The present study investigated different aspects of auditory language
comprehension. The sentences which were presented as connected speech
were either correct or incorrect including a semantic error (selection
al restriction), a morphological error (verb inflection), or a syntact
ic error (phrase structure). After each sentence, a probe word was pre
sented auditorily, and subjects had to decide whether this word was pa
rt of the preceding sentence or not. Event-related brain potentials (E
RPs) were recorded from 7 scalp electrodes. The ERPs evoked by incorre
ct sentences differed significantly from the correct ones as a functio
n of error type. Semantic anomalies evoked a 'classical' N400 pattern.
Morphological errors elicited a pronounced negativity between 300 and
600 ms followed by a late positivity. Syntactic errors, in contrast,
evoked an early negativity peaking around 180 ms followed by a negativ
ity around 400 ms. The early negativity was only significant over the
left anterior electrode. The present data demonstrate that linguistic
errors of different categories evoke different ERP patterns. They indi
cate that with using connected speech as input, different aspects of l
anguage comprehension processes cannot only be described with respect
to their temporal structure, but eventually also with respect to possi
ble brain systems subserving these processes.