Abstract
Finding the structure of a sentence-the way its words hold together to convey meaning-is a fundamental step in language comprehension. Several brain regions, including the left inferior frontal gyrus, the left posterior superior temporal gyrus, and the left anterior temporal pole, are supposed to support this operation. The exact role of these areas is nonetheless still debated. In this paper we investigate the hypothesis that different brain regions could be sensitive to different kinds of syntactic computations. We compare the fit of phrase-structure and dependency structure descriptors to activity in brain areas using fMRI. Our results show a division between areas with regard to the type of structure computed, with the left anterior temporal pole and left inferior frontal gyrus favouring dependency structures and left posterior superior temporal gyrus favouring phrase structures.
Highlights
When presented with a sentence, all we have is a sequence of visual or auditory stimuli
Our results show a division between areas with regard to the type of structure computed, with the left anterior temporal pole and left inferior frontal gyrus favouring dependency structures and left posterior superior temporal gyrus favouring phrase structures
In this article we investigated whether different brain regions are sensitive to different kinds of syntactic operations
Summary
When presented with a sentence, all we have is a sequence of visual or auditory stimuli. We compare the predictive power of syntactic structural measures derived from two different families of grammars—dependency grammar and phrase-structure grammar—with regard to the brain activity in language processing areas recorded during naturalistic text listening. Sentence processing involves at least two operations: the retrieval of the meaning of single linguistic units from semantic memory (i.e., the mental lexicon), and the computation of the meaning of the structures derived from the combination of these more basic units. This second subprocess likely requires the contribution of some sort of structural analysis, that is, the analysis of the syntactic configuration of the words making up the sentence. We review and motivate a selection of cortical areas that, not uncontroversially, seem to support structural analysis
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