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Is syntax always king? Syntactic and semantic processing in Chinese
Yi Cheng Kang
ÉhAsaEq@az
Columbia University, New York, NY
Sentence processing
Sentence processing is complex – it builds up from orthographical and phonological processing
of individual words to syntactic and semantic processing of sentences.
With Indo-European languages, syntax seems to be king in most cases – (1) syntax is processed
first (ELAN), and (2) when syntactical errors occur, semantic errors are ignored (N400 is not
observed) (A. Friederici, 2002) (A. Friederici et al., 2004).
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Hypothesis
Earlier studies of German and French showed that the N400 is not observed if the sentence also
has a syntactical error. This was explained in terms of syntax primacy, with a syntactical error
“blocking” further semantic processing (Friederici et al., 2004)(Friederici & Weissenborn,
2007).
ERP studies demonstrate that this effect is not seen in Chinese over a range of different syntax
violations (e.g. syntactical category, transitivity). As long as a semantic violation has
occurred, an N400 is seen (Yu & Zhang, 2008; Zhang et al., 2010, 2013) (Zeng et al., 2016).
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While semantics appears to be important in Chinese sentence processing, syntax is not
irrelevant or strictly contingent on semantics either.
Structural priming: exposure to a certain structure (a syntactic form, in this case) promotes
subsequent reuse of that same form.
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Subjects were significantly more likely to “copy”
the syntactic structure of the priming sentence
(preposition-object vs double object) in describing
the picture prompt (Fig 1).
However, with non-Indo-European languages, there are good reasons to expect reduced syntax
primacy in sentence processing. For example, Mandarin Chinese is (1) more analytical than
English, with little to no inflection, and yet (2) has freer word order and (3) word categorization
than English. Strictly syntax-first processing in Chinese has therefore been argued to be
implausible, and semantic information is thought to be essential even in early processing of a
sentence (Ping Li, 1996).
Circumstantial evidence: identification of the agent in a sentence is achieved primarily via word
order in English (i.e. syntax) vs animacy in Chinese (i.e. semantics) (Bates et al., 1982; P. Li et
al., 1993).
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Semantics is not dominant either – evidence from structural priming
Semantic processing occurs even with syntactic violations
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Semantic violations are immediately noticed – evidence from eye-tracking
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Sentence processing in Mandarin Chinese is less syntax-dominant than Indo-European languages,
involving both syntax and semantic information even in early processing.
ERP evidence against syntax primacy
Visual rather than auditory cues – subjects read a sentence and their eye movements are tracked.
Chinese script is logographic, requiring distinct neural processes from alphabetic languages
(Gandour et al., 2002; Schirmer et al., 2005). Moreover, word boundaries are not explicitly
marked in written form – readers must use contextual cues to identify whether a character is a
standalone word or part of a multi-character word – e.g.
(new)
(fresh)
(beginner)
(Chen & Zhou, 1999).
Ye et al. (2006) observed independent ELAN (~50 ms) and early-onset N400 (at 150 ms) for
syntactic and semantic violations respectively.
Integration of syntax and semantic information appears to occur by 250 ms, with a more
negative N400 in the combined syntactic/semantic violation than in either case alone. No
statistically significant P600 was found in all cases.
Taken together, this suggests a significantly earlier integration of syntax and semantics, in line
with the importance of semantic context in Chinese syntactical processing.
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While controlling for animacy and semantic meaning, the authors found that syntax alone
primes the subjects to produce similar syntactical structures.
Demonstrates that Chinese speakers do have ‘autonomous’ syntactic representations as well –
semantics might be important, but it is not dominant over syntax in sentence processing. Syntax
can exist (and be processed) independently of semantics in a Chinese sentence (Zeng et al.,
2016).
Conclusions
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Hypothesis broadly validated – both ERP and eye-tracking studies provide strong evidence of
(1) faster semantic processing in Chinese and (2) parallel and independent processing of
syntactic and semantic information (no ‘blocking’ of the N400 with a syntactic violation).
Syntax is not king in Chinese sentence processing.
This makes sense – Chinese is highly analytical and syntactically flexible. The vast majority of
words have no inflections, words can switch between nouns, verbs, adjectives, etc. without any
morphological indication (i.e. they remain the same character), and the topic prominence of
Chinese allows for much looser word order (e.g. OSV sentences). Chinese syntax is far more
ambiguous than English without the context provided through semantic processing.
However, we cannot overstate the case for semantic importance in Chinese processing – syntax
does still exist, and it can be represented independently of semantic meaning in some contexts.
References
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Criticism: syntactic violation examples were created by omission of a noun phrase – some have
argued that this also constitutes a semantic violation (Yang et al., 2009).
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Both semantic and combined semantic/syntactic violations led to immediate disruptions in eye
movements. Subjects had increased gaze duration, showed a tendency to look back to earlier
words, etc. beginning from the incorrect word itself. The disruptions continued as the subjects
read the next few words as well, and overall reading speed was decreased.
There was no distinction in onset speed for the disruptions for semantic violations relative to
combined violations, although this may be because the temporal resolution of eye-tracking is
not as high as ERP studies (Yang et al., 2009).
Again, this suggests that syntax is not dominant over semantics in Chinese.
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