title: The Neuronal Correlates of Indeterminate Sentence Comprehension: An fMRI Study.
abstract: Sentences such asThe author started the bookare indeterminate because they do not make explicit what the subject (the author) started doing with the object (the book). In principle, indeterminate sentences allow for an infinite number of interpretations. One theory, however, assumes that these sentences are resolved bysemanticcoercion, a linguistic process that forces the nounbookto be interpreted as anactivity(e.g.,writing the book) or by a process that interpolates this activity information in the resulting enriched semantic composition. An alternative theory,pragmatic, assumes classical semantic composition, whereby meaning arises from the denotation of words and how they are combined syntactically, with enrichment obtained via pragmatic inferences beyond linguistic-semantic processes. Cognitive neuroscience studies investigating the neuroanatomical and functional correlates of indeterminate sentences have shown activations either at the ventromedial pre-frontal cortex (vmPFC) or at the left inferior frontal gyrus (L-IFG). These studies have supported the semantic coercion theory assuming that one of these regions is where enriched semantic composition takes place. Employing functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), we found that indeterminate sentences activate bilaterally the superior temporal gyrus (STG), the right inferior frontal gyrus (R-IFG), and the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), more so than control sentences (The author wrote the book). Activation of indeterminate sentences exceeded that of anomalous sentences (…drank the book) and engaged more left- and right-hemisphere areas than other sentence types. We suggest that the widespread activations for indeterminate sentences represent the deployment of pragmatic-inferential processes, which seek to enrich sentence content without necessarily resorting to semantic coercion.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Concordia University Montreal, QC, Canada.
authors.forename: Roberto G
authors.initials: RG
authors.lastname: de Almeida
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Concordia University Montreal, QC, Canada.
authors.forename: Levi
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Riven
authors.affiliation: Department of Comparative and General Linguistics, University of Ljubljana Ljubljana, Slovenia.
authors.forename: Christina
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Manouilidou
authors.affiliation: Unité de Neuroimagerie Fonctionnelle, Institute Universitaire de Gériatrie de Montréal, Université de Montréal Montreal, QC, Canada.
authors.forename: Ovidiu
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Lungu
authors.affiliation: Department of Applied Linguistics, Brock University St. Catharines, ON, Canada.
authors.forename: Veena D
authors.initials: VD
authors.lastname: Dwivedi
authors.affiliation: Centre de Recherche, Institut Universitaire de Gériatrie de Montréal, Université de Montréal Montreal, QC, Canada.
authors.forename: Gonia
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Jarema
authors.affiliation: Department of Linguistics, McGill University Montreal, QC, Canada.
authors.forename: Brendan
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Gillon
keywords: anterior cingulate cortex; compositionality; fMRI; indeterminate sentences; inferior frontal gyrus; pragmatics; semantic coercion; superior temporal gyrus