Electrophysiological Evidence for Sentence Comprehension - Wings

Experiment 2('tense'). The experiment was similar in every detail, but the target word.
The experiment consists of 200 sentences, one hundred in violation and one hundred in
non-violation condition. Each sentence consists of four (phonological) words with the
target word in the sentence final position. The experiment manipulates two tenses: future
and past tense. Future tense is built with the clitic present form of the auxiliary verb ‘to
have’ and the main verb in Infinitive. Past tense is build with the clitic present form of the
auxiliary verb ‘to be’ and the main verb in Participle. Every verb in Croatian has two
stems: present and infinitive. As both Infinitive and Participle are built from the infinitive
stem, the target words differ only in the final morpheme. Since the tense is manipulated
in the experiment, it will be referred to as the ‘tense’ experiment.
The non-violation condition consists of 100 sentences. Every sentence begins with the
subject followed by the auxiliary verb. They form one phonological word. Temporal
adverb or adverbs and/or the object follow. Finally, the main verb in Infinitive or
Participle occupies the final position in the sentence. Half of the sentences were in the
past tense, while the other half in the future tense. The glossed example shows a non-
violation condition sentence taken from the stimulus set:
(21) Zvon-a će sutra u podne zazvoni-ti.
Bell-Nom.Pl. AUX tomorrow at noon ring-Inf.
'The bells will ring tomorrow at noon.'
The auxiliary verb defines the tense, i.e. makes the expectations regarding the form of the
main verb. If it is će (3 rd person Pres. Sg. ‘to have’), Infinitive is required, if it is je (3 rd
person Pres. Sg. ‘to be’), Participle is required.
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