An event-related potential investigation of lexical pitch-accent processing in auditory Japanese

► Japanese sentences with pitch-accent violations displayed a negativity and P600. ► Japanese sentences with semantic violations also displayed a negativity and P600. ► Japanese sentences with syntactic violations displayed a P600. ► Onset of pitch-accent effect was earlier (about 60 ms) than that of semantic effect. ► Phonological processing appears to precede semantic processes of lexical access.