Effects of the Number of Valency Frames On the Verb Processing Cost: an Eye-Tracking Study

Verbs play a central role in sentences, since they determine the number of arguments and their characteristics. Due to the great theoretical and practical significance of verb processing, it is being investigated in many behavioral and neuroimaging studies both among people without any language impairments (Meltzer-Asscher et al., 2012; Rodriguez-Ferreiro et al. , 2014) and among people with different types of aphasia (Bastiaanse & Jonkers, 1998; Bastiaanse & Van Zonneveld, 2005; Biran & Fisher, 2014). It is important to note the importance of this topic for conducting language therapy with patients with aphasia (a language disorder after brain lesions) (Fink, Brecher, Schwartz & Robey, 2002, Raymer & Kohen, 2006, Biran & Fisher, 2014). Knowing which characteristics of the argument structure complicate or simplify the processing of verbs will help to effectively select and order verbs in the diagnosis and therapy of aphasia. There have been few studies on the number of valencies , unlike other parameters of VAS. An eye-tracking study will be held to figure out whether the number of valencies influences the verb processing cost. Longer fixations and reading times are expected for verbs with more complicated structure – with a greater number of valencies . The results are not consistent with the previous research - the hypothesis was supported within only one parameter in one task for obligatory transitive verbs.