three-minute pauses between sessions in fMRI experiments, the participants
learned three real rules and three unreal rules. In addition, they used the same
sentence types during fMRI sessions as the ones during three-minute instruction
sessions. It is not clear whether this really refl ects real language acquisition. In
the next section, I review the results of Yusa et al. (2011), which replicate the
involvement of Broca’s area in acquiring new linguistic knowledge based on
structure dependence but in a way immune to the possible criticisms mentioned
above.
4 Neural correlates of the acquisition of
a new syntactic rule
Yusa et al. (2011) investigate whether adult second language learners’ knowledge
goes beyond the input or stimuli that they receive during classroom instruction
and whether instruction induces any functional changes in the brain.^2 Japanese
participants learned a new English rule (i.e., negative inversion, NI) with mono-
clausal negative inversion constructions as in (7) during one month of instruc-
tion. Then, they were tested on “uninstructed biclausal sentences” containing
relative clauses as in (9) as well as “instructed monoclausal sentences” as in (8).
(7) a. I will never eat sushi.
b. Never will I eat sushi.
c.∗Never I will eat sushi.
(8) a. Those students are never late for class.
b. Never are those students late for class.
c.∗Never those students are late for class.
(9) a. Those students who will fail a test are never hardworking in class.
b.∗Never will those students who fail a test are hardworking in class.
c. Never are those students who will fail a test hardworking in class.
Simplex sentences such as, Those students are never late for class, can be con-
verted to inverted sentences such as, Never are those students late for class, either
by a structure-independent rule (i.e. move the fi rst auxiliary after a fronted
negative adverb), or by a structure-dependent rule (i.e. move the main clause
auxiliary after a fronted negative adverb). The structure-independent rule does
not require analyzing the sentence in terms of its hierarchical structure. We just
scan the sentence, Those students are never late for class, from left to right until
we hit the fi rst auxiliary are, then move it after the fronted negative adverb never.
However, the structure-independent rule fails in biclausal sentences containing
relative clauses. For example, with the complex sentence, Those students who will
fail a test are never hardworking in class, the structure-independent rule moves
the fi rst auxiliary will and produces the ungrammatical result, Never will those
students who fail a test are hardworking in class. The structure-dependent rule,
on the other hand, targets the main clause auxiliary are and correctly generates
222 Noriaki Yusa