The Role of Animacy in Online Argument Interpretation in Mandarin Chinese

The present event-related brain potential (ERPs) study demonstrates that online argument interpretation in verb-final structures in Mandarin Chinese is modulated by two factors: a preference for Undergoer-before-Actor orders and a preference for animate Actor arguments. Participants listened to sentences with NP(animate)-NP(inanimate)-verb or NP(inanimate)-NP(animate)-verb orders embedded in minimal contexts. Sentences were disambiguated towards either an Actor-initial or an Undergoer-initial order by the clause-final verb. Between 450 and 700 ms post verb onset, we observed an anterior negativity for sentences violating both preferences (inanimate-Actor-initial structures) vs. sentences fulfilling both preferences (inanimate-Undergoer-initial). The two remaining structures (animate-Actor-initial and animate-Undergoer-initial) did not differ from one another but engendered a negativity in comparison to the preferred order (inanimate-Undergoer-initial). These results suggest that a preference for Undergoer-initial structures is only applied online when it is supported by animacy. When the two preferences are in conflict, by contrast, the processing system’s preference may not be stable across trials. Our findings thus show that animacy information plays a crucial role in argument interpretation in NP-NP-verb structures in Chinese.