Neurocognitive mechanisms for processing inflectional and derivational complexity in English
Neurocognitive mechanisms for processing inflectional and derivational complexity in English

Summary/Abstract: In the current paper we discuss the mechanisms that underlie the processing of inflectional and derivational complexity in English. We address this issue from a neurocognitive perspective and present evidence from a new fMRI study that the two types of morphological complexity engage the language processing network in different ways. The processing of inflectional complexity selectively activates a left-lateralised frontotemporal system, specialised for combinatorial grammatical computations, while derivational complexity primarily engages a distributed bilateral system, argued to support whole-word, stem based lexical access. We discuss the implications of our findings for theories of the processing and representation of morphologically complex words.

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