Research in Experimental Phonetics and Linguistics
Online ISSN : 1883-6763
Article
An Experimental Approach to the Animacy
ERP Evidence for Semantic Restriction
Ryo IMOTOTakahiro FUKUMORI
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JOURNAL FREE ACCESS

2009 Volume 1 Pages 39-52

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Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to examine the involvement of the semantic category “animacy” in the grammaticality of Japanese. This study was designed to elicit ERP by using semantically incompatible phrases. Sixty adnominal constructions such as yotta ishi “drunken stone” were visually presented to twenty right-handed undergraduates. The results were as follows:

(1) When twelve of twenty subjects looked at the incompatible phrases which involved the semantic category [-Human], the peak latencies of negative waves appeared around 350 to 450msec. and were thus considered to be an N400 component.

(2) The incompatible phrases which involved the semantic category [-Human] were more numerous than the compatible phrases which involved the semantic category [+Human].

(3)The fact that the semantic category [Human] plays a certain role in Japanese grammar is proven in brain-scientific reality.

(4)The semantic category [Human] is not a simple bi-value category; [+Human] is a superior feature to [-Human] in terms of the semantic restriction.

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