Contributions of neuroscience to the understanding of syntactic processing

Abstract

This article aims at contributing to the understanding of the nature of language and the human brain by analyzing studies of syntactic processing. Studies involving syntactic processing are still a challenge for neuroscience. However, advanced techniques have been used to investigate how the brain stores and processes information, being able to construct a sentence. The present paper, studies which used comprehension tasks of syntactic structures together with fMRI are discussed. It addresses studies which investigated the three most studied aspects in syntactic processing: syntactic violation; processing sentences compared to the list of words; and syntactic complexity (FRIEDERICI, 2004). The methodology consists of an exploratory approach on the subject, based on a review.