Neural Signatures of Intervention Effects in Korean way ‘why’ Questions: An ERP Study

Abstract

In this paper we use event-related potentials (ERPs) to investigate the time course of comprehending the so-called intervention effect (IE) that negative polarity items (NPIs) induce on the wh-adverbial way ‘WHY’ in Korean. In keeping with Tomioka’s (2009) presupposition-based account for Ko’s (2005) paradigm of empirical data on the IE of NPIs on WHY, we construct three types of minimal pairs involving the WHY − NPI or the reverse orders. Type [1] with an NPI in the matrix clause and with WHY in the embedded clause elicited sustained positivity or P3b and P600. Type [2] with an NPI and WHY in the embedded clause evoked only P3b. Type [3] with negation on an embedded verb complex and Q-particle on a matrix one recorded sustained negativity. Following the lead by Jouralvlev et al. (2016), the P3b is taken as a neural marker of accommodating the presupposition or focus reduction on the NPI occurring before WHY, while the P300 is a neural signature of extending the domain of presupposition from embedded to matrix clause. On the other hand, the sustained negativity observed in Type [3] is a neural index of retaining the result from processing the embedded anomalous NPI-WHY order. Taken together, from experimental perspectives this paper demonstrates that presupposition accommodation interacting with word order and structural make-up plays an instrumental role in accounting for the various aspects of the IE in WHY questions.