Abstract

While most studies on neural signals of online language processing have focused on a few—usually western—subject-verb-object (SVO) languages, corresponding knowledge on subject-object-verb (SOV) languages is scarce. Here we studied Farsi, a language with canonical SOV word order. Because we were interested in the consequences of second-language acquisition, we compared monolingual native Farsi speakers and equally proficient bilinguals who had learned Farsi only after entering primary school. We analyzed event-related potentials (ERPs) to correct and morphosyntactically incorrect sentence-final syllables in a sentence correctness judgment task. Incorrect syllables elicited a late posterior positivity at 500–700 ms after the final syllable, resembling the P600 component, as previously observed for syntactic violations at sentence-middle positions in SVO languages. There was no sign of a left anterior negativity (LAN) preceding the P600. Additionally, we provide evidence for a real-time discrimination of phonological categories associated with morphosyntactic manipulations (between 35 and 135 ms), manifesting the instantaneous neural response to unexpected perturbations. The L2 Farsi speakers were indistinguishable from L1 speakers in terms of performance and neural signals of syntactic violations, indicating that exposure to a second language at school entry may results in native-like performance and neural correlates. In nonnative (but not native) speakers verbal working memory capacity correlated with the late posterior positivity and performance accuracy. Hence, this first ERP study of morphosyntactic violations in a spoken SOV nominative-accusative language demonstrates ERP effects in response to morphosyntactic violations and the involvement of executive functions in non-native speakers in computations of subject-verb agreement.

Highlights

  • Grammatical features of languages are highly diverse and show distinct neural underpinnings

  • ANOVA of event-related potentials (ERPs) amplitudes in the 35–135 ms interval revealed a significant interaction between Grammaticality and age of acquisition (AoA) for the anterior region of interest (ROI) [F(1, 59) = 4.31, p = 0.042, η2p 0.068]

  • Very early ERP effects of syntactic manipulations are primarily associated with the auditory modality

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Summary

INTRODUCTION

Grammatical features of languages are highly diverse and show distinct neural underpinnings. ERPs provide information about online language processing at high time resolution and consistently show two signals of syntactic sentence processing, the left anterior negativity (LAN; e.g., Friederici et al, 1993) between 300 and 400 ms, and the subsequent P600, a posterior positivity between 500 and 700 ms (Dube et al, 2016; for reviews Kuperberg, 2007; Leckey and Federmeier, 2019). We expected LAN and P600 effects in response to subject-verb agreements Since this is the first ERP study of a spoken SOV nominative-accusative language, the distribution and timing of these components was of particular interest.

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