the grammatical sentence, Never are those students who will fail a test hardwork-
ing in class. It might be objected that with the biclausal sentence as in (9a),
moving the second auxiliary would generate grammatical negative inversion.
However, this strategy does not work for complex sentences, such as Those
restaurants are rarely full of people who have been there before, where moving the
second auxiliary produces the ungrammatical sentence, Rarely have those restau-
rants are full of people who been there before.
Japanese learners of English participated in our experiment, all of whom
started to study English as a second language in Japan after the so-called critical
or sensitive period. The participants’ knowledge of negative inversion was mea-
sured by a grammaticality judgment task (GJT) as a pre-test (Test 1) before the
instruction, and again as a post-test (Test 2) after the instruction. The participants
also underwent fMRI scans during the GJT so that any instruction effects on
the brain could be measured. They were divided into instruction and non-
instruction groups on the basis of their standardized English test scores and
their error rates for negative inversion in simplex sentences during the first fMRI
experiment (Test 1). For one month, the instruction group received instruction
about NI only with simplex sentences after Test 1. That is, the participants were
not exposed to examples instantiating crucial information such as the notion of
structure dependence. Note that no reference was made to structure dependence
in the instruction sessions. On the other hand, the non-instruction group
received no instruction about NI but took a pre-test (Test 1) as well as a post-
test (Test 2). The second fMRI measurement and GJT task (Test 2) were given
to both the instruction and non-instruction groups.
The behavioral results of the instruction group show that the participants
became significantly more accurate on the GJT of the uninstructed biclausal
sentences as well as the instructed monoclausal sentences from the pre-test
(Test 1) to the post-test (Test 2). No significant change, however, was observed
in the non-instruction group.
Moreover, the fMRI data after the instruction also show a significant activa-
tion in Broca’s area in the instruction group. Importantly, significant activations
in the left inferior frontal gyrus (Broca’s area) were found for the uninstructed
complex sentences after the instruction. More specifically, the par triangularis
(F3t or Brodmann’s area (BA 44/45) of the left IFG was more significantly
activated when the participants processed the inversion in uninstructed complex
sentences. Again, there was no significant cortical activation change between
Test 1 and Test 2 in the non-instr uction group.
This study provides new insight into the role of Broca’s area, where nature
(UG) and nurture (instruction) contribute to enabling L2 learners to be more
aware of certain phenomena far beyond what the instruction offered them. Our
study used complex sentences involving relative clauses in Test 2, which were
structurally different from simple sentences used during the instruction sessions.
This enabled us to overcome the possibility that the participants might have just
memorized the relevant rules and then repeated back what they had learned, which
might have happened in the case of the participants reported in Musso et al.
Syntax in the brain 223