Based on particular language properties of Chinese, using ERP technique and employing neural experimental task, this study explored the semantic and grammatical processing of Chinese verbs out of sentential context and their relationship. Experiment 1 explored how the semantic and grammatical processing influence verb processing by analyzing ERPs evoked by verbs with different semantic and grammatical properties. There were two ERP effects: 1) N200 evoked in the early stage of verb processing is sensitive to verbs’ grammatical properties; 2) in the later stage, N400 evoked in bilateral parietal sites is sensitive to the semantic properties of Chinese verbs; N400 evoked in midline central-parietal sites is sensitive to the grammatical properties of Chinese verbs; furthermore, N400 is sensitive to the integration of semantic and grammatical information of Chinese verbs. These results suggest that verb processing started with an independent grammatical processing; then semantic and grammatical processing influence verb processing in a both separable and inter-connected way. Experiment 2 explored in what way the semantic and grammatical processing of verbs influence the recognition of verb-primed words, through analyzing ERPs evoked by words that are primed by verbs with different semantic and grammatical properties. There were two ERPs: 1) P200 evoked in the early stage of target recognition is sensitive the semantic relationship between verbs and their targets; 2) N400 is sensitive to both the semantic and grammatical properties of verbs. These results suggest that the early stage of word recognition involves the semantic integration between verbs and their targets; then both the semantic and grammatical properties of verbs influence word recognition. In sum, this study showed that in verb processing and during the recognition of verb-related words, semantic and grammatical processing of Chinese verbs act both independently and dependently.
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