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Electrophysiological Evidence for Sentence Comprehension - Wings

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distinction between semantic and syntactic processing somehow relative, do not<br />

corroborate Ullman’s declarative-procedural model (Ullman, 2004) in which syntax is<br />

related to procedural memory and semantics to declarative. In addition, if one accepts the<br />

idea that a word contains some syntactic in<strong>for</strong>mation (e.g. logical <strong>for</strong>m of the verb in<br />

RRG or word templates in MUC (Hagoort, 2005, Vosse & Kempen, 2000)) a chance to<br />

dissociate syntax and semantics and obtain some trace of pure syntactic process seems<br />

rather slim especially <strong>for</strong> language such as Croatian, in which grammatical violations<br />

such as violations in case carry important semantic in<strong>for</strong>mation about thematic relations.<br />

The eADM model does not address the processing that is related to the operator<br />

projection. The model accounts only <strong>for</strong> the processing of core constituents (verbs and<br />

arguments). There<strong>for</strong>e, the 'tense' experiment is not relevant as evidence in favor or<br />

against this model. Since there are no predictions regarding ERP components that could<br />

be expected in the 'tense' experiment, it cannot be said that the late negativity was not<br />

predicted by the eADM (as it cannot be said that it was predicted). In short, the 'tense'<br />

experiment is not a test <strong>for</strong> the eADM. However, together with the ‘quantifier’<br />

experiment in which N400 was obtained, the results of the ‘tense’ experiment (N400’)<br />

may suggest possible future developments of eADM in this direction. As already stated<br />

(pp. 106-107), syntax-to-semantics interface may be supplemented with a linkage<br />

between operator projection and a set of relations defined by philosophical logic. Role<br />

and Reference Grammar provides an account <strong>for</strong> the obtained results, i.e. it can capture a<br />

generalization in this respect: both N400 and N400’ represent processes related to the<br />

151

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