Differential contributions of left-hemispheric language regions to basic semantic composition

Abstract

Semantic composition, i.e. the ability to combine single words to form complex meanings, is a core feature of human language. Despite growing interest in the basis of semantic composition, the neural correlates and the interaction of regions within this network remain a matter of debate. In the present fMRI study, we designed a well controlled two-word paradigm in which phrases only differed along the semantic dimension while keeping syntactic information alike. 33 healthy participants listened to meaningful phrases (“fresh apple”), anomalous phrases (“awake apple”) and pseudoword phrases (“awake gufel”) while performing both an implicit and an explicit semantic task. We identified neural signatures for distinct processes during basic semantic composition: The general phrasal composition process, which is independent of the plausibility of the resulting phrase, engages a wide-spread left hemispheric network comprising both executive semantic control regions as well as general conceptual representation regions. Within this network, the functional connectivity between the left anterior inferior frontal gyrus, the bilateral pre-supplementary motor area and the posterior angular gyrus specifically increases during meaningful phrasal composition. The anterior angular gyrus, on the other hand, guides more specific compositional processing evaluating phrasal plausibility. Overall, our results were stronger in the explicit task, pointing towards partly task-dependent involvement of the regions. Here we provide a separation between distinct nodes of the semantic network, whose functional contributions depend on the type of compositional process under analysis. For the first time, we show that the angular gyrus may be decomposable into two sub-regions during semantic composition.