Cross-linguistic differences in case marking shape neural power dynamics and gaze behavior during sentence planning

ID: 20231012155248471-1224

Researcher: Aitor Egurtzegi, Damián E. Blasi, Ina Bornkessel-Schlesewsky, Itziar Laka, Martin Meyer, Balthasar Bickel, Sebastian Sauppe

WP: Other

PI: Martin Meyer, Balthasar Bickel

Abstract: Languages differ in how they mark the dependencies between verbs and arguments, e.g., by case. An eye tracking and EEG picture description study examined the influence of case marking on the time course of sentence planning in Basque and Swiss German. While German assigns an unmarked (nominative) case to subjects, Basque specifically marks agent arguments through ergative case. Fixations to agents and event-related synchronization (ERS) in the theta and alpha frequency bands, as well as desynchronization (ERD) in the alpha and beta bands revealed multiple effects of case marking on the time course of early sentence planning. Speakers decided on case marking under planning early when preparing sentences with ergative-marked agents in Basque, whereas sentences with unmarked agents allowed delaying structural commitment across languages. These findings support hierarchically incremental accounts of sentence planning and highlight how cross-linguistic differences shape the neural dynamics underpinning language use.

Publication DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bandl.2022.105127

Publication Link: https://www.zora.uzh.ch/id/eprint/218704/

Data Type: null

Data Format: null

Data Link: https://osf.io/s8tq5/

Git: None