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Lexical case marking affects the processing of animacy in simple verbs, but not particle verbs: Evidence from event-related potentials
Author(s) -
Anna Czypionka,
Carsten Eulitz
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
glossa a journal of general linguistics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 2397-1835
DOI - 10.5334/gjgl.313
Subject(s) - animacy , nominative case , dative case , linguistics , syntax , verb , semantics (computer science) , computer science , modal verb , psychology , programming language , philosophy
In case-marking languages like German, nonstandard nominative-dative verbs lead to enhanced processing costs. So far, it is unclear if these case-marking effects reflect the special syntax or semantics of nominative-dative verbs. We present the results of two ERP experiments aimed to disentangle semantic and syntactic contributions to lexical case-marking by manipulating object animacy and case-marking for two verb types: simple verbs (nonstandard syntax and semantics for nominative-dative verbs) and particle verbs (nonstandard semantics only). Simple nominative-dative verbs show effects of case-marking, and no animacy effects. Particle verbs show no effects of case-marking, and animacy effects for nominative-accusative and nominative-dative verbs. Our findings suggest that lexical case-marking effects reflect the special syntax, rather than semantics, of simple nominative-dative verbs.

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