An ERP study of ellipsis resolution in Korean

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to investigatethe prediction/integration of syntactic structure during sentence processing, employingthe construction that allows a TP ellipsis or Sluicing-like interpretation in Korean. To thisaim we recorded event-related potentials (ERPs) from Korean native speakers while theyread ellipsis constructions where the syntactic context allows or disallows remnants/survivors (mis)matching with their explicit/implicit correlates in terms of Case/case(postposition) particle, also reflecting voice (mis)match between the antecedent and theellipsis clauses. The Korean speakers were able to predict clausal syntactic structure onthe basis of the antecedent clause and integrate it into the ellipsis site, thereby quicklydetecting voice match/mismatch, as suggested by an ERP difference between matchedand mismatched remnants/survivors neighboring the ellipsis site.