Interactive modal meaning as the mental basis of syntax

Abstract

In a previous paper (1), a new computer system for the nonverbal representation of word and sentence meaning was described as the basis for an hypothesis that verbal meaning may occur in the brain in the form of interassociated modal percepts or their neuronal correlates. The discussion was principally on the semantics of the system, but reference was made to a complementary syntactic technique that is also based upon the use of modal codes. (See Table 1 for list of the modalities). In describing here the fundamentals of that syntactic system, it is suggested that, as with modal meaning, the principles of interactive modal syntax might also be usefully applied to the understanding of the cerebral mechanisms of some language processes and their dysfunctions. In particular, the hypothesis is proposed that the mental representation of syntax is fundamentally nonverbal, and that syntax and grammar, far from being different from semantics are based on interassociated modal representations of meaning and use.