“挂念小芳的爷爷”类句法歧义加工的脑功能成像研究

A Brain Functional Imaging Study on the Processing of “Guanian Xiaofang de Yeye”Syntactic Ambiguity

文章从语言学理论角度分析了汉语"VP+NP1+的+NP2"句法歧义的动因,探讨了词汇语义特征对歧义程度的影响作用,以及歧义程度高的"VP+NP1+的+NP2"结构仍表现出歧义偏向性的原因。通过功能性磁共振成像实验发现:1)歧义偏向性、动词致歧度均影响汉语"VP+NP1+的+NP2"句法歧义加工,分别导致额-颞网络、额下回三角部(BA45)激活,且该两因素间存在交互影响;2)脑功能成像数据还显示在偏正结构解读条件下,高动词致歧度与低动词致歧度句子之间没有差异,而动宾结构解读条件下,高动词致歧度与低动词致歧度句子之间存在显著差异。该结果表明:1)句法与语义信息共同影响汉语句法歧义解读;2)尽管句法歧义允许两种结构分析,但它们的心理表征并不平衡,存在解读偏向且偏正结构的表征占绝对优势。

The present study explores the linguistic motivation factors for Chinese syntactic ambiguity“VP+NP1+de+NP2”.It argues that lexical semantic features modulate the degree of ambiguity of“VP+NP1+de+NP2”construction.The paper also explains why a bias for attributive structure costrual emerges when confronted with“VP+NP1+de+NP2”construction.The findings of our functional magnetic resonance imaging(fMRI)experiment are 1)both factors of the ambiguity degree caused by verbs and the disambiguation context affect the processing of Chinese syntactic ambiguity,and an interaction of these two factors was also found;2)a significant difference between high and low degree of ambiguity is found on disambiguation context of verb-object structure construal,while no such difference for that of the attributive structure construal is found.The results indicate that 1)both syntactic representation and lexical semantic features contribute to the processing of Chinese syntactic ambiguity;2)in spite of the possible exixtence of potential syntactic representation,there are an imbalance of these two representations and a bias for attributive structure construal emergence during the processing of Chinese“VP+NP1+de+NP2”construction.