Lexico-semantics obscures lexical syntax.

A recently emerging generalization about language and the brain is that brain regions implicated in language that show syntax-related activations (e.g., increased activation for more complex sentence structures) also tend to show word-related activations, such as increased activation to reading real words (e.g. RAIN) relative to pseudowords (e.g. PHREZ) (Fedorenko et al., 2016). Fedorenko et al., (2020) generalize as follows: "…syntactic/combinatorial processing is not separable from lexico-semantic processing at the level of brain regions-or even voxel subsets-within the language network". Based on this generalization, Fedorenko et al. have made the conclusion "…that a cognitive architecture whereby is most likely", arguing against "syntax-centric" views of language as promulgated by Chomsky and others. However, the notion of "lexico-semantics" articulated here obscures the fact that words are both syntactic and semantic entities. Because of this, any functional neuroimaging experiment that manipulates lexicality will almost assuredly tax both syntactic and semantic resources, and is therefore inadequate for isolating conceptual-semantic processing in the brain in exclusion to syntax. In addition, Fedorenko et al. do not satisfactorily account for robust lesion data that shows clear functional-anatomical dissociations within the language network. Finally, a "syntax-centric" view of language is perfectly compatible with Fedorenko et al.'s conclusions about syntax-selectivity in the brain because of the multiple potential mappings between linguistic theory and neurobiology beyond individual brain regions.