An FMRI study of grammatical morpheme processing associated with nouns and verbs in Chinese.

This study examined whether the degree of complexity of a grammatical component in a language would impact on its representation in the brain through identifying the neural correlates of grammatical morpheme processing associated with nouns and verbs in Chinese. In particular, the processing of Chin...

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Main Authors: Xi Yu, Yanchao Bi, Zaizhu Han, Sam-Po Law
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Public Library of Science (PLoS) 2013-01-01
Series:PLoS ONE
Online Access:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/pmid/24146745/pdf/?tool=EBI
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author Xi Yu
Yanchao Bi
Zaizhu Han
Sam-Po Law
author_facet Xi Yu
Yanchao Bi
Zaizhu Han
Sam-Po Law
author_sort Xi Yu
collection DOAJ
description This study examined whether the degree of complexity of a grammatical component in a language would impact on its representation in the brain through identifying the neural correlates of grammatical morpheme processing associated with nouns and verbs in Chinese. In particular, the processing of Chinese nominal classifiers and verbal aspect markers were investigated in a sentence completion task and a grammaticality judgment task to look for converging evidence. The Chinese language constitutes a special case because it has no inflectional morphology per se and a larger classifier than aspect marker inventory, contrary to the pattern of greater verbal than nominal paradigmatic complexity in most European languages. The functional imaging results showed BA47 and left supplementary motor area and superior medial frontal gyrus more strongly activated for classifier processing, and the left posterior middle temporal gyrus more responsive to aspect marker processing. We attributed the activation in the left prefrontal cortex to greater processing complexity during classifier selection, analogous to the accounts put forth for European languages, and the left posterior middle temporal gyrus to more demanding verb semantic processing. The overall findings significantly contribute to cross-linguistic observations of neural substrates underlying processing of grammatical morphemes from an analytic and a classifier language, and thereby deepen our understanding of neurobiology of human language.
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spelling doaj.art-f63af5b1d47b4b948fa11e36f9c3b63a2022-12-21T21:33:13ZengPublic Library of Science (PLoS)PLoS ONE1932-62032013-01-01810e7495210.1371/journal.pone.0074952An FMRI study of grammatical morpheme processing associated with nouns and verbs in Chinese.Xi YuYanchao BiZaizhu HanSam-Po LawThis study examined whether the degree of complexity of a grammatical component in a language would impact on its representation in the brain through identifying the neural correlates of grammatical morpheme processing associated with nouns and verbs in Chinese. In particular, the processing of Chinese nominal classifiers and verbal aspect markers were investigated in a sentence completion task and a grammaticality judgment task to look for converging evidence. The Chinese language constitutes a special case because it has no inflectional morphology per se and a larger classifier than aspect marker inventory, contrary to the pattern of greater verbal than nominal paradigmatic complexity in most European languages. The functional imaging results showed BA47 and left supplementary motor area and superior medial frontal gyrus more strongly activated for classifier processing, and the left posterior middle temporal gyrus more responsive to aspect marker processing. We attributed the activation in the left prefrontal cortex to greater processing complexity during classifier selection, analogous to the accounts put forth for European languages, and the left posterior middle temporal gyrus to more demanding verb semantic processing. The overall findings significantly contribute to cross-linguistic observations of neural substrates underlying processing of grammatical morphemes from an analytic and a classifier language, and thereby deepen our understanding of neurobiology of human language.https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/pmid/24146745/pdf/?tool=EBI
spellingShingle Xi Yu
Yanchao Bi
Zaizhu Han
Sam-Po Law
An FMRI study of grammatical morpheme processing associated with nouns and verbs in Chinese.
PLoS ONE
title An FMRI study of grammatical morpheme processing associated with nouns and verbs in Chinese.
title_full An FMRI study of grammatical morpheme processing associated with nouns and verbs in Chinese.
title_fullStr An FMRI study of grammatical morpheme processing associated with nouns and verbs in Chinese.
title_full_unstemmed An FMRI study of grammatical morpheme processing associated with nouns and verbs in Chinese.
title_short An FMRI study of grammatical morpheme processing associated with nouns and verbs in Chinese.
title_sort fmri study of grammatical morpheme processing associated with nouns and verbs in chinese
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/pmid/24146745/pdf/?tool=EBI
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