1. Basic Bits of Neuronal Grammar Friedemann Pulvermüller MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit Cambridge

2. Activity states: Ignition -- full activation, momentary Reverberation -- continuous enhanced activity following ignition Priming -- “parasitic” activity caused by strongly connected sets Rest -- inactivity

3. Activity states: Darker colours denote reduced activity states

4. The network:

5. The represented elements: WORDS SEQUENCE FEATURES

6. The representing elements: WORD WEBS

7. The representing elements: WORD WEBS SEQUENCE DETECTORS (SDs)

8. I 3 word input congruent with the network structure

9. The sentence “Betty get up” will appear in the input and will not be accepted by the network

10. Time step / Input / Process

11. 0--All webs at rest

12. 1BettyIgnition of word web

13. 2--Priming of SD

14. 3--Priming of SD

15. 4--Priming of word web

16. 5getsPrimed ignition of word web

17. 6--Priming of SDs Backward ignition

18. 7--Priming of SDs Backward ignition

19. 8--Priming of word web Backward ignition

20. 9----

21. 10upIgnition of word web

22. 11--Backward ignition

23. 12--Backward ignition

24. 13--Backward ignition

25. 14--Backward ignition

26. 15--Backward ignition

27. 16--Backward ignition

28. 17--Backward ignition

29. 18--Deactivation

30. At time step 17, the 3 criteria for string acceptance were met: All activated word webs were visible (i.e., reverberated at the highest reverberation level). All activate word webs were satisfied (i.e., their set of sequence detectors reverberated at a high level). All active sets were synchronized (I.e., participated in a continuous wave of ignitions).

32. II 3 word input incongruent with the network structure

33. The sentence “Up get Betty” will appear in the input and will not be accepted by the network

34. Time step / Input / Process

35. 0--All webs at rest

36. 1upIgnition of word web

37. 2----

38. 3----

39. 4getUnprimed ignition I^ of word web

40. 5-- Priming of SD Threshold regulation

41. 6--Priming of SD

42. 7--Priming of SD

43. 8BettyUnprimed ignition I^ of word web

44. 9--Priming of SD Threshold regulation

45. 10--Priming of SD

46. 11--Priming of SD

47. At time step 10, the 3 criteria for string acceptance were not met: Only 1 word web was visible (the 2 others were at lower activity levels, R2 and R3; cf. darker colours). No one of the 3 word webs was satisfied (SDs did not reverberate). No final synchronization process.

49. III 3 word input partly incongruent with the network structure

50. The sentence “Up Betty get” will appear in the input and will not be accepted by the network

51. Time step / Input / Process

52. 0--All webs at rest

53. 1upIgnition of word web

54. 2----

55. 3----

56. 4BettyUnprimed ignition I^ of word web

57. 5--Priming of SD Threshold regulation

58. 6BettyPriming of SD

59. 7--Priming of word web

60. 8getPrimed ignition of word web

61. 9--Priming of SD Backward ignition

62. 10--Priming of SD Backward ignition

63. 11--Backward ignition

64. 12----

65. At time step 12, not all of the 3 string acceptance criteria were met: 2 out of the 3 activated word webs were visible (i.e., reverberated at the highest reverberation level). Only 1 out of 3 word webs were satisfied (i.e., their set of sequence detectors reverberated at a high level). Only 2 out of the 3 word webs were synchronized (I.e., participated in a continuous wave of ignitions).