Differences in the Processing of Chinese Transitive and Intransitive Verbs at the Behavioral Response and Neural Activity Levels

In Chinese, intransitive verbs can take direct objects in certain constructions, and transitive verbs can also be used without objects. These characteristics have long sparked debates about whether verbs can be divided into intransitive and transitive verbs in Chinese. Using E-Prime software (3.0 version) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) technology, we investigated the behavioral responses and neural activities of native speakers when processing Chinese intransitive and transitive verbs. Behavioral data showed that the accuracy rate for Chinese intransitive verbs was significantly higher than that for transitive verbs, while the reaction time was significantly shorter. fMRI data revealed that compared with Chinese intransitive verbs, transitive verbs elicited significantly stronger activation in brain regions such as the bilateral angular gyri (BA39), left supramarginal gyrus (BA40), and left inferior frontal gyrus (BA44). The bilateral angular gyri and left supramarginal gyrus may be associated with more intricate argument semantic representation of the Chinese transitive verb, while the left inferior frontal gyrus may reflect their more complex syntactic structure representation. The above experimental results indicate that processing Chinese transitive verbs requires greater cognitive effort and involves more complex neural activities compared to intransitive verbs, which demonstrates that verbs in Chinese should be subdivided into intransitive and transitive verbs.