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2005 LSA Institute Linguistic Society of America
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LSA.213 | Neurosyntax

Yosef Grodzinsky
TR 10:10-11:50
location: 32-141

This course will be concerned with the way syntactic operations are instantiated in neural tissue, and the potential theoretical significance of this instantiation. Here are examples of specific questions that will be asked:

1. Why are movement operations represented in two or three discrete loci on the left hemisphere?

2. Why is the neural apparatus for the computation of (at least some) binding relations located in the right frontal lobe?

3. How can the manner by which the brain slices the syntactic pie bear on the theory of syntax? On neurological theory (if such an object exists)?

4. Is the arrangement of syntactic operations in brain space of any theoretical significance?

Partial answers to these questions will be examined. On the way, current experimental methods for the study of brain/syntax relations (especially fMRI and lesion-based investigations) will be considered in some detail. Central parts of the empirical record will be discussed, in order to highlight the special considerations that must be invoked when a neurological dimension is superimposed on the theory of syntax.