“…Cataloguing syntactic construction types by their functionality may prove a better strategy for grouping construction types in that their functionality may inform the cognitive processes involved. For example, in the syntactic domain of clauses, virtually any clause embedded as an argument specifies the content of a mental state or speech act (e.g., The frogs thought they could fly ), constituting an immediate link between syntax and ToM that could test a ToM-based neurocognitive model of language functioning in ASC, as independently motivated by experimental evidence between argument clauses and ToM capacities ( Polyanskaya et al, 2022 ; Schroeder et al, 2021 ). On the other hand, relative clauses (e.g., The frogs that could fly ) are adjuncts grammatically, which add descriptive specificity to referential NPs, while (non-relative) clauses adjoined to superordinate clauses (e.g., While they were flying , they saw a lady ; They dropped down in order to rest ) relate events to each other, specifying e.g., temporal or causal relations between them.…”