Coherent language production requires that speakers adapt words to their grammatical contexts. A fundamental challenge in establishing a functional delineation of this process in the brain is that each linguistic process tends to correlate with numerous others. Our work investigated the neural basis of morphological inflection by measuring magnetoencephalography during the planning of inflected and uninflected utterances that varied across several linguistic dimensions. Results reveal increased activity in the left lateral frontotemporal cortex when inflection is planned, irrespective of phonological specification, syntactic context, or semantic type. Additional findings from univariate and connectivity analyses suggest that the brain distinguishes between different types of inflection. Specifically, planning noun and verb utterances requiring the addition of the suffix -s elicited increased activity in the ventral prefrontal cortex. A broadly distributed effect of syntactic context (verb vs. noun) was also identified. Results from representational similarity analysis indicate that this effect cannot be explained in terms of word meaning. Together, these results 1) offer evidence for a neural representation of abstract inflection that separates from other stimulus properties and 2) challenge theories that emphasize semantic content as a source of verb/noun processing differences.

中文翻译：

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跨类别的变化：使用 MEG 跟踪语言生产中的抽象形态处理

连贯的语言生产要求说话者根据其语法环境调整单词。在大脑中建立这一过程的功能描述的一个基本挑战是，每个语言过程都倾向于与许多其他过程相关联。我们的工作通过在规划不同语言维度的变形和非变形话语期间测量脑磁图来研究形态变形的神经基础。结果显示，无论语音规范、句法上下文或语义类型如何，当计划屈折时，左侧额颞叶皮质的活动增加。来自单变量和连通性分析的其他发现表明，大脑可以区分不同类型的拐点。具体来说，规划需要添加后缀 -s 的名词和动词表达会引起腹侧前额叶皮层的活动增加。还确定了句法上下文（动词与名词）的广泛分布的影响。表征相似性分析的结果表明，这种效应不能用词义来解释。总之，这些结果 1) 提供了与其他刺激特性分开的抽象变形的神经表示的证据，以及 2) 挑战强调语义内容作为动词/名词处理差异来源的理论。表征相似性分析的结果表明，这种效应不能用词义来解释。总之，这些结果 1) 提供了与其他刺激特性分开的抽象变形的神经表示的证据，以及 2) 挑战强调语义内容作为动词/名词处理差异来源的理论。表征相似性分析的结果表明，这种效应不能用词义来解释。总之，这些结果 1) 提供了与其他刺激特性分开的抽象变形的神经表示的证据，以及 2) 挑战强调语义内容作为动词/名词处理差异来源的理论。