Syntax meets semantics during brain logical computations

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Abstract

The discrepancy between syntax and semantics is a painstaking issue that hinders a better comprehension of the underlying neuronal processes in the human brain. In order to tackle the issue, we at first describe a striking correlation between Wittgenstein's Tractatus, that assesses the syntactic relationships between language and world, and Perlovsky's joint language-cognitive computational model, that assesses the semantic relationships between emotions and “knowledge instinct”. Once established a correlation between a purely logical approach to the language and computable psychological activities, we aim to find the neural correlates of syntax and semantics in the human brain. Starting from topological arguments, we suggest that the semantic properties of a proposition are processed in higher brain's functional dimensions than the syntactic ones. In a fully reversible process, the syntactic elements embedded in Broca's area project into multiple scattered semantic cortical zones. The presence of higher functional dimensions gives rise to the increase in informational content that takes place in semantic expressions. Therefore, diverse features of human language and cognitive world can be assessed in terms of both the logic armor described by the Tractatus, and the neurocomputational techniques at hand. One of our motivations is to build a neuro-computational framework able to provide a feasible explanation for brain's semantic processing, in preparation for novel computers with nodes built into higher dimensions.

Section snippets

Introduction: troubles with semantics

Syntax assesses the relationships among the elements of linguistic expressions (Carnie, 2006): a property of the proposition is syntactic, provided it depends only on the symbols. Syntax is akin to grammar, which also includes phonology and orthography, such as the sounds and spellings of words (Martinich, 1996). Also, syntax refers to the presentation of symbols in a sequence that is valid as based on correctness of designated true/false values (Béziau, 2010). In turn, semantics assesses the

A logic link between syntactic and semantic issues

Here we show how two apparently unsuited approaches (the one equipped with syntactic and logical features, the other with semantic and computational structures) can be fruitfully joined, in order to logically describe the correlations between the language and the world.

“Deep” syntactics: Wittgenstein's logical correlations between the language and the world. Wittgenstein establishes in his Tractatus an isomorphism, a correlation and a quantitative articulation between the world (and its basic

Looking for the neural correlates of syntax and semantics

In the previous section, we described a rather unexpected correlation between Wittgenstein's syntax and Perlovsky's semantics. In other words, we established a relationship between a purely logical approach to the language and testable psychological issues, such as emotions and subjectivity. The next step is to look for the neural correlates that would allow the unification of syntactic and semantic operations in the human brain. We need to transfer the above-mentioned syntactic and semantic

A topological model of knowledge istinct

The striking correspondence between the first Wittgenstein's and Perlovsky's approaches tells us that we can use the powerful tool of the fuzzy logic for the syntactic/semantic assessment of the human language. Indeed, Wittgenstein emphasizes the correspondence between the world and the syntactic language, while Perlovsky analyzes the relationships between the world and human semantic perception. Putting together the two issues, we achieve a useful framework: Perlovsky's computations can be

Concluding remarks

Starting from Wittgenstein's and Perlovsky's accounts, we have shown how semantic and syntactic abilities of the brain could be investigated in terms of algebraic topology. We also illustrated how the syntactic content of the Tractatus can be assessed in terms of the current neuroscientific language. Our review of the literature data reveals how the connectivity among the brain-active centers changes during the presentation of syntactic and semantic inputs (see Benedetti et al., 2010;

A philosophical CODA

Our logical/topological approach embodies several previous suggestions by various authors. Hilbert's program states that every true proposition must be demonstrated starting from one of the available axioms. Except for those axioms, no other propositions are considered to have inherent truth value, rather they must necessarily be assessed through algorithms and computational processing. This means that a demonstrable proposition is syntactic, because it could be derived axiomatically by

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