The difference between giving a rose and giving a kiss: Sustained neural activity to the light verb construction

We used event-related potentials (ERPs) to investigate the neurocognitive mechanisms associated with processing light verb constructions such as give a kiss. These constructions consist of a semantically underspecified light verb (give) and an event nominal that contributes most of the meaning and also activates an argument structure of its own (kiss). This creates a mismatch between the syntactic constituents and the semantic roles of a sentence. Native speakers read German verb-final sentences that contained light verb constructions (e.g., Julius gave Anne a kiss), non-light constructions (e.g., Julius gave Anne a rose), and semantically anomalous constructions (e.g., 'Julius gave Anne a conversation). ERPs were measured at the critical verb, which appeared after all its arguments. Compared to non-light constructions, the light verb constructions evoked a widely distributed, frontally focused, sustained negative-going effect between 500 and 900 ms after verb onset. We interpret this effect as reflecting working memory costs associated with complex semantic processes that establish a shared argument structure in the light verb constructions. (C) 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.