Neurolinguistics

Paper convenor: Dr Suhail Matar (sm3038@cam.ac.uk)

What are the neural bases of language? This is the guiding question of this seminar. We will begin with basic questions: What are the dimensions along which these neural bases unfold? And how do we even go about uncovering these bases? Then, we will survey some of what we know about the neural bases of various facets of language, including phonetic features, morphemic information, syntactic structures, semantic representations, and discourse-level processes. To do that, we will draw upon evidence from across methodologies, paradigms and languages. For each topic, we will also ask: What is the critical gap that currently remains in our understanding? And what is the best way of tackling that gap? The seminar will take the shape of a discussion group, with rotating discussants leading the way in each session.