Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-7cvxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T20:00:55.943Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Modulating the sensitivity to syntactic factors in production: Evidence from syntactic priming in agrammatism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 July 2013

ELEONORA ROSSI
ELEONORA ROSSI*
Affiliation:
Pennsylvania State University
*
ADDRESS FOR CORRESPONDENCE Eleonora Rossi, Department of Psychology, 4B Thomas Building, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802. E-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This study investigates the extent to which the production of complex morphosyntactic structures can be modulated in agrammatic speakers by utilizing a syntactic priming paradigm. Italian clitic pronouns (varying in morphosyntactic complexity) were chosen as the focal linguistic structure under investigation to test hypotheses based on alternative theories. Three experiments were performed. Experiment 1 analyzed clitic production in spontaneous speech. Experiments 2 and 3 used syntactic priming to prime the production of direct- and indirect-object clitics in finite and in restructuring sentences. These structures critically require different clitic positions (finite sentences: before the finite verb; restructuring sentences: before or after the verbal complex). The pattern of results shows that agrammatic speakers are impaired in clitic production. However, they show that the deficit is quantitative rather than qualitative, suggesting residual sensitivity despite the poor performance. The findings demonstrate that agrammatic (and control) speakers show a positive effect of syntactic priming across clitic types, suggesting that agrammatism can be characterized in terms of a linguistic processing deficit owing to increased processing demands for complex linguistic structures. Specifically, it is suggested that morphosyntactic complexity modulates both the level of impairment and the effect of priming for these grammatical structures.

Type
Articles
Information
Applied Psycholinguistics , Volume 36 , Issue 3 , May 2015 , pp. 639 - 669
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Antelmi, D. (1997). La prima grammatica dell’ Italiano: Indagine longitudinale sull’ acquisizione della morfosintassi Italiana. Bologna: Il Mulino.Google Scholar
Arosio, F., Branchini, C., Forgiarini, M., Roncaglione, E., Carravieri, E., Tenca, E., et al. (2010). SLI children's weakness in morphosyntax and pragmatics. In Yukio, O. (Ed.), The Proceedings of the Tenth Tokyo Conference on Psycholinguistic. Tokyo: Hituzi Syobo Press.Google Scholar
Bastiaanse, R., Koekkoek, J., & Van Zonneveld, R. (2003). Object scrambling in Dutch Broca's aphasia. Brain and Language, 86, 287–299.Google Scholar
Bastiaanse, R., & Van Zonneveld, R. (2005). Sentence production with verbs of alternating transitivity in agrammatic Broca's aphasia. Journal of Neurolinguistics, 18, 57–66.Google Scholar
Belletti, A. (1999). Italian/Romance clitics: Structure and derivation. In Riemsdijk, van H. (Ed.), Clitics in the languages of Europe (pp. 543–579). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Benincà, P. (1986). Punti di sintassi comparata dei dialetti italiani settentrionali. In Holtus, G. & Ringgerr, K. (Eds.), Retia antiqua et moderna: W. Theodor Elwert zum 80. Geburtstag (pp. 457–479). Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag.Google Scholar
Bock, K. (1986). Syntactic persistence in language production. Cognitive Psychology, 18, 355–87.Google Scholar
Bock, J. K., & Loebell, H. (1990). Framing sentences. Cognition, 35, 1–39.Google Scholar
Bock, J. K., Loebell, H., & Morey, R. (1992). From conceptual roles to structural relations: Bridging the syntactic cleft. Psychological Review, 99, 150–171.Google Scholar
Bortolini, U., Arf≫, B., Caselli, M. C., Degasperi, L., Deevy, P., & Leonard, L. B. (2006). Clinical markers for specific language impairment in Italian: The contribution of clitics and non-word repetition. International Journal of Language Communication Disorders, 41, 695–712.Google Scholar
Braningan, H. P., Pickering, M. J., Liversedge, S. P., Steward, A. J., & Urbach, T. P. (1995). Syntactic priming: Investigating the mental representation of language. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 24, 489–506.Google Scholar
Caramazza, A., & Zurif, E. (1976). Dissociation of algorithmic and heuristic processes in sentence comprehension: Evidence from aphasia. Brain and Language, 3, 572–582.Google Scholar
Cardinaletti, A. (1999a). Pronouns in Germanic and Romance languages: An overview. In van Riemsdijk, H. (Ed.), Clitics in the languages of Europe (pp. 33–82). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Cardinaletti, A. (1999b). The typology of structural deficiency: A case study of the three classes of pronouns. In van Riemsdijk, H. (Ed.) Clitics in the languages of Europe (pp. 146–233). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Cardinaletti, A., & Starke, M. (2008). On different types of clitic clusters. In De Cat, C. & Demuth, C. (Eds.), The Bantu–Romance connection: A comparative investigation of verbal agreement, DPs, and information structure (pp. 41–82). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Carpenter, P. A., Miyake, A., & Just, M. A. (1994). Working memory constraints in comprehension: Evidence from individual differences, aphasia, and aging. In Gernsbacher, M. (Ed.), Handbook of psycholinguistics (pp. 1075–1122). San Diego, CA: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Egerland, V. (2009). La doppia base della ristrutturazione. In Cardinaletti, A. & Munaro, N. (Eds.), Italiano, italiani regionali e dialetti in autori vari, in lingua, traduzione, didattica (pp. 99–114). Milan: Franco Angeli.Google Scholar
Ferreira, V. S. (2003). The persistence of optional complementizer mention: Why saying a “that” is not saying “that” at all. Journal of Memory and Language, 48, 379–398.Google Scholar
Friedmann, N. (2001). Agrammatism and the psychological reality of the syntactic tree. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 30, 71–90.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Friedmann, N. (2005). Degrees of severity and recovery in agrammatism: Climbing up the syntactic tree. Aphasiology, 19, 1037–1051.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Friedmann, N., & Grodzinsky, Y. (1997). Tense and agreement in agrammatic production: Pruning the syntactic tree. Brain and Language, 56, 397–425.Google Scholar
Goodglass, H. (1968). Studies in the grammar of aphasics. In Rosenberg, S. & Koplin, J. (Eds.), Developments in applied psycholinguistic research (pp. 177–208). New York: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Goodglass, H. (2001). The assessment of aphasia and related disorders. Austin, TX: Pro-Ed.Google Scholar
Goodglass, H., & Kaplan, E. (1972). Boston Diagnostic Aphasia Examination. Philadelphia, PA: Lea & Febiger.Google Scholar
Grodzinsky, Y. (1995). A restrictive theory of trace deletion in agrammatism. Brain and Language, 51, 26–51.Google Scholar
Guasti, M. T. (1994). Verb syntax in Italian child grammar: Finite and non-finite verbs. Language Acquisition, 3, 1–40.Google Scholar
Haarmann, H. J., Just, M. A., & Carpenter, P. A. (1997). Aphasic sentence comprehension as a resource deficit: A computational approach. Brain and Language, 59, 76–120.Google Scholar
Haarmann, H. J., & Kolk, H. H. J. (1991). Syntactic priming in Broca's aphasics: Evidence for slow activation. Aphasiology, 5, 49–87.Google Scholar
Haarmann, H. J., & Kolk, H. H. J. (1992). The production of grammatical morphology in Broca's and Wernicke's aphasics: Speed and accuracy factors. Cortex, 28, 97–112.Google Scholar
Hartsuiker, R. J., & Barkhuisen, P. N. (2006). Language production and working memory: The case of subject–verb agreement. Language and Cognitive Processes, 21, 181–204.Google Scholar
Hartsuiker, R. J., & Kolk, H. H. J. (1998). Syntactic facilitation in agrammatic sentence production. Brain and Language, 62, 221–254.Google Scholar
Hartsuiker, R. J., Kolk, H. H. J., & Huiskamp, P. (1999). Priming word order in sentence production. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Experimental Psychology, 52, 129–147.Google Scholar
Hartsuiker, R. J., & Westenberg, C. (2000). Word order priming in written and spoken sentence production. Cognition, 75, B27–B39.Google Scholar
Kayne, R. (1975). French syntax: The transformational cycle. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Kayne, R. (1991). Romance clitics, verb movement and PRO. Linguistic Inquiry, 22, 647–686.Google Scholar
Kolk, H. H. J. (1995). A time-based approach to agrammatic production. Brain and Language, 50, 282–303.Google Scholar
Kok, P., van Doorn, A., & Kolk, H. (2007). Inflectional and computational load in agrammatic speech. Brain and Language, 102, 273–283.Google Scholar
Kroll, J. F., Dussias, P. E., Bogulski, C. A., & Valdes-Kroff, J. (2012). Juggling two languages in one mind: What bilinguals tell us about language processing and its consequences for cognition. In Ross, B. (Ed.), The psychology of learning and motivation (Vol. 56, pp. 229–262). San Diego, CA: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Lonzi, L., & Luzzatti, C. (1993). Relevance of adverb distribution for the analysis of sentence representation in agrammatic patients. Brain and Language, 45, 306–317.Google Scholar
Luzzatti, C., Toraldo, A., Guasti, M. T., Ghirardi, G., Lorenzi, L., & Guarnaschelli, C. (2001). Comprehension of reversible active and passive sentences in agrammatism. Aphasiology, 15, 419–441.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Luzzatti, C., Willmes, K., & De Bleser, R. (1994). Aachener Aphasia Test (AAT)—Versione Italiana. Firenze: Organizzazioni Speciali.Google Scholar
Marini, A., Andreetta, S., del Tin, S., & Carlomagno, S. (2011). A multi-level approach to the analysis of narrative language in aphasia. Aphasiology, 25, 1372–1392.Google Scholar
Menn, L., & Obler, L. K. (1990). Agrammatic aphasia: A cross-language narrative sourcebook. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Miceli, G., & Mazzucchi, A. (1990). Agrammatism in Italian: Two case studies. In Menn, L. & Obler, L. (Eds.), Agrammatic aphasia: A cross linguistic narrative sourcebook (pp. 717–757). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Miceli, G., Silveri, C., Romani, C., & Caramazza, A. (1989). Variation in the pattern of omissions and substitutions of grammatical morphemes in the spontaneous speech of so-called agrammatic patients. Brain and Language, 36, 447–492.Google Scholar
Reznik, M., Dubrovsky, S., & Maldonado, S. (1995). Agrammatism in Spanish: A case study. Brain and Language, 51, 355–368.Google Scholar
Rizzi, L. (1978). A restructuring rule in Italian syntax. In Keyser, Jay (Ed.), Recent transformational studies in European languages (pp. 113–158). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Rizzi, L. (1982). Issues in Italian syntax. New York: Foris.Google Scholar
Rossi, E., & Bastiaanse, R. (2008). Spontaneous speech in Italian agrammatic aphasia: A focus on variability and verb production. Aphasiology, 22, 347–362.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rossi, E., & Dussias, P. E. (2013). Using eye tracking to examine sensitivity to gender and number in L2 sentence processing. Manuscript in preparation.Google Scholar
Saffran, E. M., Berndt, R. S., & Schwartz, M. F. (1989). The quantitative analysis of agrammatic production: Procedure and data. Brain and Language, 37, 440–479.Google Scholar
Saffran, E. M., & Martin, N. (1997). Effects of structural priming on sentence production in aphasics. Language and Cognitive Processes, 12, 877–882.Google Scholar
Shapiro, L. (1990). Verb processing during sentence comprehension in aphasia. Brain and Language, 38, 21–47.Google Scholar
Stavrakaki, S., & Kouvava, S. (2003). Functional categories in agrammatism: Evidence from Greek. Brain and Language, 86, 129–141.Google Scholar
Swinney, D., Zurif, E., Prather, P., & Love, T. (1996). Neurological distribution of processing operations underlying language comprehension. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 8, 174–184.Google Scholar
Tuller, L., Delage, H., Monjauze, C., Piller, A. G., & Barthez, M. A. (2011). Clitic pronoun production as a measure of atypical language development in French. Lingua, 121, 423–441.Google Scholar
Vanier, M., & Caplan, D. (1990). CT-scan correlates of agrammatism. In Menn, L. & Obler, L. K. (Eds.), Agrammatic aphasia (pp. 97–114). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Waters, G. S., & Caplan, D. (1996). The capacity theory of sentence comprehension: Critique of Just and Carpenter (1992). Psychological Review, 103, 761–772.Google Scholar
Yarbay Duman, T., Aygen, G., Özgirgin, N., & Bastiaanse, R. (2007). Object scrambling and finiteness in Turkish agrammatic production. Journal of Neurolinguistics, 20, 306–331.Google Scholar
Zurif, E., Swinney, D., Prather, P., Solomon, J., & Bushell, C. (1993). An on-line analysis of syntactic processing in Broca's and Wernicke's aphasia. Brain and Language, 45, 448–464.Google Scholar