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Syntactic parsing as revealed by brain responses: First-pass and second-pass parsing processes

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Abstract

This paper reviews a series of electrophysiological experiments on syntactic processing against the background of a psycholinguistic two-stage model of parsing. The data reveal two event-related brain potential components in correlation with syntactic processes: an early left anterior negativity and a late centro-parietal positivity. It is argued that these two components can be correlated with two separate stages of syntactic processing: the early left anterior negativity reflecting first-pass parsing processes and the late positivity reflecting second-pass parsing processes possibly including processes of reanalyses.

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Friederici, A.D., Mecklinger, A. Syntactic parsing as revealed by brain responses: First-pass and second-pass parsing processes. J Psycholinguist Res 25, 157–176 (1996). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01708424

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