Why a "word order difference" is not always a "word order" difference: A Reply to Weyerts, Penke, Münte, Heinze, and Clahsen

Abstract

We present evidence that the supposed processing advantage for an SV finO word order over an SOV fin word order in German argued for by Weyerts, Penke, Münte, Heinze, and Clahsen (2002) is supported by neither experimental nor theoretical evidence. Specifically, we show (a) that the frontocentral negativity for an SOV fin in comparison to an SV finO word order in Weyerts et al.'s Experiments 2 and 3 is reducible to more general differences in the electrophysiological responses elicited by nouns versus verbs in a sentence context, and (b) that the P600 difference between the two word orders in Experiment 2, as well as the reading time differences in Experiment 1, result from the fact that the two supposedly ungrammatical conditions actually differ in their degree of ill-formedness. We conclude that there is no evidence for a processing disadvantage for SOV fin, thus reconciling Weyerts et al.'s results on German sentence processing with the grammatical regularities of German. © 2002 Plenum Publishing Corporation.