This event-related brain potentials (ERP) study investigated the neurocognitive mechanisms underlying the auditory processing of verbal complexity in French illustrated by the prescriptive present subjunctive mode. Using a violation paradigm, ERPs of 32 French native speakers were continuously recorded while they listened to 200 ecological French sentences selected from the INTEFRA oral corpus (2006). Participants performed an offline acceptability judgement task on each sentence, half of which contained a correct present subjunctive verbal agreement (reçoive) and the other half an incorrect present indicative one (peut). Critically, the present subjunctive mode was triggered either by verbs (Ma mère desire que j’apprenne^{My mother wants me to learn}) or by subordinating conjunctions (Pour qu’elle reçoive^{So that she receives}). We found a delayed anterior negativity (AN) due to the length of the verbal forms and a P600 that were larger for incongruent than for congruent verbal agreement in the same time window. While the two effects were left lateralized for subordinating conjunctions, they were right lateralized for both structures with a larger effect for subordinating conjunctions than for verbs. Moreover, our data revealed that the AN/P600 pattern was larger in late position than in early ones. Taken together, these results suggest that morphosyntactic complexity conveyed by the French subjunctive involves at least two neurocognitive processes thought to support an initial morphosyntactic analysis (AN) and a syntactic revision and repair (posterior P600). These two processes may be modulated as a function of both the element (i.e., subordinating conjunction vs verb) that triggers the subjunctive mode and the moment at which this element is used while sentence processing.

这项与事件相关的大脑电位（ERP）研究调查了法语中言语复杂性的听觉处理背后的神经认知机制，通过规定性现在虚拟语气模式来说明。使用违规范式，连续记录了 32 名法语母语者在听从 INTEFRA 口语语料库（2006）中选出的 200 个生态法语句子时的 ERP。参与者对每个句子执行离线可接受性判断任务，其中一半包含正确的现在虚拟语气口头协议（reçoive），另一半包含错误的现在指示性口头协议（peut）。重要的是，现在虚拟语气模式是由动词（Ma mèredesire que j'apprenne ^{My mother Want me to learn}）或从属连词（Pour qu'elle reçoive ^{So that she receive}）触发的。我们发现由于言语形式的长度而导致延迟前否定性 (AN)，并且在同一时间窗口内，不一致言语一致的 P600 大于一致言语一致的 P600。虽然这两种效果对于从属连词都是左偏的，但对于两种结构来说，它们都是右偏的，对从属连词的影响比对动词的影响更大。此外，我们的数据显示 AN/P600 模式在后期位置比在早期位置更大。总而言之，这些结果表明，法语虚拟语气传达的形态句法复杂性至少涉及两个神经认知过程，被认为支持初始形态句法分析（AN）和句法修正和修复（后 P600）。这两个过程可以根据触发虚拟语气模式的元素（即，从属连词与动词）以及在句子处理时使用该元素的时刻来调节。