動詞在句子當中扮演了關鍵的角色，但是人們是如何解讀句子裡面主詞與動詞之間的關係呢？先前的研究指出中文母語者傾向將主詞解讀為句子中的施事者(agent)，但是對於主詞作其他論旨角色仍所知甚少。本研究旨在使用自主步調閱讀任務(self-paced reading task)以及事件相關腦電位技術(event-related brain potential)探討非賓格句型(unaccusative construction；例如：列車抵達了) 與中動句型(middle construction；例如：列車抵達了)的語句理解歷程。兩種句型的表面結構相同，且主詞都是經過位移才出現在句首的結構。由於兩種句型的差異在於是否能被動化，我們將語態(voice；主動vs.被動)列為其中一個實驗因子。研究結果顯示受試者對這兩類的句型做不同的處理：(1) 主動非賓格句與中動句的比較：受試者在自主步調閱讀實驗中花費較多的時間處理中動句型，並且在事件相關腦電位實驗中，中動句型有誘發晚期的正向波(late frontal positivity)的傾向，表示閱讀到動詞時受試者修正了主詞的論旨角色。 (2) 非賓格句主被動的比較：由於非賓格動詞出現在被動句並不合法，在自主步調閱讀實驗中，受試者花費較多的時間在處理被動句，在腦電波實驗中，被動句誘發較大的P600。 (3) 中動句主被動的比較： 自主步調閱讀實驗的結果顯示，主動句比被動句還難處理，兩者差異甚至在關鍵動詞後才出現，在事件相關腦電位實驗中，動詞的區域有N400效果，由此可知，中動句型的處理可能涉及受試者對動詞預測錯誤。總結而言，本研究顯示雖然非賓格句型與中動句型的表面結構相同，其處理歷程因為主詞與動詞之間的論旨關係不同而有時序上的差異。

Verbs play a critical role in a sentence, but how do comprehenders compute the relations between a subject and a verb? While prior works has suggested that native Mandarin readers tend to interpret the subject NP as an agent of a sentence, little is known about how structures of other thematic relations are constructed online. In the current study, we conducted a self-paced reading experiment and an ERP experiment to examine sentences whose structures are identical at the surface level, but their subject NPs are not base-generated: The unaccusative construction (e.g. train arrive-ASP) and the middle construction (e.g. cake baked-burnt-ASP). Since the two constructions differ in the permission of passivization, we included voice (Active, Passive) as an experiment factor. The results showed that comprehenders processed the unaccusative and middle constructions differently: (1) Unaccusative-Active vs. Middle-Active: comprehenders took longer to process the verb and the post-verb regions in Middle-Active condition in the self-paced reading study; there was a tendency for a late frontal positivity effect at the verb in the ERP experiment. The results suggested comprehenders may revise the interpretations of the initial NP in the Middle-Active condition after the presence of the target verb. (2) Unaccusative-Active vs. Unaccusative-Passive: comprehenders spent longer time processing the verbs in Unaccusative-Passive condition in the self-paced reading experiment, and they showed a large P600 effect at the verb. It suggested that comprehenders could immediately detect that the unaccusative verbs cannot be passivized, with an attempt to reanalyze the sentence. (3) Middle-Active vs. Middle-Passive: comprehenders showed longer reading time in the post-verb region in the self-paced reading experiment and an N400 effect in the ERP experiment. The processing of middle construction might involve a prediction error of the verb and the reanalysis of the sentence. To conclude, the current study shows that we can temporally dissociate the processing profiles of unaccusative and middle constructions.

摘要 i
Abstract iii
致謝辭 v
Table of Contents vi
List of Tables ix
List of Figures x
Chapter 1 Introduction 1
1.1 Background 1
1.2 Purpose of this study 4
1.3 Significance 5
1.4 Outline of this thesis 6
Chapter 2 Literature Review 7
2.1 Models on sentence processing 7
2.2 Computing argument-verb relations 10
2.2.1 Computing argument-verb relations in Mandarin Chinese 13
2.3 The current study: Atypical argument-verb thematic relations in Mandarin 19
2.3.1 The Unaccusative Hypothesis 19
2.3.2 Middle construction 20
2.3.3 Experiment design of the current study 26
Chapter 3 Experiment 1: A Self-Paced Reading Study 28
3.1 Method 29
3.1.1 Participants 29
3.1.2 Materials 29
3.1.3 Procedure 32
3.1.4 Data Analysis 33
3.2 Results 33
3.3 Discussion 37
3.3.1 Unaccusative vs. Middle: Identical surface structure but different thematic relations between subject and object 38
3.3.2 An immediate effect in Unaccusative conditions 39
3.3.3 A spillover effect in Middle conditions 40
Chapter 4 Experiment 2: An ERP Experiment 42
4.1 Method 46
4.1.1 Participants 46
4.1.2 Materials 46
4.1.3 Procedure 48
4.1.4 Data Acquisition and Analysis 49
4.2 Results 52
4.2.1 Behavioral Data 52
4.2.2 ERP Data 52
4.3 Discussion 59
Chapter 5 General Discussion and Conclusions 64
5.1 The processing profiles of the unaccusative and middle constructions 66
5.2 On the neural responses to the unaccusative and middle constructions 70
5.3 Conclusion 73
References 75
Appendix 1: Experiment materials 80
Appendix 2: Grand average ERP response at the critical verb position for Unaccusative comparison. (Display only) 91
Appendix 3: Grand average ERP response at the critical verb position for Middle comparison. (Display only) 92
Appendix 4: Grand average ERP response at the critical verb position for Active comparison. (Display only) 93

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