Retrieval (N400) and integration (P600) in expectation-based comprehension

Expectation-based theories of language processing, such as Surprisal theory, are supported by evidence of anticipation effects in both behavioural and neurophysiological measures. Online measures of language processing, however, are known to be influenced by factors such as lexical association that are distinct from—but often confounded with—expectancy. An open question therefore is whether a specific locus of expectancy related effects can be established in neural and behavioral processing correlates. We address this question in an event-related potential experiment and a self-paced reading experiment that independently cross expectancy and lexical association in a context manipulation design. We find that event-related potentials reveal that the N400 is sensitive to both expectancy and lexical association, while the P600 is modulated only by expectancy. Reading times, in turn, reveal effects of both association and expectancy in the first spillover region, followed by effects of expectancy alone in the second spillover region. These findings are consistent with the Retrieval-Integration account of language comprehension, according to which lexical retrieval (N400) is facilitated for words that are both expected and associated, whereas integration difficulty (P600) will be greater for unexpected words alone. Further, an exploratory analysis suggests that the P600 is not merely sensitive to expectancy violations, but rather, that there is a continuous relation. Taken together, these results suggest that the P600, like reading times, may reflect a meaning-centric notion of Surprisal in language comprehension.

From the experience of research of the national-cultural specificity of language consciousness: associative norms of noun ‘steppe’ in the Kazakhstan language environment

The article is devoted to the study of associative field of the word using the method of experiment. The paper presents a brief review of the definitions of concepts such as: free associative experiment, association, content analysis. The article attempts to analyze the results of the free associative experiment, associative field study of steppe. The factual material for illustration of the main provisions was the direct lexical association of the respondents. The experimental data allow us to observe mental stereotypes of society, to reveal its cultural memory, modern values verbalized in associations. The following methods were used in the research: questionnaire survey, descriptive, generalization, systematization, observation, content analysis.

Lectal constraining of lexical collocations

Adopting a corpus-based approach, lexical collocations are reconsidered from a lectal perspective. Analyzing adjective-noun collocations, it will be shown that lexical collocations are conditioned by the language settings in which they are used. These lectal constraints do not only apply to lexical collocations as a measure of lexical association but also to their potential function as a determinant of other constructions. These results argue for the inclusion of the heterogeneity of the corpus settings in empirical linguistic models and for the integration of a full-fledged lectal dimension in theoretical frameworks advocating a usage-based methodology, such as construction grammar.