This paper reports an investigation into the nature of Negative Polarity Item (NPI) licensing conditions from a processing perspective. We found that the processing cost of Downward Entailingness (a k a the Monotonicity Effect) is determined by the number of monotonicity reversals of NPI domains, rather than by the number of Downward-Entailing (DE) operators. This conclusion is not based on the standard judgment paradigm, but rather, on the measurement of continuous variables (error rates, Reaction Times (RTs)) in a verification task, in which the truth value of a sentence is determined against a scenario. We conducted two experiments with sentences that contained one or two DE operators, which featured in different syntactic configurations. We explored how RT is affected by the manipulation of both the number of DE operators, and the syntactic environments in which they reside. We ran these experiments in Hebrew and in English, with different participant populations and different testing methods. Despite the linguistic subtlety of the theoretical issues, our results were remarkably sharp, leading to two firm conclusions: (i) that processing time is determined not by the number of DE operators, but rather, by the monotonicity of the minimal constituent in which they reside; (ii) that DE-ness is not a property of operators, but of environments. We show how our results bear directly on the current debate about the nature of monotonicity, which we describe below. Finally, we provide quantitative tests of alternative, non-semantic explanations, and show how our results do not support them.

This study focuses on a factor known to increase sentence processing complexity - negation. We sought to distill out of negation a logical property - Inference Reversal - to see whether it, and not an actual negation word, determines this complexity. First, we tested a negation-less pair of polar operators (at most, at least) in Hebrew. We found that processing time for sentences containing the Inference Reversing at most lagged behind those with at least. Second, we compared the processing of sentences containing two Inference Reversing operators (not less) to sentences with zero (o, more) and one (not more, less). Since two Inference Reversingoperators annul Inference Reversal ("two negatives make a positive"), we asked whether their processing cost is annulled, or rather cumulative. Surprisingly, RTnot less was shorter than RTnot more. These findings lead to the conclusion that even when covert, Inference Reversal is an important determinant of processing complexity.

Negated sentences are known to be more cognitively taxing than positive ones (i.e., polarity effect). We present evidence that two factors contribute to the polarity effect in verification tasks: processing the sentence and verifying its truth value. To quantify the relative contribution of each, we used a delayed verification task. The results show that even when participants are given a considerable amount of time for processing the sentence prior to verification, the polarity effect is not entirely eliminated. We suggest that this sustained effect stems from a retained negation-containing representation in working memory. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

We conducted a retrospective review of fMRI studies of complex syntax, in order to study the stability of the neural bases of mechanisms engaged in syntactic processing. Our review set out rigorous selection criteria of studies which we discuss, including transparency and minimality of the contrasts between stimuli, and the presence of whole brain analyses corrected for multiple comparisons. Seventeen studies with 316 participants survived our sieve. We mapped the 65 resulting maxima onto JuBrain, a state-of-the-art cytoarchitectonic brain atlas (Amunts et al., 2020), and a sharp picture emerged: syntactic displacement operations (a k a MOVE) produce highly consistent results, activating left Broca's region across-the-board and unambiguously; to a somewhat lesser extent, maxima clustered in left posterior brain regions, including the STS/STG. The few studies of syntactic tree-building operations (a k a MERGE) produce a murkier picture regarding the involvement of the left IFG. We conclude that the extant data decisively point to the JuBrain-defined Broca's region as the main locus of complex receptive syntax in healthy people; the STS/STG also are involved, but to a lesser extent.

We know that linguistic ability tends to diminish in aging. The question we addressed was whether it is selectively affected, and if so, whether aging affects sentence processing in the same way it affects other cognitive abilities. To this end, we conducted a fine-grained investigation into a critical aspect of sentences – the number of negations they contain. We studied the processing costs of multiple negations in a cross-sectional design with 105 healthy aging participants who performed a truth-value judgement task. Quantifier-containing sentences with 0, 1 or 2 negations were juxtaposed to images with arrays of blue and yellow circles. This design enabled us to assess the cost of negation from a novel perspective. In parallel, we tested these participants on standard measures of cognitive aging. In addition to the typical slowing caused by aging, and by an added negation, we found that aging effects were restricted: they did not accumulate with the number of negations. Rather, processing speed in the conditions with one negation (negative statements) were affected by aging, whereas it was unaffected in conditions with an even number (zero/two) of negations (positive statements). We conclude that aging affects negation processing in a manner determined by its total negativity value of a sentence (a k a monotonicity), not the number of negations it contains. Our findings challenge both the idea of global incremental processing-cost, and of non-specific cognitive slowing in aging. That is, the cost of processing, as well as the course of the aging of the sentence processor are constrained by highly specific linguistic considerations.

This chapter reports an investigation into possible brain bases for negation. It begins with a review of negation experiments that used behavioral studies (measuring Reaction Time—RT), and functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) experiments that sought to identify local activations that correlate with the presence of negation. The chapter dwells on a major methodological problem that permeates the experimental study of negation processing, and proposes a solution: instead of overt negation, we study expressions that contain a covert negation—expressions that are Downward Entailing (DE) as evinced by their ability to reverse inferences and license NPIs in their scope. DE operators are thus taken to contain a hidden, or covert, negation, and contrast with the Upward Entailing counterparts (few vs. many; less vs. more). The chapter reviews behavioral experiments in healthy adults that indicate that DE has a processing cost, and an fMRI study that finds a single brain location for this computation. These results serve as a basis for an experiment on individuals with Broca’s aphasia. Tests with DE and UE quantifiers with these patients resulted in a mixed picture, which is discussed and its implications are derived.

High-level cognitive capacities that serve communication, reasoning, and calculation are essential for finding our way in the world. But whether and to what extent these complex behaviors share the same neuronal substrate are still unresolved questions. The present study separated the aspects of logic from language and numerosity-mental faculties whose distinctness has been debated for centuries-and identified a new cytoarchitectonic area as correlate for an operation involving logical negation. A novel experimental paradigm that was implemented here in an RT/fMRI study showed a single cluster of activity that pertains to logical negation. It was distinct from clusters that were activated by numerical comparison and from the traditional language regions. The localization of this cluster was described by a newly identified cytoarchitectonic area in the left anterior insula, ventro-medial to Broca's region. We provide evidence for the congruence between the histologically and functionally defined regions on multiple measures. Its position in the left anterior insula suggests that it functions as a mediator between language and reasoning areas.

Our goal in this study was to behaviorally characterize the property (or properties) that render negative quantifiers more complex in processing compared to their positive counterparts (e.g. the pair few/many). We examined two sources: (i) negative polarity; (ii) entailment reversal (aka downward monotonicity). While negative polarity can be found in other pairs in language such as dimensional adjectives (e.g. the pair small/large), only in quantifiers does negative polarity also reverse the entailment pattern of the sentence. By comparing the processing traits of negative quantifiers with those of non-monotone expressions that contain negative adjectives, using a verification task and measuring reaction times, we found that negative polarity is cognitively costly, but in downward monotone quantifiers it is even more so. We therefore conclude that both negative polarity and downward monotonicity contribute to the processing complexity of negative quantifiers.

Experimental studies investigating logical reasoning performance show very high error rates of up to 80% and more. Previous research identified scalar inferences of the sentences of logical arguments as a major error source. We present new analytical tools to quantify the impact of scalar inferences on syllogistic reasoning. Our proposal builds on a new classification of Aristotelian syllogisms and a closely linked classification of reasoning behaviors/strategies. We argue that the variation in error rates across syllogistic reasoning tasks is in part due to individual variation: reasoners follow different reasoning strategies and these strategies play out differently for syllogisms of different classes.

This chapter reports studies of parallelism in VP-ellipsis in two populations whose linguistic ability is lacking. First, a complex comprehension experiment was conducted with individuals with Broca’s aphasia, said to suffer from a specific syntactic deficit that some view as restricted to the deletion of traces of movement, while others argue is related to “complexity.” Though still at a preliminary stage, the experimental record suggests that parallelism, as evinced by the patients’ ability to reconstruct elided VPs, is relatively intact for these patients, indicating that their deficit is restricted. Second, a similar study was run with normally developing, 4–5-year-old children, whose linguistic abilities are not yet fully manifested. Nevertheless, these children use parallelism in an adult-like fashion, and correctly reconstruct elided material in comprehension. We also provide evidence that 3-year-olds use elided VPs in spontaneous language production. Both studies are used to argue for fine deficit analyses, and against generic, “complexity”-based accounts of language development and language loss.

We bring experimental considerations to bear on the structure of comparatives and on ourunderstanding of how quantifiers are processed. At issue are mismatches between thestandard view of quantifier processing cost and results from speeded verification experimentswith comparative quantifiers. We build our case in several steps: 1. We show that thestandard view, which attributes processing cost to the verification process, accounts for someaspects of the data, but fails to cover the main effect of monotonicity on measured behavior.We derive a prediction of this view for comparatives, and show that it is not borne out. 2. Weconsider potential reasons – experimental and theoretical – for this theory-data mismatch. 3.We describe a new processing experiment with comparative quantifiers, designed to addressthe experimental concerns. Its results still point to the inadequacy of the standard view. 4. Wereview the semantics of comparative constructions and their potential processingimplications. 5. We revise the definition of quantifier processing cost and tie it to the numberof Downward Entailing (DE) operators at Logical Form (LF). We show how this definitionsuccessfully reconciles the theory-data mismatch. 6. The emerging picture calls for adistinction between the complexity of verified representations and the complexity of theverification process itself.Keywords: quantification, monotonicity, negation, comparative constructions, Logical Form,adjectival antonyms, decomposition, quantifier processing, speeded verification, reactiontime.

Background: The logopenic variant of primary progressive aphasia (lvPPA) is the most recently identified subtype within the primary progressive aphasia spectrum. Data characterizing this subtype based on comprehensive testing and sophisticated error analyses over time are still rare. One of the two core features of this subtype is a deficit in sentence repetition.Aims: To provide a more fine-grained linguistic characterization of the sentence repetition deficit in lvPPA.Methods & Procedures: We longitudinally analyzed sentence repetition abilities of eight lvPPA patients (mean age 67.6years; two women) and a group of seven healthy controls (mean age 66.7years; three women) using a novel schema for the classification of linguistic errors.Outcomes & Results: At their first examination, patients with lvPPA showed an overall impaired repetition performance compared to controls with a variable degree of impairment on the first and all subsequent dates of measurement. Two patients presented with a steady, rather unimpaired profile, similar to the control group. In progression, however, five patients showed an increase of errors especially in the categories omissions and phonological errors, occasionally resulting in violation of syntactic rules.Conclusions: These results expand existing descriptions of repetition abilities in lvPPA patients. The paper thus provides a more fine-grained classification scheme for sentence repetition performance and emphasizes the role of omissions and phonological errors in lvPPA. This, in turn, offers new insights into the linguistic nature of sentence repetition deficits in lvPPA beyond the application of mere correctness judgments.

Experimental studies investigating logical reasoning performance show very high errorrates of up to 80% and more. Previous research identified scalar inferences of the sentencesof logical arguments as a major error source. We present new analytical tools to quantify theimpact of scalar inferences on syllogistic reasoning. Our proposal builds on a new classificationof Aristotelian syllogisms and a closely linked classification of reasoning behaviors/strategies.We argue that the variation in error rates across syllogistic reasoning tasks is in part due toindividual variation: reasoners follow different reasoning strategies and these strategies playout differently for syllogisms of different classes.Keywords: syllogisms, reasoning errors, individual variation, scalar inferences.

The birthday of Kyle Johnson, my friend, colleague, and co-author of a (yet-tobe-published) paper on parsing, is an opportunity for reflection on thoughts past. During my long friendship with Kyle, the world of pronominal reference has seen debates and developments. Much of the little I understand of this world is due to Kyle’s patient and lucid explanations. It is thus with gratitude that I dedicate this squib to him. My intention here is to briefly revisit the intra-sentential coreference rule, known as Rule I in its various incarnations (Reinhart 1983, Grodzinsky & Reinhart 1993, GR henceforth, Heim 1998, 2009, Fox 2000, Büring 2005). I will bring up data that are not typically considered in the context of syntactic binding, and interpret them using Heim’s perspective on Rule I. Then, I will show how this perspective can help to evaluate children’s notorious failure to assign the right referential value to pronouns in certain contexts at a certain age. I will use this perspective to argue that, contrary to GR’s account, children at age 4 are in full command of Rule I and its implementation, and are hampered by no processing deficiency in this respect. Children’s errors, I will argue, stem from an inability to recover from failed semantic composition.

We investigated the course of language processing in the context of a verification task that required numerical estimation and comparison. Participants listened to sentences with complex quantifiers that contrasted in Polarity, a logical property (e.g., more-than-half, less-than-half), and then performed speeded verification on visual scenarios that displayed a proportion between 2 discrete quantities. We varied systematically not only the sentences, but also the visual materials, in order to study their effect on the verification process. Next, we used the same visual scenarios with analogous non-verbal probes that featured arithmetical inequality symbols (<, >). This manipulation enabled us to measure not only Polarity effects, but also, to compare the effect of different probe types (linguistic, non-linguistic) on processing. Like many previous studies, our results demonstrate that perceptual difficulty affects error rate and reaction time in keeping with Weber's Law. Interestingly, these performance parameters are also affected by the Polarity of the quantifiers used, despite the fact that sentences had the exact same meaning, sentence structure, number of words, syllables, and temporal structure. Moreover, an analogous contrast between the non-linguistic probes (<, >) had no effect on performance. Finally, we observed no interaction between performance parameters governed by Weber's Law and those affected by Polarity. We consider 4 possible accounts of the results (syntactic, semantic, pragmatic, frequency-based), and discuss their relative merit.

Behavioral studies of sentence comprehension suggest that processing long-distance dependencies is subject to interference effects when Noun Phrases (NP) similar to the dependency head intervene in the dependency. Neuroimaging studies converge in localizing such effects to Broca's area, showing that activity in Broca's area increases with the number of NP interveners crossed by a moved NP of the same type. To test if NP interference effects are modulated by adding an intervening clause boundary, which should by hypothesis increase the number of successive-cyclic movements, we conducted an fMRI study contrasting NP interveners with clausal (CP) interveners. Our design thus had two components: (I) the number of NP interveners crossed by movement was parametrically modulated; (II) CP-intervention was contrasted with NP-intervention. The number of NP interveners parametrically modulated a cluster straddling left BA44/45 of Broca's area, replicating earlier studies. Adding an intervening clause boundary did not significantly modulate the size of the NP interference effect in Broca's area. Yet, such an interaction effect was observed in the Superior Frontal Gyrus (SFG). Therefore, the involvement of Broca's area in processing syntactic movement is best captured by memory mechanisms affected by a grammatically instantiated type-identity (i.e., NP) intervention.

Die Ergebnisse einer longitudinalen Untersuchung von Patienten mit der logopenischen Variante der primär progressiven Aphasie (PPA-L) führen zum Nachweis eines charakteristischen Fehlermusters beim Nachsprechen von Sätzen und deutet auf die wichtige Rolle von Verlaufsbeobachtungen im Bereich neurodegenerativer Erkrankungen hin.

This chapter focuses on the inflectional domain, and show that the agrammatic selective breakdown pattern follows the exact same line that the theory sketches between sub parts of inflection: tense and agreement. It presents corroborating evidence to the theory, by showing how natural classes within it behave differentially in aphasia. The chapter shows that the impairment in tense node has implications upon higher nodes in the syntactic tree. It also shows, however, that the pattern of selectivity is more refined than previously thought, and that distinctions provided by the split inflection hypothesis must be part of the proper description of the impairment pattern. The chapter further explores that T is impaired, and that this deficit is at the heart of the agrammatic impairment in speech production. Thus the findings also refute an accepted view in neurolinguistics: some researchers explain inflectional marker omissions and substitutions by way of a general tendency of ignoring items of low semantic value.

How does a certain pattern of vibration in the air reliably represent a meaningful speech sound? [Also see Report by Mesgarani et al.] Speech provides a fascinating window into brain processes. It is understood effortlessly, and despite a huge variability, manifests both within and across speakers. It is also a stable and reliable carrier of linguistic meaning, complex and intricate as it may be. How speech is encoded and decoded has puzzled those seeking to understand how the brain extracts sense from an ambiguous, noisy environment (see the figure). On page 1006 in this issue, Mesgarani et al. (1) demonstrate the neural basis of speech perception by combining linguistic, electrophysiological, clinical, and computational approaches.