An electrophysiological investigation of referential communication

A key aspect of linguistic communication involves semantic reference to objects. Presently, we investigate neural responses at objects when reference is disrupted, e.g., “The connoisseur tasted *that wine“… vs. “…*that roof…” Without any previous linguistic context or visual gesture, use of the demonstrative determiner “that” renders interpretation at the noun as incoherent. This incoherence is not based on knowledge of how the world plausibly works but instead is based on grammatical rules of reference. Whereas Event-Related Potential (ERP) responses to sentences such as “The connoisseur tasted the wine …” vs. “the roof” would result in an N400 effect, it is unclear what to expect for doubly incoherent “…*that roof…”. Results revealed an N400 effect, as expected, preceded by a P200 component (instead of predicted P600 effect). These independent ERP components at the doubly violated condition support the notion that semantic interpretation can be partitioned into grammatical vs. contextual constructs.