The Neural Basis of Syntactic Processing

Abstract

Syntactic structures are unique mental representations that relate the meanings of words to one another. Understanding of the neural basis for syntax consists mostly of information about the areas in which these structures are assigned and used to determine meaning in the process of comprehension, together with electrophysiological correlates of these processes. This chapter briefly reviews deficit-lesion correlations and neurovascular studies that are relevant to the first of these topics. Both these sources of data suggest that the brain does not support syntactic processing in an abstract fashion but as part of performing the task that is the purpose of the comprehension process and that these task-related syntactic operations are supported by multiple brain areas.