The role of lexical prosody in the semantic integration of spoken sentences
consisting of a quiz stem and an answer word was investigated analyzing th
e event-related magnetic response, N400m. Three conditions regarding the re
lations between the quiz and the answer word were prepared: pitch-accent vi
olation, phonemic violation and no violation. Both the pitch-accent and pho
nemic violations elicited significant N400m without any significant differe
nces in the peak latency and magnitude of the equivalent current dipoles, s
uggesting that the role of pitch-accent in semantic integration is equivale
nt to that of phonemes. However, the rate of violation detection and the su
ccessful N400m source estimation were lower for the pitch-accent violation
than for the phonemic violation, suggesting differential neural processes f
or the phonemic and prosodic cues. NeuroReport 12:1753-1756 (C) 2001 Lippin
cott Williams & Wilkins.