Patients’ studies that investigate language often work under the hypothesis that language is an encapsulated cognitive module (Fodor, 1983). Yet, recently, psycholinguistic and linguistic research with healthy participants has provided some evidence for multiple interactions between the core linguistic computations, attention and short-term memory (a.o. Fedorenko et al., 2006; Jacquemot et al., 2006; Astheimer and Sanders, 2009). Few studies on aphasic patients have also confirmed these results (a.o. Jacquemot et al., 2006, 2010). None of these studies, however, provides a systematic approach to test the interaction at multiple levels of linguistic processing, so that data is to this point scarce and scattered. The question of the interaction of linguistic knowledge and other high-level cognitive functions such as short-term memory (STM) and attention in language is thus a fundamental issue for future research on language processing. This project addresses this question by investigating the nature of language and of language degeneration in the brain, in its interaction with STM and attention. On the one hand, we will systematically study this interaction in the performance of healthy subjects, across different levels of linguistic processing and linguistic representations. On the other hand, we will study language impairment in patients with neurodegeneration, in order to understand how impairment in cognitive systems involved in language processing affects their linguistic performance. To this end, we propose to use Huntington’s disease (HD), which is well known for its memory and attentional impairments, and in which we already described some language impairments. It will allow us to study language deterioration in an integrative model of cognitive functions. We propose to conduct this project with an interdisciplinary approach using both linguistic models and psycholinguistic tools. The fine-grained detail of linguistic models of morpho-phonology and syntax (e.g. for morpho-phonology the Minimal Generalization Learner; Albright and Hayes, 2003) provides the tool to make informed hypotheses about the computational component of linguistic processing. Experimental tools of psycholinguistics and the methodology of cognitive psychology will allow us to specify the role of STM and attention in linguistic processing. Functional brain imaging will be used in this project to complement behavioral experiments in shedding light on the compensatory mechanisms employed by patients with no apparent language impairment, but beginning attentional and memory impairments. This project will provide the first systematic investigation of the interaction of language and other cognitive functions, in multiple levels of both normal and disrupted linguistic processing. This approach can be extended to the study of other neurodegenerative diseases.

Nominalizations figure prominently in both linguistics (syntax and ?semantics) and philosophy. Nominalizations are of interest to ?syntacticians because of differences and similarities between the base ?from which the nominalization is derived and the nominalization (such?as its argument structure and syntactic features). Semanticists ?studying nominalizations are inte­rested in the connection between the semantics of the base expression and the semantics of the ?nominalization in particular because the nominalization can be used to?form a referential term, referring, it appears to some object which is ?in some way related to the content of the base expression. Nominalizations figure prominently in ontological discussions in philosophy since nominalizations appear to form terms that refer to ?abstract objects (such as propositions, properties, or facts) or ?'minor entities' (such as events, states, or tropes). There is as yet very little interaction, though, between linguists working on the syntax and semantics of nominalizations and philosophers interested in the objects to which nominalizations apparently refer. This project aims to fill that gap, bringing together a number of linguists ?especially on the French side, some of which are involved already in?research groups studying nominalizations, with a group of German ?philosophers with a focus on ontology. They will systematically?explore questions that require the joint contribution of the two ?disciplines. The questions cover, first, a range of fundamental issues ?in semantics and ontology (IP1), as well as semantics and ?meta-ontology (IP2). But analyses of nominalization also have ?wide-reaching consequences for debates not primarily belonging to ?ontology which will be examined as well, including debates about ?mental attitudes (IP3), and philosophical logic (IP4).

The most significant photosynthetic eukaryotes in the marine environment are the diatoms, which contribute around 40% of marine primary production, thereby providing approximately one fifth of the oxygen we breathe. Knowledge about diatom biology is currently being revolutionized by the availability of two complete genome sequences, from the centric diatom Thalassiosira pseudonana and the pennate diatom Phaeodactylum tricornutum. Unlike T. pseudonana, P. tricornutum can be routinely transformed and a range of reverse genetics tools have been developed. The current funding request is to utilize these resources to begin comprehensive functional genomics approaches in P. tricornutum, specifically the generation of a physical map of the genome, to facilitate genome assembly and classical genetics approaches, and the development of fluorescent subcellular markers. Such resources will lead to new insights about diatom evolution and about their basic biology.