Neurocognitive mechanisms for processing inflectional and derivational complexity in English
نویسندگان
چکیده
In the current paper we discuss the mechanisms that underlie the processing of inflectional and derivational complexity in English. We address this issue from a neurocognitive perspective and present evidence from a new fMRI study that the two types of morphological complexity engage the language processing network in different ways. The processing of inflectional complexity selectively activates a left-lateralised frontotemporal system, specialised for combinatorial grammatical computations, while derivational complexity primarily engages a distributed bilateral system, argued to support whole-word, stem based lexical access. We discuss the implications of our findings for theories of the processing and representation of morphologically complex words.
منابع مشابه
22 English Inflection and Derivation
Modern English approaches the ideal of an isolating language. Open-class items have comparatively few forms, so that many inflectional categories either remain unmarked, or are expressed periphrastically. The inflectional system is particularly simple, even by the standards of a West Germanic language. Regular paradigms contain at most four forms, and the inflectional exponents that distinguish...
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