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Abstract: This electrophysiological study investigated how right- and left-edge prosodic boundary tones interact in the processing of syntactic structure. Swedish sentences of the type ‘Peter hit Larry(NP2) and Jason(NP3) fell/hard…’ were used. A verb (‘fell’) requires a clause boundary between NP2 and NP3, whereas an adverb (‘hard’) implies continuation of the first clause, which incorporates NP3 as a coordinated object. The effects of right-edge prosody associated with NP2 and left-edge prosody associated with NP3 were tested. Results suggest interaction between prosodic right- and left-edge boundary cues both at the earliest stages of processing the left-edge boundary tone on NP3 and at the immediately following word category distinction. Right-edge boundary tones on NP2 yielded an early positive deflection (P200) and a later positivity (CPS). Left-edge tones on NP3 showed a P200 effect only if preceded by a right-edge boundary on NP2. In the absence of a prosodic right-edge boundary, left-edge tones instead yielded an early negativity (N100), suggesting that they were unexpected. At the following word category distinction point, adverbs, showing continuation of the first clause, produced an anterior negativity when preceded by both right- and left-edge prosodic boundaries. The negativity is thought to reflect detection of a syntactically incorrect word category. Syntactically un-preferred constructions with an adverb following NP3 received generally lower acceptability ratings and gave rise to a P600 effect in all conditions. Syntactically preferred constructions with verbs following NP3 showed a similar P600 only when not preceded by either right- or left-edge boundary tones. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Previous research suggests that time-based working memory limits of 2–3 s constrain the integration of verbal information, and that speakers tend to parse sentences into prosodic phrases that do not extend beyond this time window. The present study used Event-Related Potentials (ERPs) to investigate how time-driven implicit prosodic phrasing influences the syntactic processing of embedded clauses. Participants read Swedish sentences in which the first embedded clause had a subordinate, main or neutral clause structure cued by the position of the sentence adverb. The presentation rate was manipulated so that either one or two clauses were read within 2.7 s. When the 2.7 s time limit was reached before the onset of the embedded clause, the sentence adverb indicating subordinate clause structure elicited a posterior negativity and a late positivity. These effects were interpreted to reflect the detection of unexpected word order, followed by the revision of the anticipated main clause structure. A positive shift that correlated with individual working memory span was also seen at the clause-final word after 2.7 s, possibly indicating closure of an implicit prosodic phrase. These results suggest that prosodic phrasing was influenced by time-based working memory limits, which in turn affected syntactic analysis: readers were more likely to interpret an embedded clause as a main clause if it could be associated with the beginning of a new prosodic phrase. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Listeners are constantly trying to predict what the speaker will say next. We concurrently measured the electrophysiological and haemodynamic correlates of syntactic pre-activation, investigating when and where the brain processes speech melody cues to upcoming word order structure. Pre-activation of syntactic structure was reflected in a left-lateralised pre-activation negativity (PrAN), which was subserved by Broca’s area in the left inferior frontal gyrus, as well as the contiguous left anterior insula. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]