Subject vs Object Asymmetry in Korean Syntax: Evidence from an ERP Study of Processing Stranded Numeral Classifiers

Abstract

This paper investigates the sentence-processing aspects of stranded numeral classifiers (SNCs) in Korean and explores their implications. Building on the previous theoretical and experimental studies of SNCs, particularly concentrating on the subject vs. object asymmetry in SNCs, we hypothesize that subject-related SNCs are not properly licensed syntactically, hence they associate with the adjacent illegitimate NPs. By contrast, object-related SNCs are properly licensed, thus they associate with the distant associate NPs across intervening adjacent NPs. Thus, the former are predicted to give rise to semantic anomaly, whereas the latter are predicted to display priming effects induced by the associate NPs. Furthermore, the former skip the second pass of syntactic reanalysis with the associate NPs after the first pass of semantic incongruence, but the latter do enter into such reanalysis after the first phase of prime effects. In this paper we use the temporal-resolution-wise excellent event-relate potential (ERP) paradigm to test these hypotheses. Subject-related SNCs recorded N400-like negativity at anterior regions, whereas object-related ones registered reduced N400-like negativity at left anterior regions. In addition, the latter additionally evoked P600 at left anterior regions. Taken together, the ERP results confirmed the predictions made above, showing that SNC processing involves the intricate interaction of both semantic and syntactic integration.