Parsing sentences are unlikely: corpus-based analyses of the neural processing of verbs
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1
University of Cambridge, United Kingdom
Verb subcategorization frame (SCF) preferences affect sentence processing by placing constraints on how potential arguments can be incorporated into the emerging syntactic representation (e.g. McDonald, 1994). Most studies have used norm-based measures of syntactic preference based on subjective responses, but these may not accurately reflect verbs’ SCF usage frequencies. Here we take a different approach, asking whether verb SCF data derived from large cross-domain corpora determine patterns of neural activation as listeners process verbs in sentences. In an fMRI study, subjects listened to sentences containing locally syntactically ambiguous phrases (e.g. “insulting neighbours”). The verb participle functioned as either a gerund (“insulting neighbours is not encouraged”) or an adjective (“insulting neighbours are not respected”). From the VALEX lexicon (Korhonen et al., 2006), we obtained SCF frequency distributions for each verb. In a Principal Components Analysis (PCA) we extracted 6 components. Component 1 accounted for most variance (29%), and reflected the likelihood of the verb taking a direct object complement. We expected verbs with low values on Component 1 (e.g. “yawn”) to show a preference for the adjectival reading, since the following noun is unlikely to function as the verb’s theme. Verbs with these properties produced greater activation in bilateral IFG, LpMTG and LIPL, consistent with this prediction. This indicates a role for SCF preference in sentences where the syntactic role of the verb is ambiguous. Since the VALEX measure reflects properties of verbs alone (independent of the other words in the sentence), the results demonstrate that access of verbs’ lexico-syntactic representations specifically is an effective heuristic in ambiguity resolution. Funding: Supported by EPSRC grant EP/F030061/1 (LKT & AK), Medical Research Council (UK) grant G0500842 (LKT) and the Royal Society University Research Fellowship (AK).
Keywords:
Language,
neural processing
Conference:
XI International Conference on Cognitive Neuroscience (ICON XI), Palma, Mallorca, Spain, 25 Sep - 29 Sep, 2011.
Presentation Type:
Poster Presentation
Topic:
Poster Sessions: Neural Bases of Language
Citation:
Devereux
BJ,
Korhonen
A and
Tyler
LK
(2011). Parsing sentences are unlikely: corpus-based analyses of the neural processing of verbs.
Conference Abstract:
XI International Conference on Cognitive Neuroscience (ICON XI).
doi: 10.3389/conf.fnhum.2011.207.00187
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Received:
19 Nov 2011;
Published Online:
28 Nov 2011.
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Correspondence:
Dr. Barry J Devereux, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom, b.devereux@qub.ac.uk