Language processing: The anatomy of meaning and syntax

Language is a complex but fundamental human skill, the goal of which is communication among individuals. To fulfill this goal, speakers and listeners have to perform a number of distinct tasks, among them associating words with their meanings (semantics), and conveying or inferring sense from the relationships among words in the sentence (syntax). Recent studies, using imaging techniques to identify regions of the brain whose activity is associated with the performance in specific language tasks, have provided evidence that distinct parts of the left frontal cortex are differentially involved in processing semantic and syntactic information. These studies suggest that the psychological distinction between these two aspects of language performance has a neuroanatomical correlate. They should also stimulate the formulation of more precise neuroanatomical models of language processing.