Word classes and neurolinguistics

This chapter focuses on certain critical aspects of the typology and nature of major word classes, such as verbs, adjectives, and nouns, and on the neurocognitive basis of their processing. Cognitive neuropsychological and neuroimaging data on the representation and organisation of word classes in the brain are presented and dis- cussed in relation to the description and problems raised by word class distinction in the languages of the world, including both formal and functional dimensions, both from a Romance typological perspective, as well as from a wider cross-linguistic perspective. A model is proposed to provide a unifying account of long-debated theoretical, typologi- cal, and neurocognitive issues regarding word classes. It is shown how this model, in which linguistics and cognitive neuroscience benefit from each other, can contribute to the understanding of: 1) the internal structure and the implementation of the categorisa- tion principle underlying the representation of word classes and, in particular, their structural classification in Romance; 2) the role of word class-specific information in the neurocognitive architecture of language; 3) the problem of hierarchising the defining criteria for word classes.