This paper investigates how differences in syntactic structure influence the speaker's prosodic realization of temporarily ambiguous utterances and whether the respective prosodic information guides the listener's sentence comprehension. Exhaustive acoustic analyses of the speech signals as well as behavioral and event-related brain potential (ERP) data of 40 listeners revealed the following results. 1. As predicted by theories of syntax-prosody mapping, syntactic differences led to early characteristic changes in the prosodic pattern. 2. Prosodic differences involved word duration, pause insertion, pitch contours, and the loudness function of the speech signals. 3. The disambiguating prosodic cues were immediately decoded by the listeners and prevented them from initial misanalyses typically observed during reading. 4. The processing of Intonational Phrase (IPh) boundaries was reflected by a specific brain response in the ERP. 5. A mismatch between prosodic information and syntactic structure elicited an N400-P600 pattern of ERP components reflecting the prosody-induced gardenpath.
Poster in der Gruppe Last-Minute II, Mittwoch, 31. März 1999, 17:00-19:00, Foyer 2. Stock
