Discontinuous particle verbs in German sentence comprehension

Anna Czypionka1,2, Felix Golcher3, Carsten Eulitz1 & Josef Bayer1

Affiliations: 1) Constance University, Department of Linguistics 2) Wrocław University, Center for General and Comparative Linguistics 3) Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Department of German Studies and LinguisticsPlease see the handout for full references.

German particle verbs = particle + base

Subordinate clauses (SOV): orthographical unit at clause-final position

... dass ich morgen mit Peter den Film im Kino ansehe. ... that I tomorrow with Peter the movie in.the cinema part.see `That I (will) watch the movie with Peter at the cinema tomorrow.‘

Main clauses (SVO): base verb = 2nd constituent, particle clause-final Ich sehe morgen mit Peter den Film im Kino an. I see tomorrow with Peter the movie in.the cinema part `I (will) watch the movie with Peter at the cinema tomorrow.‘

Particle verb formation is productive, many possible combinations: machen (`to make‘) combines with 31 particles (auf, zu, weg, klar, aus, rüber, .... )

Particles can change the base‘s • semantics: machen `to make‘, einmachen = `to pickle‘ / `to arrest‘ • syntax: machen 2-place, mitmachen 1-place, klarmachen 3-place

-> German main clauses are semantically and syntactically ambiguous until the final position.

Background

Experiment 3: EEG

Conclusion 1) accusative vs dative: • subtle case effects for separated particle verbs - different from nonseparated, different from simple verbs • no N400 - different from ungrammatical conditions -> no simple lexical reaccess to object as source of case effects with simple verbs -> fits interpretation of simple verb case effects as reflecting syntactic differences

2)+3) accusative vs intransitive and illegal: • N400 fits expectations / literature • P600 not previously reported

-> lexical access is costly for intransitive and nonexisting particle verbs -> parser attempts syntactic repair / reanalysis with existing and nonexisting particle verbs

More fine-grained analysis:

• reassess case effects before final conclusions • quantitative differences intransitive vs illegal conditions?

Experiments Stimuli

grammatical conditions ungrammatical conditions(A) accusative: ( baseline) ~~~Polizisten hören Unterhaltungen von Kriminellen heimlich ab, damit sie ...policeman.pl.(nom) hear.3.pl conversation.pl.(acc) of criminals secretly part so.that. they ... `Policemen secretly wiretap criminals‘ conversations so that they are in the know.‘

(C) intransitive: Polizisten hören Unterhaltungen von Kriminellen heimlich weg, ... policeman.pl.(nom) hear.3.pl conversation.pl.(intr) of criminals secretly part ... `Policemen secretly do not listen on purpose (*to criminals‘ conversations) ...‘

(B) dative: Polizisten hören Unterhaltungen von Kriminellen heimlich zu, ... policeman.pl.(nom) hear.3.pl conversation.pl.(dat) of criminals secretly part ... `Policemen secretly listen to criminals‘ conversations ...

(D) illegal: Polizisten hören Unterhaltungen von Kriminellen heimlich über, ... \\policeman.pl.(nom) hear.3.pl conversation.pl.(ill) of criminals secretly part ... \\# `Policemen secretly do verb? criminals‘ conversations ...‘ \\

40 sentence quartets built using 16 base verbs, repeated once to 3 times. The stimuli were used in three experiments.

400-550 ms: acc vs intr: condition (F(1,21)=4.54, p<.05) acc vs nons: condition (F(1,21)=9.72, p<.01, condition:miniroi (F(11,231)=3.84, p<.05). condition sign. in 5 mini-ROIs.

N400 for both conditions compared to accusative

600-900 ms: acc vs intr: condition (F(1,21)=4.72, p<.05), miniroi (F(11,231)=5.17, p<.01 acc vs nons: condition (F(1,21)=8.31, p<.01, miniroi (F(11,231=7.10, p<.001), condition:miniroi (F(11,231)=3.23, p<.05). condition sign. in 5 mini-ROIs.

More positive-going P600-like for both conditions compared to accusative

-0.75 µV 0 µV 0.75 µV

600 ms - 900 ms

-0.75 µV 0 µV 0.75 µV

600 ms - 900 ms

-0.75 µV 0 µV 0.75 µV

400 ms - 550 ms

-0.75 µV 0 µV 0.75 µV

400 ms - 550 ms

P1

-200 200 4 6

-2

-1

1

2

3

µV

ms

P2

-200 200 4 600

-2

-1

1

2

3

µV

ms00

CP2

-200 200 4 600 80

-2

-1

1

2

3

µV

ms00 8000

accusative

dative

intransitive

illegal

22 participants, 64 electrodes, filtered bandpass 0.5-70Hz before segmentation Analysis: 32 electrode subset in 12 mini-ROIs (3 electrodes for lateral, 2 for midline); ANOVA mean amplitude in time windows for condition*miniroi

(1) Case: Accusative vs. dative

200-300 ms: condition (F(1,21)=6.27, p<.05), miniroi (F(11,231)=13.49, p< .001), bed:miniroi (F(11,231)=3.63, p<.05). condition significant in 4 mini-ROIs, left-anterior and left-posterior.

more positive-going for dative than accusative (left-anterior)

700-900 ms: miniroi (F(11,231)=,6.70 p < .01), bed:miniroi (F(11,231)= 2.59, p<.05). condition significant in 3 mid/right-anterior mini-ROIs

more positive-going for dative than accusative (anterior)

-> No visible link to behavioral results -> No N400 - doesn‘t fit lexical reaccess from literature -> No left-anterior negativities on next word - unlike dative effects for simple verbs

Effects are stat. significant, but very subtle, depend on electrode selection

-0.75 µV 0 µV 0.75 µV

700 ms - 900 ms

accusative

dative

Voltage difference map: dative-accusative

F5

-200 200 400 600

-2

-1

1

2

3

ms00000

FP1

-200 200 400 600

-2

-1

1

2

3

µV

ms00000

FP2

-200 200 400 600

-2

-1

1

2

3

µV

ms00000

F6

-200 200 400 600

-2

-1

1

2

3

µV

ms00000000

-0.75 µV 0 µV 0.75 µV

200 ms - 300 ms

Voltage difference map: intransitive-accusative

Voltage difference map: illegal-accusative

CP1

-200 200 4 600 8

-2

-1

1

2

3

µV

ms00 8

-> Lexical access is costly for non-matching and non-existing base-particle combinations. This fits findings from the literature [7,9].

-> Syntactic integration is difficult for non-matching and non-existing base-particle combinations. So far, no P600 has been reported for base-particle mismatches.

Research Questions What happens when a sentence-final particle changes the verb from two-place nominative-accusative to

1) lexical dative? • earlier studies: accusative vs dative causes N400 [5,6] interpretation: additional synt. structure and lexical reaccess to object [1] • newer studies: no case marking effects for non-separated particle verbs! [4] - but lexical reaccess to object should still be necessary with dative part. verbs

Dative effects with separated particle verbs? -> would confirm lexical reaccess to object

2) intransitive? • semantically implausible, but existing lexicon entry -> N400 • syntactically anomalous -> P600?

3) illegal base-particle combination? • semantically implausible, no lexicon entry -> bigger N400 than in 2)? • attempts at reanalysis / structure repair -> P600? Or only for existing verbs?

Literature: no P600 for base-particle mismatches.

one lexical entry [2,3] expressed by multiple words [8]

Dutch main clauses [9]: • LAN to potential base verbs, not affected by number of existing base-particle combinations • graded N400 to clause-final particles: plausible < semantically implausible < nonexisting

German main clauses with nonexisting base-particle combinations [7]: • late frontal neg. and N400 -> difficulties for lexical retrieval• but no P600 -> no synt. repair / reanalysis? • German subordinate clauses: No effects of case marking (unlike simple verbs) [4]

Particle verbs in sentence processing

Experiment 1: Acceptability ratings

in comparison to accusative: • no difference to dative (t=1.05, p > .3) • difference to both ungrammatical conditions (intr.: t=-11.56, p<.001; ill.: t=-11.98, p<.001)

illegal rated worse than intransitive (t=3.24, p<.01)

Magnitude Estimation task, 57 participants Analysis: LMM, fixed eff. condition, random terms participant (rand. slo-pe condition) and item.

-> case effects in other experiments do not reflect acceptability -> ungrammatical conditions are ungrammatical -> syntactic / semantic mismatch is bad, nonexistence is worse

Experiment 2: Self-paced reading times Self-paced reading times with occasional questions, 49 participants Analysis: LMM fixed effect condition, random terms participant and item. Sequence effect up to second order in fixed and random parts.

-> ungrammaticality affects reading times, case does not -> acceptability difference in ungrammatical conditions is not reflected in reading times

in comparison to accusative: • no difference to dative • difference to ungrammati-cal conditions on particle and second, third and fourth spill-over position intransitive vs illegal: no difference (see handout for stat. report)

−2.0

−1.5

−1.0

−0.5

0.0

acc dat intr illCondition

rati

ng

/ m

ean

(lo

g(r

atin

g/r

efe

ren

ce))

condition

acc

dat

intr

ill

Grammaticality ratings

−0.0032

−0.0028

−0.0024

−0.0020

part part1 part2 part3 part4

position

mo

del

�t

(−1/

RT)

Condition accdatintrill

Self-paced reading times

(2) and (3) Accusative vs intransitive, accusative vs illegal

References [1] Bayer, J., Bader, M. & Meng,M. (2001). Morphological underspecification meets oblique case: Syntactic and processing effects in German.

Lingua, 111, 465-514. [2] Cappelle, B., Shtyrov,Y., & Pulvermüller, F. (2010). Heating up or cooling up the brain? MEG evidence that phrasal verbs are lexical units. Brain

and Language, 115, 189-201. [3] Jackendoff, R. (2002). English particle constructions, the lexicon, and the autonomy of syntax. In Dehé, N., Jackendoff, R., McIntyre, A., Urban, S.

(eds. ), Verb-particle explorations, 67-94. Mouton de Gruyter [4] Czypionka, A. & Eulitz, C. Case marking affects the processing of animacy with simple verbs, but not particle verbs. An event-related potential

study. 38th Annual Meeting of the DGfS, AG2 (Talk). 24.-26.2.2016 Konstanz [5] Hopf, J.-M., Bader, M., Meng, M. & Bayer, J. (2003). Is human sentence parsing serial or parallel? Evidence from event-related brain potentials.

Cognitive Brain Research, 15, 165-177. [6] Hopf, J.-M., Bayer, J., Bader, M., & Meng, M. (1998). Event-related brain potentials and case information in syntactic ambiguities. Journal of

Cognitive Neuroscience, 10, 264-280. [7] Isel, F., Alter, K., & Friederici, A.D. (2005). Influence of prosodic information on the processing of split particles: ERP evidence from spoken

German. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 17, 154-167. [8] McIntyre, A. (2007). Particle verb formation. In P.O. Müller, I. OHnheiser, S. Olsen & F. Rainer (eds.), Word-Formation: An International Handbook

of the Languages of Europe (pp. 435-449). Berlin / Boston: Mouton de Gruyter, vol. 1. [9] Piaí, V., Meyer, L., Schreuder, R. & Bastiaansen, M.C. (2013). Sit down and read on: Working memory and long-term memory in particle-verb

processing. Brain and Language, 127, 296-306.

Comparison 1: accusative vs dative Position Estimate Std. Error z value Pr (<|z|) part -1.7e-05 3.6e-05 -.47 .95

part+1 3.9e-05 3.6e-05 1.07 .63

part+2 -2.8e-05 3.5e-05 -.81 .8

part+3 2.5e-05 3.8e-05 .68 .87

part+4 -2.8e-05 3.5e-05 -.80 .81

Comparison 2: accusative vs intransitive

Position Estimate Std. Error z value Pr (<|z|) part -.00012 3.6e-05 -3.27 <.01

part+1 -6.1e-05 3.6e-05 -1.69 .26

part+2 .00013 3.5e-05 3.79 <.001

part+3 .0003 3.7e-05 8.01 <.001

part+4 -9.8e-05 3.5e-05 2.77 <.05

Comparison 3: accusative vs illegal

Position Estimate Std. Error z value Pr (<|z|) part -.00013 3.6e-05 -3.65 <.001

part+1 -8-8e-05 3.6e-05 -2.44 .05

part+2 .00014 3.5e-05 4.13 <.001

part+3 .00037 3.7e-05 9.84 <.001

part+4 .00016 3.5e-05 4.40 <.001

Comparison 4: intransitive vs illegal

Position Estimate Std. Error z value Pr (<|z|) part -1.4e-05 3.6e-05 -.39 .97

part+1 -2.7e-05 3.6e-05 -.75 .83

part+2 1.1e-05 3.5e-05 .32 .98

part+3 6.7e-05 3.7e-05 1.81 .21

part+4 5.7e-05 3.5e-05 1.62 .29

Statistics Experiment 2

Discontinuous particle verbs

in Germ

an sentence comprehension

anna.czypionka@uni-konstanz.de

22nd AM

LaP conference 1-3 Septem

ber 2016, Bilbao

Anna Czypionka, Felix G

olcher, Carsten Eulitz &

Josef Bayer

Constance University, W

rocław U

niversity,H

umboldt-U

niversität zu Berlin