2004 Fiscal Year Final Research Report Summary
A Theoretical and Empirical Study on the Mental and Neural Mechanisms of Word Formation
| Project/Area Number |
14510505
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| Research Category |
Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
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| Allocation Type | Single-year Grants |
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| Section | 一般 |
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| Research Field |
英語・英米文学
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| Research Institution | The University of Tokyo |
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Principal Investigator |
ITO Takane The University of Tokyo, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, Professor, 大学院・総合文化研究科, 教授 (10168354)
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| Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha) |
HAGIWARA Hiroko Tokyo Metropolitan University, Faculty of Urban Liberal Arts, Associate Professor, 都市教養学部, 助教授 (20172835)
SUGIOKA Yoko Keio University, Faculty of Economics, Professor, 経済学部, 教授 (00187650)
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| Project Period (FY) |
2002 – 2004
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| Keywords | Causative Constructions / Dual Mechanism Model / Event Related Potentials / Word Formation / Mental Lexicon |
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| Research Abstract |
The Dual Mechanism Model (DMM) as proposed by Pinker and others claims that two different mental mechanisms (computation by rule and associative memory) are involved in word formation. This theory suggests that the so-called Sase Causatives (SC) are processed by rule while Lexical Causatives (LC) are by associative memory. We conducted an ERP experiment to verify this hypothesis, by examining the neural mechanisms involved in the processing of SC and LC.
The stimuli consisted of four types of sentences : Acceptable and Unacceptable SC sentences (ASC and USC) and Acceptable and Unacceptable LC sentences (ALC and ULC). N4oo and P600 were observed in ULC, which suggests that the deviance is due to the violation of lexical semantic selection. USC, on the other hand, yielded Left Anterior Negativity (LAN) in 250-300ms, and non-lateralized Anterior Negativity (AN) in 300-500ms. This suggests that the processing of SC involves syntactic computation. Given the general understanding that semantic selection is a matter of lexical network while syntactic computation is rule-based, these findings corroborate the possibility of extending the DMM to Japanese causative verb formation. Furthermore, the comparison between ASC and ALC revealed that the ASC elicited a reliable positive effect at 450-600ms, which can be interpreted as reflecting the computation load for processing the bicluasal structure (i.e. syntactic embedding) of SC.
Integrating these findings with the results of our previous experimental studies (a behavioral experiment on aphasia patients on the use of SC and LC (Sugioka et al. 2001), and a study on Japanese nominalizations (Hagiwara et al. 1999)), we have succeeded in showing that the DMM is a promising theory that can be applicable not only to inflection but also to derivation, thus covering the whole range of word formation.
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Research Products
(38 results)
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[Journal Article] Morphology
Author(s)
Takane Ito
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Journal Title
Encyclopedia of Language (H.Nakajima (ed.))(Asakura Shoten) (in press)
Description
「研究成果報告書概要(欧文)」より
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[Book] 語の仕組みと語形成2002
Author(s)
伊藤たかね, 杉岡洋子
Total Pages
Vii+212
Publisher
研究社
Description
「研究成果報告書概要(和文)」より
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