Characteristics of syntactic processing : an examination utilizing behavioral and fMRI techniques

This thesis explores two important factors that constrain the syntactic parser of the sentence processing mechanism, syntactic storage costs and plausibility information. It uses behavioral methods to explore the characteristics of the two factors and neuroimaging to explore the underlying neurological substrates associated with these aspects of syntactic processing. Experiment 1 behaviorally demonstrated the presence of syntactic storage costs for predictions of verbs, filler-gaps, and subcategorized prepositional phrases. It is argued that the data support the Dependency Locality Theory (Gibson, 2000) supposition of stored predicted heads as well as a theory of syntax that includes empty categories. Experiment 2 demonstrated brain regions associated with storage and integration cost demands in the contrast of subject-object (SO) and object-subject (OS) sentence structures. The results indicate that the inferior parietal cortex is part of a larger network of cortex, including inferior frontal perisylvian areas, that is involved in the processing of SO vs. OS sentences. However, the involvement is not identical to that of the inferior frontal areas and has a distinct hemodynamic character. Experiment 3 explored regions of the brain involved in the resolution of the main verb/reduced relative (MV/RR) ambiguity. Activation was seen in portions of the angular gyrus and the middle temporal gyrus for a contrast in subject noun plausibility, but not structure ambiguity, indicating that the MV interpretation was still considered even in unambiguously relative clause sentence structures. The unexpected results could imply that syntax is not the only factor that determines [theta]-role assignment and ultimately provide evidence about the brain regions involved in

Department dc:contributor.department

Harvard University--MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2004

Author dc:creator

• Chen, Evan, 1975-

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• David Caplan.

• Harvard University--MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/18065

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/18065