The Neuroscience of Language: On Brain Circuits of Words and Serial Order (review)

The main message of The neuroscience of language is that ‘it is a good idea to think about language in terms of brain mechanisms’ (1). In this vein, two main proposals are made regarding the mental lexicon and syntactic processing. These two proposals are made in Chs. 4 and 10, respectively, making these chapters the core of the book. There are fourteen chapters and five excursuses, which are inserted at appropriate points to expand upon certain ideas discussed in the chapters preceding them.

Ch. 1 is an introduction and a reader’s guide for the book. It includes a chapter overview and suggested reading routes for the main disciplines in the neuroscience of language: neuroscience, linguistics, and neuronal modeling. In Chs. 2 and 3, the basic anatomy and function of the neuron and cortex are discussed. Ch. 2 focuses on neurons, how they are interconnected and interact. Ch. 3 focuses on evidence from aphasia research and what has (and has not) been confirmed by modern neuroimaging techniques.

Chs. 4–6, including Excursus 1, discuss words in the brain. One of the main proposals of the book, made in Ch. 4, is that words are represented and processed by distributed functional webs of neurons. Excursus 1 discusses the phenomenon of double dissociations and what can and cannot be implied from them. Ch. 5 refines the proposal of functional word webs and discusses the representation of synonyms and homonyms. Ch. 6 is an introduction to neuronal modeling of these word webs. Word category deficits and word acquisition are also discussed.

Chs. 7–13, including Excursuses 2–5, discuss syntax and syntactic processing in the brain. Ch. 7 introduces the basic terms and theoretical approaches to syntax. Chas. 8 and 9 present two different types of serial-order mechanisms in the brain: the synfire chain and the sequence detector. Ch. 10 outlines the second main proposal of the book, that grammar mechanisms in the brain can be thought of as neuronal assemblies whose activity specifically relates to the serial activation of other neuron populations. In Ch. 11, the mapping of grammatical algorithms onto the language of neuronal sets is discussed. Excursuses 2 and 3 discuss the basics of neuronal grammar on the basis of simple word strings and the processing of morphemes, subject-verb agreement, and so on. Ch. 12 expands upon the neuronal grammar model to cope with phenomena of natural language: for example, repeated words in a single string, embedding, and obligatory and optional clause elements. Excursuses 4 and 5 discuss issues such as lexical ambiguity and multiple center embeddings. Ch. 13 discusses the neurophysiology of syntax, that is, that grammatically incorrect strings elicit specific neurophysiological responses.

The book concludes with Ch. 14, ‘Linguistics and the brain’, which argues that brain science and linguistics must merge.

This self-contained book bridges the gap between theoretical linguistics and neuroscience. Introductory chapters allow readers from other disciplines to grasp the concepts of another and to integrate them into their own area. This is a must-read for anyone interested in language and the brain.