It’s about time!: Relating structure, the brain, and comparative syntax

Abstract

Studying language in the brain is hard. We’ve identified a left-lateralized ‘language network’ that supports language comprehension across languages, individuals, and ages. However, it's proven difficult to relate the parts of this language network to spe-cific representations or computations. Why is it so hard to get better insight into the functions of the pieces of the language network? One reason is that careful, cross-lin-guistic comparison across languages is still in its infancy in neurolinguistics. Another reason is that our theories of language comprehension are largely informed by results from serial, slow, word-by-word reading tasks. To understand how the brain processes and represents grammatical knowledge, we need to carefully vary and contrast lan-guages and modalities – our theories of language should not be over-fit to one language or one kind of task. Here, I show how different reading paradigms in Bengali (Bangla), Hindi/Urdu, Nepali, and English can refine our understanding of the brain bases of language.