• Korean Journal of Cognitive Science
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.91-112
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• 2007

Two experiments were conducted to examine psychological reality and incremental nature of thematic processing in Korean sentence comprehension. By using two different types of verbs (i.e., transitive and causative verbs), we manipulated necessity of the thematic reanalysis (i.e., consistent vs. inconsistent condition) in the coordinated sentence structures. In Experiment 1, there was no significant difference in the reading times of the verbs between the consistent and the inconsistent condition. However, there was significant differences in question answering times between the two conditions. In Experiment 2 in which we changed a noun phrase of the test sentences into inanimate one, we found significant thematic reanalysis effects in the reading times of the final verbs. Based on these results we discussed the theoretical importance and universality of the thematic processes.