Abstract
Research on the neural organization of syntax – the core structure-building component of language – has focused on Broca’s area and the anterior temporal lobe (ATL) as the chief candidates for syntactic processing. However, these proposals have received considerable challenges. In order to better understand the neural basis of syntactic processing, we performed a functional magnetic resonance imaging experiment using a constrained sentence production task. We examined the BOLD response to sentence production for active and passive sentences, unstructured word lists, and syntactic perturbation. Perturbation involved cued restructuring of the planned syntax of a sentence mid utterance. Perturbation was designed to capture the effects of syntactic violations previously studied in sentence comprehension. Our experiment showed that Broca’s area and the ATL did not exhibit response profiles consistent with syntactic operations – we found no increase of activation in these areas for sentences > lists or for perturbation. Syntactic perturbation activated a cortical-subcortical network including robust activation of the right inferior frontal gyrus (RIFG). This network is similar to one previously shown to be involved in motor response inhibition. We hypothesize that RIFG activation in our study and in previous studies of sentence comprehension is due to an inhibition mechanism that may facilitate efficient syntactic restructuring.
Highlights
Language can be analyzed as a cognitive faculty consisting of several components, including a core structure-building system – syntax – that operates over stored lexical atoms (Chomsky, 1982, 1995; Hauser et al, 2002)
These studies are informative with respect to the neurobiology of sentence production; few production studies have manipulated syntactic variables compared to the vast literature on syntactic processing in comprehension
The present study sought to implement a novel paradigm in the study of syntax and the brain: a constrained sentence production task with a perturbation paradigm applied to syntactic structure
Summary
Language can be analyzed as a cognitive faculty consisting of several components, including a core structure-building system – syntax – that operates over stored lexical atoms (Chomsky, 1982, 1995; Hauser et al, 2002). Sentence production studies in fMRI and magnetoencephalography (MEG) have revealed large overlap with the activation patterns found in comprehension, suggesting that similar neural networks underlie sentence processing in both modalities (Braun et al, 2001; Blank et al, 2002; Haller et al, 2005; Golestani et al, 2006; Menenti et al, 2011; Segaert et al, 2012; Del Prato and Pylkkanen, 2014; Pylkkänen et al, 2014). Syntax production studies will be important to provide complementary evidence to the comprehension literature to better understand syntactic processing in the brain
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