Sentence processing: How words generate syntactic structures in the brain

Abstract

Language comprehension relies on the fundamental ability to create meaningful syntactic structures from single words during on-line processing. Time-resolved neuroimaging techniques can be used to measure electrophysiological activity revealing the neural dynamics underpinning these combinatorial processes in the brain. In the present chapter, we review and critically evaluate studies that have specifically investigated the electrophysiological bases of sentence-level syntactic processing using different types of analyses and paradigms. Besides reviewing event-related potential (ERP) studies, we focus on recent investigations of neural oscillations, highlighting their relevance and implications for our understanding of syntactic processing. Furthermore, we discuss critical issues related to the interpretation of current electrophysiological findings, including open questions such as the relationship between syntax and semantics and the link between ERPs and oscillations.

Functional brain plasticity during L1 training on complex sentences: Changes in gamma‐band oscillatory activity

“…Because local information processing in the brain, as well as interactions between areas, are often characterized by frequency specific activity (brain oscillations or rhythms) (see below), we performed source localized time‐frequency analysis on the acquired MEG data. Accumulated evidence assigns brain rhythms in different frequency bands to various processes related to the language domain (for reviews, Bastiaansen & Hagoort, 2006 ; Maguire & Abel, 2013 ; Meyer, 2018 ; Murphy & Benítez‐Burraco, 2019 ; Prystauka & Lewis, 2019 ; Martorell, Morucci, Mancini, & Molinaro, 2020 ). For instance, the gamma band (>30 Hz) has been reported to reflect syntactic structure building (Ding, Melloni, Zhang, Tian, & Poeppel, 2016 ; Nelson et al, 2017 ) or, more generally, sentence‐level information composition (see Martorell et al, 2020 for a recent review).…”

“…Accumulated evidence assigns brain rhythms in different frequency bands to various processes related to the language domain (for reviews, Bastiaansen & Hagoort, 2006 ; Maguire & Abel, 2013 ; Meyer, 2018 ; Murphy & Benítez‐Burraco, 2019 ; Prystauka & Lewis, 2019 ; Martorell, Morucci, Mancini, & Molinaro, 2020 ). For instance, the gamma band (>30 Hz) has been reported to reflect syntactic structure building (Ding, Melloni, Zhang, Tian, & Poeppel, 2016 ; Nelson et al, 2017 ) or, more generally, sentence‐level information composition (see Martorell et al, 2020 for a recent review). Recent intercranial measurements in language related regions of the left hemisphere (Nelson et al, 2017 ) showed that high gamma power gradually increases when reading sentences word by word, until it suddenly drops when the words can be merged into a phrase (phrase closure).…”

Elliot Murphy, The oscillatory nature of language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020. Pp. xiii + 321.

“…By contrast, as Murphy argues, neural oscillations exhibit algorithmic-like temporal sensitivity, making them the perfect candidate to explain WHEN and HOW language operations dynamically manifest in brain regions. Going beyond the more traditional analyses of electrophysiological signals such as event-related potentials, current neurolinguistic research is increasingly focused on neural oscillations (for a recent review in the context of syntactic processing, see Martorell et al 2020). Murphy critically examines a broad range of cognitive neuroscience findings on neural oscillations, considering various types of electrophysiological studies on language (single-word, sentence-level comprehension, etc.…”

“…It is critical to note that syntax and semantics are certainly intertwined (e.g. structure and meaning correlate with each other to a considerable extent), and this makes it extremely challenging to tease them apart in any experiment (for further discussion, see Pylkkänen 2019, Martorell et al 2020. Moreover, a certain amount of evidence allegedly supporting Murphy's model comes from studies that have conflated syntactic and semantic aspects in their experimental manipulations (e.g.…”

“…Although making connections between specifically linguistic and domain-general processes is critical for any biologically plausible theoryand for understanding them from an evolutionary perspectivedistinguishing between syntax-like and semantics-like components might be even more elusive in certain non-linguistic experiments. Therefore, it is unclear to what extent the oscillatory findings that Murphy interprets as purely structural might actually reflect the (additional) involvement of meaning (for further discussion, see Martorell et al 2020). Carefully controlled experiments are definitely needed to elucidate these concerns and, more generally, to test Murphy's model empirically.…”