HUMAN BRAIN POTENTIALS TO VIOLATIONS IN MORPHOLOGICALLY COMPLEX ITALIAN WORDS

Event-related brain potentials were recorded while 12 Italian-speaking subjects read correctly and incorrectly inflected verb forms. Partici ple forms of three types of verbs were investigated: Ist conjugation v erbs (parlato 'spoken'), 3rd conjugation verbs (dormito 'slept'), and irregular 2nd conjugation verbs (preso 'taken'). We compared correct a nd incorrect participle forms; the latter had stem formation errors an d/or incorrect participle endings. Event-related potentials (ERP) show ed different responses to incorrect regular and incorrect irregular pa rticiple forms: incorrect irregulars (prendato instead of preso) elic ited a widespread negativity, whereas incorrect regulars (parlito, *d ormato) produced no effect. This difference replicates previous result s on German inflection and supports the linguistic distinction between lexically-based and rule-based inflection. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ireland Ltd.