Syntactic event-related potential components in 24-month-olds’ sentence comprehension

Abstract

The processing of syntactic violations in adults is associated with a biphasic event-related potential pattern consisting of an early left anterior negativity and a late positivity called the P600. While the early left anterior negativity reflects highly automatic sentence parsing, the P600 reflects processes of syntactic reanalyses or repair. The present study investigated the processing of phrase structure information in 24-month-old German-speaking children. During the experimental session, the children listened to short active sentences that were either syntactically correct or contained a phrase structure violation. The event-related potential s of the children displayed a late positivity in response to phrase structure violations. Our findings indicate that even children at this early age are sensitive to syntactic errors in the form of phrase structure violations.