{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,1,21]],"date-time":"2026-01-21T04:08:49Z","timestamp":1768968529987,"version":"3.49.0"},"reference-count":56,"publisher":"MIT Press - Journals","issue":"8","content-domain":{"domain":["direct.mit.edu"],"crossmark-restriction":true},"short-container-title":[],"published-print":{"date-parts":[[2014,8,1]]},"abstract":"<jats:title>Abstract<\/jats:title>\n               <jats:p>Verbs and nouns are fundamental units of language, but their neural instantiation remains poorly understood. Neuropsychological research has shown that nouns and verbs can be damaged independently of each other, and neuroimaging research has found that several brain regions respond differentially to the two word classes. However, the semantic\u2013lexical properties of verbs and nouns that drive these effects remain unknown. Here we show that the most likely candidate is predication: a core lexical feature involved in binding constituent arguments (boy, candies) into a unified syntactic\u2013semantic structure expressing a proposition (the boy likes the candies). We used functional neuroimaging to test whether the intrinsic \u201cpredication-building\u201d function of verbs is what drives the verb\u2013noun distinction in the brain. We first identified verb-preferring regions with a localizer experiment including verbs and nouns. Then, we examined whether these regions are sensitive to transitivity\u2014an index measuring its tendency to select for a direct object. Transitivity is a verb-specific property lying at the core of its predication function. Neural activity in the left posterior middle temporal and inferior frontal gyri correlates with transitivity, indicating sensitivity to predication. This represents the first evidence that grammatical class preference in the brain is driven by a word's function to build predication structures.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1162\/jocn_a_00598","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2014,2,24]],"date-time":"2014-02-24T14:21:25Z","timestamp":1393251685000},"page":"1829-1839","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1162\/mitpressjournals.corrections.policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":22,"title":["Predication Drives Verb Cortical Signatures"],"prefix":"10.1162","volume":"26","author":[{"given":"Mireia","family":"Hern\u00e1ndez","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"1Universitat Pompeu Fabra"},{"name":"2Harvard University"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Scott L.","family":"Fairhall","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"3University of Trento"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Alessandro","family":"Lenci","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"4Universit\u00e0 di Pisa"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Marco","family":"Baroni","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"3University of Trento"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Alfonso","family":"Caramazza","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"2Harvard University"},{"name":"3University of Trento"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"member":"281","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2014,8,1]]},"reference":[{"key":"2021073000454277400_R1","first-page":"1","volume-title":"Verbs, nouns and affixation","author":"Alexiadou","year":"2008"},{"key":"2021073000454277400_R2","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","DOI":"10.1186\/1471-2202-10-3","article-title":"The representation of the verb's argument structure as disclosed by fMRI.","volume":"10","author":"Assadollahi","year":"2009","journal-title":"BMC Neuroscience"},{"key":"2021073000454277400_R3","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","DOI":"10.1186\/1471-2202-9-69","article-title":"Representation of the verb's argument-structure in the human brain.","volume":"9","author":"Assadollahi","year":"2008","journal-title":"BMC Neuroscience"},{"key":"2021073000454277400_R4","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"209","DOI":"10.1007\/s10579-009-9081-4","article-title":"The WaCky wide web: A collection of very large linguistically processed web-crawled corpora.","volume":"43","author":"Baroni","year":"2009","journal-title":"Language Resources & Evaluation"},{"key":"2021073000454277400_R5","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"11347","DOI":"10.1523\/JNEUROSCI.3039-08.2008","article-title":"Concepts are more than percepts: The case of action verbs.","volume":"28","author":"Bedny","year":"2008","journal-title":"Journal of Neuroscience"},{"key":"2021073000454277400_R6","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"286","DOI":"10.1093\/cercor\/bhr081","article-title":"Typical neural representations of action verbs develop without vision.","volume":"22","author":"Bedny","year":"2012","journal-title":"Cerebral Cortex"},{"key":"2021073000454277400_R7","unstructured":"Brett, M., \n            \n              Anton, J. L., \n            \n              Valabregue, R., & \n            \n              Poline, J. B.\n           (2002). Region of interest analysis using an SPM toolbox[abstract]. Presented at the 8th International Conference on Functional Mapping of the Human Brain, June 2\u20136, 2002, Sendai, Japan. 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