aspectual mismatches, domain of aspectual interpretation, semantic (un)specificity

What is it about?

The present paper reports two ERP experiments in Polish which examined the processing of mismatches between perfective and imperfective verbs and temporal modifiers which preceded the VP (Experiment 1) and followed it (Experiment 2). The mismatch between perfective verb and a preceding durative adverbial elicited an N400 on the object. No ERP effect was found for the analogous mismatch between imperfective verbs and a preceding time-span adverbial. The mismatching temporal adverbial elicited an early positivity (potentially an early P600) when it followed a perfective VP and a LAN when it followed an imperfective VP. The results suggest that: (i) the domain of aspectual interpretation in Polish is a VP; (ii) mismatches with perfective and imperfective verbs are resolved differently depending on the degree of their semantic specificity (only semantically underspecified imperfective verbs can be easily adjusted to the requirements of the preceding context); (iii) the position of the temporal adverbial plays a role in that a preverbal adverbial sets up a frame within which the eventuality should be interpreted and the aspectual value computed on AspP can be potentially adjusted to it (semantic integration reflected in N400), whereas a postverbal adverbial must agree with the aspectual value already computed on AspP (syntactic integration reflected in an early positivity or a LAN).

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Why is it important?

Taken together, our findings lend credibility to the view that the domain of aspectual interpretation in Polish is VP. Moreover, there are important asymmetries in the way perfective and imperfective verbs are processed, which can be attributed to the different degree of their semantic specificity. More specifically, only in the case of semantically underspecified imperfective verbs is the mismatch resolvable, but only when a mismatching adverbial is used preverbally. In this case, the results of our study show that the meaning of imperfective verbs can be adjusted to the meaning of the mismatching adverbial and this operation does not seem to be costly for the parser. Finally, our study shows that whereas mismatches with preverbal adverbials lead to discourse semantic integration problems (as reflected in the N400 elicited on the object in the perfective condition), mismatches with postverbal adverbials cause more structure-related integration problems (as reflected in an early P600 and a LAN components for perfective and imperfective conditions respectively).