Syntax and the Brain: Disentangling Grammar by Selective Anomalies

Many paradigms employed so far with functional imaging in language studies do not allow a clear differentiation of the semantic, morphological, and syntactic components, as traditionally defined within linguistic theory. In fact, many studies simply consider the brain's response to lists of unr...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inNeuroImage (Orlando, Fla.) Vol. 13; no. 1; pp. 110 - 118
Main Authors Moro, A., Tettamanti, M., Perani, D., Donati, C., Cappa, S.F., Fazio, F.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published United States Elsevier Inc 01.01.2001
Elsevier Limited
Subjects
Adult
Brain - diagnostic imaging
Brain - physiology
Broca's area
Caudate nucleus
Cerebrovascular Circulation - physiology
Frontal lobe
Humans
Image Processing, Computer-Assisted
Information processing
Language
Magnetic Resonance Imaging
Male
Morphology
morphosyntax
Multivariate Analysis
Nerve Net
Neural networks
Neuroimaging
normal subjects
PET
Positron emission tomography
Psychomotor Performance
Semantics
Speech - physiology
syntax
Tomography, Emission-Computed
normal subjects
syntax
morphosyntax
PET
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Summary:Many paradigms employed so far with functional imaging in language studies do not allow a clear differentiation of the semantic, morphological, and syntactic components, as traditionally defined within linguistic theory. In fact, many studies simply consider the brain's response to lists of unrelated words, rather than to syntactic structures, or do not neutralize the confounding effect of the semantic component. In the present PET experiment, we isolated the functional correlates of morphological and syntactic processing. The neutralization of the access to the lexical-semantic component was achieved by requiring the detection of anomalies in written sentences consisting of pseudowords. In both syntactic and morphosyntactic processing, the involvement of a selective deep component of Broca's area and of a right inferior frontal region was detected. In addition, within this system, the left caudate nucleus and insula were activated only during syntactic processing, indicating their role in syntactic computation. These findings provide original in vivo evidence that these brain structures, whose individual contribution has been highlighted by clinical studies, constitute a neural network selectively engaged in morphological and syntactic computation.
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ISSN:1053-8119
1095-9572
DOI:10.1006/nimg.2000.0668