Processing focus structure and implicit prosody during reading: Differential ERP effects

Several recent studies have shown that focus structural representations influence syntactic processing during reading, while other studies have shown that implicit prosody plays an important role in the understanding of written language. Up until now, the relationship between these two processes has been mostly disregarded. The present study disentangles the roles of focus structure and accent placement in reading by reporting event-related brain potential (ERP) data on the processing of contrastive ellipses. The results reveal a positive-going waveform (350–1300 ms) that correlates with focus structural processing and a negativity (450–650 ms) interpreted as the correlate of implicit prosodic processing. The results suggest that the assignment of focus as well as accent placement are obligatory processes during reading.