Neural Correlates of Chinese Phrase: An fMRI Study

Position changes in Chinese phrase are explained with light verb assumption in Generative Grammar. With regards to the idea that light verb is a hypothetical element, this study attempted to locate the brain areas responsible for positions changes in Chinese phrases and examine whether this processing is launched by light verb or not. The results show that phrases that can change the word positions activated more brain areas than those that can´t change positions of their words. In specific, the left inferior frontal gyrus was shown to be involved a syntactic process, and it is suggested that light verbs are responsible for this process.