Abstract: Traditionally, semantic processing has been associated with the N400 effect, while syntactic processing was thought to engender the P600 effect. However, several studies recently found that the semantic violation of sentence also led to P600, which is called the semantic P600 effect. Three different accounts have been put forward in order to explain the occurrence of semantic P600s. The monitoring hypothesis regarded the semantic P600 effect as a general correlate of conflict monitoring during sentence processing; the non-syntactocentric dynamic model suggested that conflicts between two language processing streams lead to a continued combinational analysis that is reflected by the P600 effect; as for the third account, the semantic P600 effect was interpreted within the extended Argument Dependency Model, and in this sentence processing model, the loci of the semantic P600 and the syntactic P600 effect were different.

Key words: semantic P600 effect, monitoring hypothesis, non-syntactocentric dynamic model, extended Argument Dependency Model