Abstract:  Readers typically integrate input linguistic information to comprehend sentences, which is termed “syntactic processing”. Syntactic processing enables readers to predict text information in advance so that the reading efficiency can be enhanced. For reading cannot live without information integration, researchers proposed two different kinds of syntactic theories: modularized locality theory and interactive analysis theory. The issue is that modularized locality theory proposed top-down processing while interactive analysis theories contend top-down/down-top processing. The difference is related to the effect of syntactic prediction. Syntactic prediction is considered to inhibit sentence processing in syntactic prediction locality theory, on the contrary, syntactic prediction is regarded as an accelerant in the analysis about syntactic prediction. Based on the literature and discussion, syntactic prediction is often proved by using techniques of eyetracking and ERPs. The paper pointed out that the future studies could discuss the difference of these two theories and provide more elaborate and explanatory evidence to reveal the essence of syntactic processing.

Key words:  syntactic prediction, language cognitive processing, eye movement research, syntactic processing