There are four different constructions for expressing ‘why’ in Cuzco Quechua, namely imanaqtintaq, imapaqtaq, imaynapitaq and imaraykutaq. Analytic tools from the syntax-semantics interface are...Show moreThere are four different constructions for expressing ‘why’ in Cuzco Quechua, namely imanaqtintaq, imapaqtaq, imaynapitaq and imaraykutaq. Analytic tools from the syntax-semantics interface are used to highlight the differences between these why-structures. Imanaqtintaq seems to behave like ‘how come’. Syntactic restrictions related to the fact that this combination of morphemes does not leave a trace are shown. Examples of these restrictions are the fact that imanaqtintaq does not have a pair-list reading and the fact that quantifiers cannot take scope over this wh-element. The underlying meaning of imapaqtaq comes from the benefactive marker -paq. Due to pragmatics imapaqtaq could also be interpreted as ‘why’. Imaynapitaq is strongly related to imaynataq ‘how’. The causal aspect that the method-reading of imaynataq shows in relation to the presupposition of the question can also be found in imaynapitaq. This results in the fact that imaynapitaq takes an event as a reason or cause for the proposition of the question. Imaraykutaq is the most transparent why-structure. This combination of morphemes is closest to the English ‘why’ and can be used to obtain any kind of reason or cause. Since imaraykutaq has the broadest meaning, it is barely used. The other forms might provide a more specific gap related to the proposition of the question. This results in a more sufficient way of updating the knowledge of the one asking the question.Show less
In previous studies, linguistic anticipatory processes in the brain have been investigated extensively, but mostly in a monolingual environment where native speakers of a certain language were...Show moreIn previous studies, linguistic anticipatory processes in the brain have been investigated extensively, but mostly in a monolingual environment where native speakers of a certain language were listening to native speakers of the same language. In this study, we investigated the effect of non-native speech on predictions made by native listeners of Dutch, in a within-subjects design. We used highly predictive sentence contexts in combination with mismatched articles in order to measure the anticipatory effects before the occurence of the predicted noun. We found both an early (120 - 300 ms) and a late (400 - 600 ms) ERP negativity which were affected independently by the speaker accent variable: when participants listened to foreign-accented speech, the early negativity disappeared. However, behavioural performance, as measured by a subsequent lexical recognition task, was not affected by speaker accent. We argue that the results from our experiment have implications for the interpretation of the N400 as well as the proposed Phonological Mismatch Negativity effects and consequently provide an interesting view on the specifics of top-down sentence comprehension.Show less
