

):),),),),

seL,

dachrly

st (ROIssee text for details) are encircled.

tion memory. The recognition test consisted olist of 16 sentences, 50% of which had been psented in the preceding block, and the partipants were instructed to mark these sentence

Results

One participant was excluded from the anasis due to excessive eye movement. Hence,following results are based on 23 participawho had at least 16 uncontaminated trialseach condition. Gender congruity between subject and the predicate modulated the N4and P600 components and an early negativetential with a latency ranging between 100 a150 ms. These effects were observed prima
at the posterior-central and anterior locatio
ae-i-.

ly-thetsinhe00po-ndrily

(Fig. 2). In order to reduce the degrees of fredom to a manageable number, and based oncepted procedures as well as the observed sdistribution of the effects, the ERPs were colapsed into five regions of interest (ROIFrontal-Left (F7, F3, FC5, FC3, and FT7Frontal-Right (F8, F4, FC6, FC4, and FT8Posterior-Central Left (T3, C3, CP5, and P3Posterior-Central Right (T4, C4, CP6, and P4and Midline (FZ, CZ, and PZ). Henceforth theregions are labeled FL, FR, PCL, PCR, and Mrespectively.

The effects of congruity, animacy, anmarkedness were analyzed separately for eof the above components. The peak of the ea


FIG. 1. The layout of the 32 scalp electrodes used for recording ERPs in this experiment. The regions of intere

nsnegativity was defined as the most negative

PR

OC

ES

SIN

G G

EN

DE

R A

GR

EE

ME

NT

213 markedness and animacy conditions.
FIG. 2. ERPs elicited at all scalp locations by congruent and incongruent predicates. The data is averaged across

o

.ieA

e

e

n

afaf

sid

th

t

n

er, thectent tohesmsis-n-e

here-

ap-

tsPL

edru-OIedin-

f

-n

i-

of

effect 0.772 0.475 0.106 0.042

214 DEUTSCH A

amplitude between 80 and 250 ms from stimlus onset. The N400 was defined as the mnegative peak between 250 and 550 ms frstimulus onset, and the P600 was defined asmost positive peak between 500 and 750 msorder to allow for examination of interhemspheric differences, the midline was excludfrom one set of ANOVA for each component.second set of ANOVA (except for left early negativity) examined the different effects at thmidline sites.

Early negativity. As evident in Fig. 2 andTable 3, the amplitude of this negativity walarger for incongruent than for congruent predcates, and this effect was larger over the lhemisphere than over the right hemisphere. Tcharacteristics of this effect were tested bythree-way ANOVA. In addition to congruity(congruent vs incongruent), the factors weanterior–posterior distribution (FL1 FR vsPCL 1 PCR) and hemisphere (FL1 PCL vsFR + PCR). This analysis showed that the cogruity effect was not significant [F(1, 22) 53.17, MSe 5 36.0, p 5 .089], but it interactedsignificantly with the hemisphere effect [F(1,22) 5 8.82, MSe 5 7.9, p , .01]. No othermain effects or interactions were significa(for all F , 1.00).

The significant congruity 3 hemisphere in-teraction was examined by running separANOVAs of the congruity effect over the leand right hemispheres. These analyses revea significant main effect of congruity for the le[F(1, 22) 5 7.93,MSe 5 22.8,p , .01], but notfor the right [F , 1.0] hemisphere.

An additional ANOVA examined the effectof markedness, animacy, and their possibleteraction with the congruity effect reporteabove. Neither of these two factors affectedearly negativity [markedness:F(1, 22) 5 1.26,MSe 5 2.92,p 5 .27, animacy:F , 1], and theydid not interact with the effect of congruity [F(1,22) 5 1.39,MSe 5 2.31,p 5 .25, andF , 1 forcongruity3 markedness and congruency3 ani-macy, respectively].

As indicated by Fig. 2, the early negativielicited by incongruent targets seems to larger over the Frontal-Left region than over a
of the other regions. This pattern is similar to th
si-fthea

re

n-

t

tetledt

n-

e

ybey

pattern of the ELAN described above. Howevthe absence of an anterior/posterior effect onearly negativity and the similar congruity effeat anterior and posterior-central is inconsistwith the characteristics of the ELAN. In orderverify the extent to which we can ascribe tpresent early negativity to the same mechaniassociated with the ELAN, we analyzed the dtribution of the present component in the incogruent condition, the condition in which thELAN is elicited. This analysis compared tamplitude of this component over the four gions (FL, FR, PCL, and PCR). ANOVAshowed that the difference between regions proached significance [F(3, 66) 5 2.56,MSe 50.49, p 5 .062]. However, post hoc contrasshowed that the difference between FL and Cwas not significant [F(1, 22) 5 2.188,MSe 50.75,p 5 .153].

P600. An initial ANOVA of the P600 includedthe following four factors: markedness (markvs unmarked), congruity (congruent vs incongent), animacy (animate vs inanimate), and R(FL, FR, PCL, and PCR). This analysis showthat the amplitude of the P600 was larger forcongruent predicates (2.7mV, SEM5 0.26) thanfor congruent predicates (1.81mV, SEM5 0.27)[F(1, 22)5 8.5,MSe 5 17.2,p , .01]. The maineffect of ROI was also significant [F(3, 66) 57.52,MSe 5 3.9,p , .01], whereas the effects omarkedness and of animacy were not [F(1, 22)51.69,MSe 5 19.9,p 5 .21 andF , 1, respec-tively]. Most importantly, as with eye movements, the congruity3 markedness interactiowas significant [F(1, 22)5 5.6,MSe 5 6.3,p ,.05], reflecting that the congruity effect was ev

ND BENTIN

u-ostmtheIn

-d

-

TABLE 3

Mean Amplitude (in Millivolts) of the Early Negativityfor the Congruent and Incongruent Predicates in Eachthe Four ROI in the Left and in the Right Hemispheres

Left hemisphere Right hemisphere

FL PCL FR PCR

Congruent 21.438 21.519 21.704 21.617Incongruent 22.210 21.994 21.810 21.659Congruity

edent when the subjects and the predicates were

N

-

ifi-un- ef-ed

ed00.-

m-a-nt

tes

e

fi-

ely

ly]

ec-,tels.

3rknt

dtwi

oitn

ndontwv

i

ep

i-r

hosi

PROCESSING GE

marked as masculine plural forms (1.81 andmV for congruent and incongruent predicates,spectively), but less so when they were unmar(1.8 and 2.3mV for congruent and incongruepredicates, respectively). This interactionillustrated in Fig. 3 in which the data for markeand unmarked conditions are presented indifferent panels. (See also Table 4.) No otherteractions were significant.

The interaction between markedness and cgruity and the scalp distribution of the congrueffect were further examined by ANOVAs ruseparately for the marked and unmarked cotions. The factors in these analyses were cgruity, animacy, anterior–posterior distributioand hemisphere. The most important resulthese analyses was that the congruity effecthighly significant in the marked (masculineplural) condition [F(1, 22) 5 10.83, MSe 515.0,p , .005] but not in the unmarked condtion [F(1, 22)5 2.22,MSe 5 8.5, p 5 .15]. Inaddition, for both the marked and unmarkcondition, the P600 was larger over left as oposed to over right hemisphere sites [2.7mV(SEM5 0.25) and 2.4mV (SEM5 0.39),F(1,22) 5 4.23, MSe 5 4.69, p 5 .052, for themarked condition; and 2.2mV (SEM 5 0.26)and 1.8mV (SEM 5 0.23), F(1, 22) 5 4.52,MSe 5 3.48,p , .05, for the unmarked condtion]. No other main effects or interactions wesignificant.

A similar pattern of effects was found in tanalysis of the midline electrodes. The factwere markedness, congruity, animacy, and (Fz, Cz, and Fz). This ANOVA revealed a sign

c-

heity

on

re

in,

-

yak

effect 1.64 1.03 0.39 0.52

DER AGREEMENT 215

5 15.6,p , .05], which interacted with markedness [F(1, 22) 5 6.37,MSe 5 7.8,p , .025]. Noother main effects or interactions were signcant. Separate ANOVAs for the marked and marked conditions showed that the congruityfect on P600 was significant in the markcondition [F(1, 22) 5 11.16,MSe 5 11.6,p ,.005], but not in the unmarked condition [F ,1]. No other effects were significant.

N400. The analysis of the N400 was bason designs identical to those used for the P6The four-factor ANOVA for markedness, congruity, animacy, and ROI revealed that the aplitude of the N400 was larger (i.e., more negtive) in response to syntactically incongruepredicates (22.67mV, SEM5 0.36) than in re-sponse to syntactically congruent predica(21.74 mV, SEM 5 0.18) [F(1, 22) 5 10.9,MSe 5 14.4,p , .01]. In contrast to P600, therwas no effect of markedness or of ROI [Fs ,1]; however, the effect of animacy was signicant [F(1, 22) 5 4.97, MSe 5 18.6, p , .05].Most importantly, the congruity3 animacy in-teraction was significant [F(1, 22)5 4.60,MSe

5 21.8, p , .05], reflecting the fact that thN400 was modulated by congruity significantmore in the animate condition [22.7 mV (SEM5 0.36) and21.0 mV (SEM5 0.32) for incon-gruent and congruent predicates, respectivethan in the inanimate condition [22.65 mV(SEM5 0.49) and22.47mV (SEM5 0.28) forincongruent and congruent predicates, resptively]. This interaction is illustrated in Fig. 4in which the data for animate and inanimaconditions are presented in two different pane(See also Table 5.) No other first-order interations were significant.

Separate ANOVAs for the animate and tinanimate conditions showed that the congrueffect was significant in the animate conditi[F(1, 22) 5 13.3,MSe 5 19.1,p , .01], but notin the inanimate condition [F , 1]. No othersignificant main effects or interactions wefound in these analyses.

ANOVAs at the midline sites showed, agaa significant effect of congruity [F(1, 22) 59.97,MSe 5 13.1,p , .01], and a significant effect of the congruity 3 animacy interaction

.1e-ed

is

on-

n-y

i-n-,inass

-

d-

e

ersitef-

nded

icant effect of congruity [F(1, 22) 5 5.27,MSe

TABLE 4

Mean Amplitude (in Microvolts) of the P600 Elicited bCongruent and Incongruent Predicates of Animate Inanimate Sentences in the Marked and UnmarConditions (Averaged across the Four ROIs)

Marked Unmarked

Animate Inanimate Animate Inanimate


[F(1, 22) 5 4.38,MSe 5 14.4,p , .05], but no


FIG. 3. The modulation of ERPs by syntactic congruity at selected channels for (A) marked predicates and (B) un-marked predicates. Note that the congruity effect on P600 is evident only for marked predicates and the N400 is modulatedby congruency but not by markedness. The congruity effect on the early negativity (ELAN) is evident for both marked andunmarked predicates.


FIG. 4. The modulation of ERPs by syntactic congruity at selected electrodes in the (A) animate condition and (B) inan-imate condition. Note that the N400 is significantly modulated by congruity in the animate condition, and in the inanimatecondition it is similarly negative for congruent and incongruent predicates. Both the P600 and the early negativity (ELAN)are modulated by congruity in the animate and in the inanimate conditions.

ug-ingoioncyor- itspi-rlyf anis-i-

es-methent,ityan-

er in-

inecticngndm-talnt

seder in-or-se-heom-ityni-res

ac-ionetain

tt

eamhee

ehnitcthnifio,

a i

styppb

yak

d

effect 1.19 2.17 0.04 0.34

other effects. Separate ANOVAs showed thatcongruity effect was significant in the animacondition [F(1, 22) 5 14.02,MSe 5 13.6,p ,.001], but not in the inanimate condition [F(1,22) , 1.00].

Discussion

The results of the ERP experiment showthat agreement incongruity modulated an enegativity (peaking between 100 and 150 from stimulus onset), the N400, and P600. Tpattern of the interactions between this effand the effects of animacy and markednhowever, was different for each component. Tanalysis of the early negativity showed no intactions between congruity and any of the otfactors. The effect of congruity on P600 was affected by animacy but it interacted wmarkedness; it was significant only for masline-plural-marked predicates. In contrast,effect of congruity on N400 interacted with amacy but not with markedness; it was signcant in the animate but not in the inanimate cdition. The differential effect of congruityanimacy, and markedness on the various Ecomponents reflects the involvement of synttic, semantic, and morphological informationthe analysis of agreement rules.

Before discussing these differential effectsdetail, we need to address the discrepancytween the present data and previous reportsyntactic congruity effects on early negativiConsidering its very early latency, it was teming to identify the present early negative comnent as the ELAN, reported, for example,
Friederici et al. (1993) and by Neville et a
ND BENTIN

(1991). Friederici and her colleagues had sgested that the ELAN may reflect the processof word category information, as opposed tagreement and/or subcategorization informat(Hahne & Friederici, 1999), and that its latendepends on whether the word’s category infmation is available at the word’s beginning orend (Friederici et al., 1996). However, the atycal anterior–posterior distribution of the eanegativity observed here and the absence ointeraction between the anterior–posterior dtribution and the congruity effect counterindcate a straightforward interpretation of the prent early negativity as reflecting the samechanisms as the ELAN. It is possible that LAN and ELAN are manifested primarily wheword-category information is incongruenwhereas the modulation of the early negativin the present study was peculiar to, and chored in, processing of the inflectional struc-ture of the word (marked by suffixes). Furthresearch is required, therefore, to resolve this

hee

drly

nded

218 DEUTSCH A

TABLE 5

Mean Amplitude (in Millivolts) of the N400 Elicited bCongruent and Incongruent Predicates of Animate Inanimate Sentences in the Marked and UnmarConditions (Averaged across the Four ROIs)

Animate Inanimate

Marked Unmarked Marked Unmarke


consistency.

GENERAL DISCUSSION

The aim of the present study was to examthe on-line processing of semantic and syntainformation during agreement analysis usiconverging evidence from eye movements aERP, two time-continuous measures that coplement each other. Across all experimenconditions, both methods revealed significadisruption of the normal on-line process cauby the violation of subject–predicate gendagreement. The effect of gender agreementcongruity was modulated by semantic and mphological factors. The interrelation between mantic and syntactic factors during tprocessing of agreement was examined by cparing the interaction of the syntactic congrueffect with animacy and markedness as mafested in the analysis of the different measuprovided by the two methods.

Eye movements revealed a significant intertion between syntactic and semantic informatas early as during the initial reading of the targword. This interaction was manifested bylarger incongruity effect on first-pass duration

sectss,her-erothu-e

i--n-

RPc-n

inbe- of.t-o-y
the animate as opposed to the inanimate condi-l.

N

encceewaiteh

stathinr

moritt

ehen

is

ta,e

an

sn

cat

e-7;sc-sson.ra-isin

oflatein-redlll.,ts

ap- toayordtee,f,

s-f aati-x-asd00icct.asebyuc-s-p-ce,e,heni-ion

PROCESSING GE

tions. However, the interaction was observonly in the marked condition; that is, for setences in which the predicate denoted a masline plural form. The manifestation of an interation between animacy and congruity convergwith previous findings in Hebrew, in which thprocessing of subject–predicate agreementexamined using a naming task (Deutsch et1999). Furthermore, it is in accordance wfindings obtained in other inflected languag(such as Italian, Spanish, French, and DutcAll these studies suggest that unlike in Englithe process of computing syntactic agreemenhighly inflected languages is affected by semtic and/or conceptual factors. Furthermore,present results that were obtained examinlanguage comprehension converged with thesults obtained examining language productionother highly inflected languages. This reseblance suggests that the linguistic propertieslanguage rather than differences between pduction and comprehension account for the dcrepancies among different studies regardinginterrelation between semantic and syntacprocessing of agreement. This suggestion isline with the Nicol et al. (1997) and Pearlmuttet al. (1999) conclusion that, in English, tsame principle guides the process of agreemconstruction in language production and in laguage comprehension.

The ability to distinctively measure the manfestation of semantic and syntactic processeERPs, unveiled a pattern of interactions btween the markedness, the animacy, andsyntactic congruity effects which were reltively obscure in eye movements. Whereaseye movements, both animacy and markedninfluenced the effect of syntactic incongruity ofirst-pass duration, each of these two factorsfected a different ERP component; the cogruity effect interacted only with markednefor the syntactically associated P600 and owith animacy for N400. Consequently the ERdata disentangled the semantic and syntaprocesses that interacted during the initial reing of the word in context, as reflected by firspass duration.

The absence of P600 sensitivity to anima
corroborated the view that the linguistic proce
DER AGREEMENT 219

d,-u--s

asl.,hs).

h,inn-ege-in-

f ao-s-heicinrent-

-in

e-he-inss

nf--

slyPticd--

cy

indexed by this component is not sensitive to smantic information (e.g., Gunter et al., 199Osterhout & Mobely, 1995). More revealing ithat the modulation of P600 by the various fators paralleled eye movements in the first-paduration rather than the second-pass duratiThe parallel between P600 and first-pass dution is intriguing because first-pass duration associated with relatively early processes word recognition, whereas the modulation P600 was associated by several authors to a process of sentence reanalysis, induced by consistencies at the message level encounteduring sentence integration (Ainsworth-Darneet al., 1998; Friederici et al., 1996; Gunter et a1997). Assuming that first-pass duration reflecthe extraction of lexical information duringword recognition and the on-line integration ofword within its context, the present results suport the view that the P600 is also sensitiveinitial on-line processing. Hence, the P600 mbe responsive to the processes related to wrecognition that are required for its immediaintegration into the local syntactic structursuch as its morphological analysis (cf. HopBayer, Bader, & Meng, 1998).

In line with the above conceptualization, Oterhout et al. (1995) promoted the concept olexically driven parser for the mechanism thunderlies the modulation of the P600. Addtional evidence divorcing the P600 from its eclusive association with sentence reanalysis wprovided in a recent study by Weckerly anKutas (1999). The authors showed that the P6is elicited by complex and infrequent syntactstructures, even if they are syntactically intaFurthermore, the amplitude of that P600 wmodulated by manipulating the animacy of thmain and/or relative clause subjects, therecreating more or less frequent sentence strtures. Most importantly, this modulation waelicited by words appearing in multiple locations in the sentence, including words that apeared before the main verb of the sentenwhich determined their thematic roles. HencWeckerly and Kutas’s (1999) results support thypothesis that the P600 is sensitive to the itial on-line process of sentence comprehens

ssand that the P600 cannot be solely ascribed to a

trclyt

udn

rdaa

rt8aley,l

aet0eluhte

nao

ha

peuof

el,o-ner,theuc-ing

ed

edyb-s),

essine-as

us,heateies

n-e-

d,a-theent.ee-b-edryed-ec-on-norn-ure.

bey,ultscetialstu-theed

with an initial process of syntactic analysis,

7 The role of agreement may be different in other, less in-flected languages, such as English, in which subject–predi-cate agreement may be of secondary importance to the con-struction of the phrase structures. In such languages, theagreement process can be based on analysis of derivationalword structure and word order (Clifton et al., 1991; Frazier,1987; see also Friederici, et al., 1996; Hahne & Friederici,

220 DEUTSCH A

distinct later process of reanalysis inducedsyntactic ambiguity or incongruity structures.

The sensitivity of the agreement analysislexical morphology is not surprising consideing that gender is marked by a word’s infletional structure. However, morphological anasis per se is probably insufficient to modulathe P600. This position is suggested by resshowing that manipulations of subject–precate number agreement affected the P600 oif sentences were composed from real wo(Münte et al., 1997). When similar manipultions used pseudowords, only the LAN wmodulated. Indeed, simultaneous modulationboth the P600 and the LAN was observed insponse to various manipulations of syntacstructures (Ainsworth-Darnell et al., 199Friederici et al., 1996; Gunter et al., 1997)well as for the manipulation of agreement ru(Münte & Heinze, 1994; Osterhout & Moble1995). However, when the agreement manipution was between the subject and the predicas in the present study, thus affecting the stence level (as opposed to the phrase level),ERP modulation involved primarily the P60(Hagoort et al., 1993; Münte et al., 1997; Osthout et al., 1996, but see Osterhout & Mobe1995). This pattern might be interpreted as sgesting that, although both the LAN and tP600 may reflect processes occurring duringinitial process of word reading within a text, thformer component is probably associated owith the analysis of the word’s morphologicstructure, whereas the latter seems to be assated with the activation of a lexical entry and tintegration of a word into its immediate locstructure.

The above line of argument apparently suports some aspects of a serial model of stence comprehension by which phrase strtures are constructed during an initial stagesyntactic analysis. According to such a modthe initial analysis is based solely on morphlogical information of word-class and not oagreement between inflected forms. Howevsuch a model does not successfully describeprocess of constructing subject–predicate strture in Hebrew because the process of defin
the syntactic role of words and the constructio
ND BENTIN

by

o---eltsi-lys

-sofe-ic;ss

a-te,n-he

r-y,g-ehe

lylci-

el

-n-c-

of subject–predicate structure is primarily cuby agreement rules, based oninflectionalmor-phology. Thus, we would expect that if thearly negativity observed in the present stureflects “first-pass parsing” of constructing suject–predicate structure (in serial model termthe interaction between inflectional markednand congruity would be primarily manifestthis component. In contrast, the interaction btween syntactic congruity and markedness wobserved only in the P600 component. Thascribing the observed early negativity to tinitial process of constructing subject–predicstructure (i.e., adopting a serial model) implthat the on-line process ofinflectionalanalysismay be precluded from the process of costructing subject–predicate structure in Hbrew.7 In addition, if a serial model is adoptewe might ascribe the congruity effect to a feture-checking stage that takes place afterconstruction of a subject–predicate agreemHowever, by making this assumption wwould, once again, limit the role of the agrement in the on-line process of building the suject–predicate structure. Furthermore, if indethe congruity effect reflected a secondaprocess of feature-checking stage, the markness effect would be expected also in the sond-pass measure of eye movements. In ctrast, neither the main effect of markednessthe interaction of this effect with syntactic cogruity was found in the second-pass measTogether, this pattern does not appear tocompatible with a serial model. Alternativelwe suggest that the present pattern of resfits better with an interactive model of sentencomprehension, in which no defined sequenprocessing stages on the time axis are polated. Such an account does not excludepossibility that the early negativity is associat

n1999, for similar claims with respect to German).

N

otibone

nmoalaehensis

ceb

6r

tsa

d

tha

thgac

sm

e

esole

ingee-sti-hetee

eree.re

ect

ithe,red

ree-ion.

y aeub-ce;

the ani-oreateentjectey,a-

ug-on-

ttlyu-is

ed,ure0;,e-ingi-n

r ofatsce

PROCESSING GE

which then continues and is completed latertime, as reflected by the P600.

The interaction between the effectsmarkedness and congruity on first-pass duracan be interpreted along the same lines as Ehard’s (1997) explanation of the increased prability of incorrectly assigning plural inflectioto verbs following number-marked as opposto unmarked nouns in language production. Acordingly, the on-line processing of the umarked form, being the default of the systewould probably be simpler, since it does nentail morphological analysis of inflectionmorphology. Therefore, the agreement viotion, based on inflectional analysis may be lsalient and thus interfere only later, in tcourse of sentence integration. In contrast, idtifying an inflectional morpheme may trigger aimmediate feature-matching process. Conquently, for marked predicates, gender dagreement affects gaze duration (i.e., first-paas well as second-pass duration, whereas ingruent unmarked predicates affected only sond-pass duration. A similar argument canmade regarding ERPs. Assuming that the Pis sensitive to the on-line processes of worecognition and integration of the word in iimmediate context, it is not surprising thmarkedness interacted with gender congruitymodulating this component only for markepredicates.

The fact that markedness did not affect modulating of the N400 suggests that the impof morphological structure per seon semanticcoherence is small. Furthermore, the fact markedness did not interact with animacy hilights the centrality of the formal grammaticmeaning of the inflectional suffixes in sentenanalysis. The absence of these interactions ivealing because markedness also carries setic information stemming, for example, from thfact that, in Hebrew, the masculine form is uswhen refering not only to males but also tomixed group of men and women.

The present study was not designed toplore the effect of morphological markedneon the processing of agreement, and therefnaturally, we did not examine all possib
combinations of subject and/or predicate mar
DER AGREEMENT 221

in

foner-b-

dc--,tl-

ssen-

e-s-s)

on-c-e

00d

tin

ect

ath-le

re-an-

eda

x-sre,

ings. However, the obtained results regardthe effect of morphological marking on on-linprocessing clearly suggest that this topic dserves a more detailed and systematic invegation. A comprehensive examination of teffect of marking the subject and/or predicamay be especially interesting in view of thfact that in Hebrew, unlike English, the ordof subject and predicate in a sentence is frThus a further investigation is needed befoany definite account for the markedness effcan be made.

Like markedness, animacy interacted wcongruity in modulating gaze duration. Hencit appears that semantic factors are consideas soon as the initial processing of the agment in the course of sentence comprehensSemantic information at this stage may plarole in providing additional cues to aid thprocess of assigning the syntactic roles of sject and predicates to words in the sentenfirst, it may make the process of encoding noun gender easier, because the sex of themate noun renders the gender marking mconspicuous; and second, the fact that animnouns usually take the thematic role of an agmay facilitate the process of assigning a subrole to an animate noun (Bates & MacWhinn1982, 1989). The salience of semantic informtion induced by animate subjects probably amented the deleterious effect of gender incgruity.

Animacy did not affect the congruity effecon the P600 component, but it did significanincrease the effect on N400. This result is plasible because the modulation of the N400presumed to be semantically specific. Indeprevious studies have demonstrated that psyntactic violations do not affect the N40(Gunter et al., 1997; Kutas & Hillyard, 1983Neville et al., 1991; Osterhout & Mobley1995). Likewise, the violation of gender agrement in our study did not modulate the N400the inanimate condition, where the morpholocal marking had no semantic implication. Givethat the N400 precedes the P600 in the ordetheir occurrence, this pattern also raises cavefor multistage, sequential models of senten

k-processing, models that suggest that semantic

oc

ur)eonllsc

cone

yen

sral

ttumine

a

c

avyr

re

tntie

ica

ticin

ve-rac-re-

e,be

.nd

po-

thesss-

p-.),

ntiction.

e-im-al

nd

gu-s de-

n-syn-s

He-

u-Evi--

on

ual

222 DEUTSCH A

processes follow an initial, distinct phasesyntactic analysis. This order also contradian assumption that P600 is associated only wthe initial phase of syntactic parsing. The issof the sequence of semantic and syntactic pcessing (as manifested by ERP componentsless important, however, for constraint-basmodels for sentence processing (e.g., MacDald, 1994; MacDonald, Pearlmutter, & Seideberg, 1994; Tanenhaus et al., 1995; TruesweKim, 1998). According to such models, the reolution of the syntactic structure of a sentenis governed by an interaction between syntaand nonsyntactic processes that mutually cstrain the initial online syntactic parsing. A fudamental property of constraint-based modis that this analysis is a continuous procerather than a sequential stage-based analThe dynamic of the interaction is determinby the relative strength of the available costraining information. In line with this assumption, and assuming that the P600 is indeed aciated with the activity of a lexically driveparser, it is plausible that although it apperelatively late, it is still sensitive to initiaprocesses of syntactic analysis.

In conclusion, the present results may befit those models that postulate a simultaneomultiple-constraint process for sentence coprehension than a serial-type model. Accordto our conceptualization, the initiation of thsyntactic process may be manifested in the enegativity component. However, the processcontinuous in time, including the basic constrution of the subject–predicate structure, whichmanifested in the P600, and the semantic ansis as manifested in the N400. The obsercongruity effect may reflect the on-line difficultin constructing the subject–predicate structuFor less salient morphosyntactic forms, suchthe unmarked condition, incongruity may bealized later, thus manifested mainly in seconpass measure. It should be noted, however,although such models do not deny the existeof distinct cognitive semantic and syntacprocesses, a main feature of interactive modis the multiple constraining processes by whsemantic and syntactic analyses affect e
other. According to a strong version of this view
ND BENTIN

ftsitheo-isd

an interaction between animacy and syntaccongruity effects should have been observedthe P600, as indeed it appeared in the eye-moment measures. The absence of such an intetion on P600 raises, therefore, some caveatsgarding a strong version of the interactivconstraint-based models, caveats that should
n--&-e
ticn--ls

sssis.d-

-so-

rs

ers,-g

rlyis-

isly-ed

e.as-

d-hatceclshch

addressed in further research.

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(Received June 30, 1999)(Revision received September 30, 2000)Published online May 30, 2001

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