1 S YNTACTIC C OMPLEXITY OF D IFFERENT B ASQUE W ORD O RDERS: E VIDENCE FROM N EUROIMAGE (ERP) Kepa Erdozia (University of the Basque Country) Itziar Laka (University of the Basque Country) Anna Mestres (University of Barcelona) Antoni Rodriguez-Fornells (ICREA and UB) ESF/MCYT/EUROCORES: BFF E

2 BASQUE: Free Word Order Canonical Order: Subject-Object-Verb (De Rijk, 1969, Ortiz de Urbina 1986, Elordieta 2001…) Derived Orders: Object-Subject-Verb Subject-Verb-Object Object-Verb-Subject… Phrases can be arranged in almost any order

3 vP DPVP DPV gizon-ak emakume-a ikus-i du man-the woman-the seen has Subject-Object-Verb SOV order

4 vP DPVP DPV gizon-ak emakume-a ikus-i du man-the woman-the seen has Object-Subject-Verb XP emakume-a woman-the OVS order

5 MORPHOLOGICAL AMBIGUITY OBJECT PLURAL PACIENT SUBJECT SINGULAR AGENT EMAKUME-AK ‘WOMAN-X’ Emakume-ak gizon-ak ikusi ditu woman-? man-? see has ‘The woman has seen the men’ or ‘The man has seen the women’

6 SOV is processed faster SOV is processed easier Ambiguous Chains are processed like canonical word order (Kaan, 1997) LAN & P600: Syntactic Complexity in derived order (Matzke et al, 2001; Felser et al, 2003) N400: Semantic desambiguation (Hagoort et al., 2004) SOV and OSV Processing Experiments I & II: Self Paced Reading & comprehension task: Experiment III: Event Related Potentials (ERP):

7 Experiment I: self-pace reading SOV vs OSV Goal: to determine whether OSV sentences have a higher processing cost than SOV sentences: (a) longer reading times (b) comprehension problems Participants: 23 native speakers Materials: 2 conditions, 32 sentences per condition 2 lists :16 SOV sentences/16 OSV sentences 32 fillers (the same for two lists)

8 Experiment I: Materials emakume-ak gizon-a ikus-i du woman-the/Subj. man-the/Obj. seen has ‘the woman has seen the man’ gizon-a emakume-ak ikus-i du man-the/Obj. woman-the/Subj. seen has ‘the woman has seen the man’ Subject Object Verb Aux Subject Object Verb Aux

9 Mean Reading times of sentences: global score SOV order is processed faster than OSV order Experiment I: Results p<0.005

10 OSV order elicited more errors than SOV order Errors in the comprehension task Experiment I: Results p<0.001

11 Mean reading times Word by Word Unmarked form processed faster than marked Experiment I: Results OSV requires a reanalysis of syntactic structure at subject position

12 Experiment I: SOV vs OSV Marked constituents are harder to processed Canonical SOV sentences require less processing time Derived OSV sentences require syntactic reanalysis Displaced constituents increase syntactic complexity

13 Experiment II: Processing of ambiguous chains Goal: to determine whether there is any preference when processing ambiguous chains (SOV/OSV). Participants: 23 native speakers Materials: 3 conditions, 48 sentences per condition 3 lists: 16 SOV sentences 16 OSV sentences 16 AMBIGUOUS 48 fillers

14 MORPHOLOGICAL AMBIGUITY OBJECT PLURAL PACIENT SUBJECT SINGULAR AGENT EMAKUME-AK ‘WOMAN-X’ Emakume-ak gizon-ak ikusi ditu woman-? man-? see has ‘The woman has seen the men’ o ‘The man has seen the women’

15 Experiment II: Materials Emakume-ek gizon-ak ikus-i dituzte women the Subj. men the Obj. seen have ‘the women have seen the men’ Emakume-ak gizon-ak ikus-i ditu woman-? man-? seen has ‘the woman has seen the men’ or ‘the man has seen the women’ Gizon-ak emakume-ek ikus-i dituzte man-? women-the Subj. seen have ‘the women have seen the men’ Subject Object Verb+aux Subject Object Verb+aux Ambiguous Chain

16 Results: Mean Reading time of the sentences Ambiguous chain is processed as SOV sentence n.s. p<0.001

17 Results: SOV vs OSV, word by word Comparing SOV and OSV orders: replication of the first experiment, syntactic reanalysis

18 Results: SOV vs Ambiguous Chain, Word by Word No evidences of syntactic reanalysis Ambiguous chains are processed as SOV order sentences SOV is the simplest processing solution.

19 EXPERIMENT III: Electrophysiological evidences using event-related brain potentials (ERPs) This experiment suggests that: Participants: 24 right-handed native speakers a) SOV is the canonical, underived word order in Basque, and it constitutes the simplest choice for sentence parsing Materials: 4 conditions, 240 sentences per condition 2 conditions, unambiguous 2 conditions, temporally ambiguous b) OSV word order is syntactically derived and therefore more complex to parse

20 Experiment III: Materials Subject Verb+aux Object Subject Verb+aux Object ‘the wolf has eaten the sheep’ otso-ak wolf-the/Subj Ardi-a Sheep-the/Obj jan eaten du has ‘the wolfs have eaten the sheep(pl)’ Otso-ek Wolfs/the/Subj ardi-ak sheep-the/Obj jan eaten dituzte have

21 Experiment III: Materials SOV temporally ambiguous OSV temporally ambiguous ‘the wolf has eaten the sheep(pl)’ Otso-ak wolf ? ardi-ak sheep ? ‘the wolf has eaten the sheep(pl)’ otso-ak wolf ? Ardi-ak sheep ? jan eaten ditu has jan eaten ditu has

22 Experiment III: ERP Results Constituents of unambiguous SOV/OSV sentences: Left Anterior Negativity was obtained for displaced subjects and objects Syntactically displaced constituents increase the processing costs. (Kluender y Kutas, 1997)

23 ERP RESULTS: SOV vs OSV SOVOSV Left Anterior Negativity LAN

24 SOVSOVOSVOSV ERP RESULTS: SOV vs OSV Left Anterior Negativity LAN

25 Experiment III: ERP Results Verb of unambiguous SOV/OSV sentences: Syntactic integration of displaced constituent at verb position increases processing cost (Felser et al, 2003) At verb position of OSV non-canonical sentences we obtained a syntax related P600 component.

26 SOVOSV ERP RESULTS: SOV vs OSV P600/SPS

27 Experiment III: ERP Results Unambiguous SOV/OSV sentences: These components, LAN and P600 showed that non-canonical OSV sentences are syntactically more complex than canonical SOV sentences in the grammar of Basque

28 Experiment III: ERP Results Temporally ambiguous SOV/OSV: The semantic disambiguation at the verb of OSV elicited a N400 component, related to semantic analysis and complexity We didn´t find any difference between the two first constituents.

29 SOVOSV ERP RESULTS: DISAMBIGUATION N400

30 Basque’s underived word order is SOV Conclusions Displaced elements increase syntactic complexity Non-canonical OSV order is syntactically more complex

31 Summary We have provided processing and ERP evidence that gives support to the claim that Basque grammar is built upon a basic, head final sentence structure (SOV word order), despite the fact that this language allows almost all constituent combinations in a sentence. Building upon results from other languages, where it has been shown that underived word orders yield shorter reading times and less comprehension difficulties, we have shown that these results also replicate in Basque, although the specific word order signaled as less complex and easier to understand is systematically SOV. ERP results also showed that OSV generated LAN and P600, both signaling syntactic complexity

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