Topicality matters: Position-specific demands on Chinese discourse processing

We report an event-related potential study designed to explore the nature of context-induced topicality in Chinese discourse processing. Topic is what an utterance is about and represents the most prominent discourse element, which occurs sentence-initially in Chinese. We tested question–answer pairs consisting of topic and non-topic questions followed by different continuations (Topic-Continuity, Topic-Shift, Novel-Topic). ERPs were measured at distinct sentential positions and revealed that sentence-initially information processing is guided by topicality, which affects N400 and Late Positivity effects alike. In non-initial positions, the given-new distinction is the dominant principle, also modulating N400 and Late Positivity. The language processor hence utilizes a few core operations for information processing that depend on position-specific constraints.

► Information processing relies on two core stages (N400 and Late Positivity).
► Topicality shapes expectations and internal discourse structuring.
► Referential processing of sentence-initial entity is guided by contextual topic.
► Referential processing of non-initial entity is based on given-new principle.