Semantic and syntactic anomalies in language comprehension.
An ERPs analysis by visual and auditory stimuli
Arguments about the existence of linguage-specific neural systems and specifically about the
indipendence of syntactic and semantic processing have focused on the event-related brain
measures (ERPs) as tool to monitoring, moment-by-moment, the cognitive processes implicated.
In the present experiments (1 and 2), the available evidence indicates that the ERPs response to
semantic anomalies is at least partially distinct from the ERPs response to syntactic anomalies and
that a syntactic parser is a plausible process included in sentences comprehension.
ERPs were recorded from 10 electrodes while subjects saw (experiment 1) or listened (experiment
2) to sentences containing semantic or syntactic anomalies. Final-word that was inconsistent with
the sentence context elicited a negative-going wave at about 400 msec postimulus, whereas finalword incongruous with the grammatical structure (not agreement subject-verb) elicited a positivegoing wave about 600 msec postimulus. No difference were found based on the perceptive modality
of the stimulus (visual or auditory) nor different ERPs correlates in function of the task-relevance
(esplicit/implicit task induction).