* Time: 6/5/2009, Friday, 3:30-5:40pm. * Location: 5F Faculty & Student Lounge, Yu-ping building, Kuang-fu campus, NCKU (成大光復校區雲平 大 樓5樓交誼室) (Please check the map at http://www.ncku.edu.tw/ver2006/ch/ncku/view.htm). * Talk Schedule: 3:30-4:30pm Dr. Chien-jer Charles Lin (National Taiwan Normal University) Title: Thematic patterns and comprehending Chinese relative clauses in context 4:40-5:40pm Dr. Shiaohui Chan (Center for Mind and Brain, UC Davis School of Medicine) Title: The linguistic sequencing role of a “non-language” area of the brain Speech Abstracts ------------------------------------------------------------- Thematic Patterns and Comprehending Chinese Relative Clauses in Context Chien-Jer Charles Lin National Taiwan Normal University In this talk, I discuss the syntactic and contextual issues in the processing of Chinese relative clauses. Experiments of sentence comprehension will be presented to show that the structural position of a relativized gap plays an important role in the processing of Chinese relative clauses. In addition, I present evidence demonstrating that the thematic patterns in the contexts prior to relative clauses can be a source of bias. Contexts themselves should, therefore, be constrained in the examination of structural issues in head-final relative-clause processing. ---------------------------------------------------------------- The linguistic sequencing role of a “non-language” area of the brain Dr. Shiaohui Chan Center for Mind and Brain, UC Davis School of Medicine Due to the common belief that language is unique to humans, great emphasis has been placed on the neocortex—the most evolved part of the human brain— while the role of the subcortical areas has been minimized. Although Lieberman (2000) has suggested an evolutionary link between language and the basal ganglia (BG), a set of subcortical nuclei whose major function is to learn/execute motor sequence, the linguistic role of the BG remains controversial. This project used event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to study the linguistic involvement of the BG. In this study, the idea of motor sequencing was developed into “linguistic sequencing”— particularly syntactic and conceptual sequencing—to test whether the BG were involved in the abstract sequencing of language. The results showed that a functional network in the left hemisphere was activated when subjects were computing syntactic/conceptual hierarchical structure, including the BG (especially the head of the caudate nucleus), Broca’s area, and, interestingly, the pre-supplementary motor area. To summarize, the head of the left caudate nucleus—a subcortical “non-language” area—was found to be directly involved in sequencing hierarchical structure of language. Future research on biological basis of language should thus look into areas underneath the cortex to better understand the nature of language. --

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