Building by Syntax: The Neural Basis of Minimal Linguistic Structures

Abstract

Language comes in utterances in which words are bound together according to a simple rule-based syntactic computation (merge), which creates linguistic hierarchies of potentially infinite length - phrases and sentences. In the current functional magnetic resonance imaging study, we compared prepositional phrases and sentences - both involving merge - to word lists - not involving merge - to explore how this process is implemented in the brain. We found that merge activates the pars opercularis of the left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG; Brodmann Area [BA] 44) and a smaller region in the posterior superior temporal sulcus (pSTS). Within the IFG, sentences engaged a more anterior portion of the area (pars triangularis, BA 45) - compared with phrases - which showed activity peak in BA 44. As prepositional phrases, in contrast to sentences, do not contain verbs, activity in BA 44 may reflect structure-building syntactic processing, while the involvement of BA 45 may reflect the encoding of propositional meaning initiated by the verb. The pSTS appears to work together with the IFG during thematic role assignment not only at the sentential level, but also at the phrasal level. The present results suggest that merge, the process of binding words together into syntactic hierarchies, is primarily supported by BA 44 in the IFG.