title: The LATL as locus of composition: MEG evidence from English and Arabic.
abstract: Neurolinguistic investigations into the processing of structured sentences as well as simple adjective-noun phrases point to the left anterior temporal lobe (LATL) as a leading candidate for basic linguistic composition. Here, we characterized the combinatory profile of the LATL over a variety of syntactic and semantic environments, and across two languages, English and Arabic. The contribution of the LATL was investigated across two types of composition: the optional modification of a predicate (modification) and the satisfaction of a predicate's argument position (argument saturation). Target words were presented during MEG recordings, either in combinatory contexts (e.g. "eats meat") or in non-combinatory contexts (preceded by an unpronounceable consonant string, e.g. "xqkr meat"). Across both languages, the LATL showed increased responses to words in combinatory contexts, an effect that was robust to composition type and word order. Together with related findings, these results solidify the role of the LATL in basic semantic composition.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, New York University, 6 Washington Place, New York, NY 10003, USA. Electronic address: masha.westerlund@nyu.edu.
authors.forename: Masha
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Westerlund
authors.affiliation: Department of Linguistics, New York University, 10 Washington Place, New York, NY 10003, USA.
authors.forename: Itamar
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Kastner
authors.affiliation: Department of Linguistics, New York University, 10 Washington Place, New York, NY 10003, USA.
authors.forename: Meera
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Al Kaabi
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, New York University, 6 Washington Place, New York, NY 10003, USA; Department of Linguistics, New York University, 10 Washington Place, New York, NY 10003, USA; NYUAD Institute, New York University Abu Dhabi, PO Box 129188, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.
authors.forename: Liina
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Pylkkänen
mesh_terms: D001931:Brain Mapping; D032882:Comprehension; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011932:Reading; D012660:Semantics; D013702:Temporal Lobe / Q000502:physiology*; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Composition; Left anterior temporal lobe; MEG; Semantics