Sentence comprehension in aphasia in two clear case-marking languages

Studies of aphasia in Indo-European languages point to a selective vulnerability of morphological case marking in sentence comprehension. However, in case-marking languages such as German and Serbo-Croatian, the use of case marking to express formal grammatical gender diminishes the clarity of grammatical role marking. In Hungarian and Turkish, there are simple and reliable markings for the direct object. These markings are not linked to grammatical gender. Compared to Hungarian, the Turkish accusative marking is somewhat lower in availability, but somewhat higher in detectability. The processing of these cues by aphasics was tested using the design of MacWhinney, Pléh, and Bates (1985. Cognitive Psychology, 17, 178-209). Simple sentences with two nouns and one transitive verb were read to Broca's and Wernicke's aphasics, anomics, and control subjects in both Turkey and Hungary. The main effect of case marking was extremely strong. However, this was not true for all groups. The aphasics used the case cue far less than the normals, with the Hungarian Wernicke's group showing the greatest loss. Word order variations were largely ignored in all groups whenever the case-marking cue was present. When case marking was absent, Turkish subjects had a clear SOV interpretation for NNV sentences and Hungarians had a clear SVO interpretation for NVN sentences, in accord with basic patterns in their languages. When there was a contrast between the animacy of the two nouns, subjects choose the animate nouns significantly more often. The effect of animacy was particularly strong in Turkish, in accord with basic facts of Turkish grammar. In Hungarian, VNN sentences without case marking were interpreted as VOS when the first noun was inanimate. In Turkish, VNN sentences without case marking were often interpreted as VSO. In general, the aphasic subjects showed a clear preservation of virtually all aspects of their native languages, albeit in a much noisier form. Despite the high reliability of the case-marking cue, it was damaged more than the word order cue in English subjects. The near-chance processing of the case cue by the Wernicke's aphasics in Hungarian can probably be attributed to the relatively greater difficulty involved in detecting the Hungarian accusative suffix.     

Effects of Case Marking and Word Order on Sentence Parsing in Finnish: An Eye Fixation Analysis

Effects of case marking and word order on syntactic parsing in Finnish were examined by registering readers' eye fixation patterns while they read single sentences for comprehension. Target nouns appearing towards the beginning of the sentence took one of three grammatical roles: subject, object, or adverbial. The subject phrase in the sentence-initial position is the canonical order in Finnish, but the two other word orders are less frequent. In one experimental condition, the grammatical role of the target noun was signalled by a case inflection attached to the preceding adjective modifier; in the second condition this was not the case. The results showed a facilitation effect in sentence parsing due to case marking. Similarly, there was an effect of word order, where the canonical SVO order was associated with greater processing ease than were non-canonical word orders. The two factors interacted so that there was no effect of case marking for the SVO order, but a significant case marking effect for the two marked word orders. The same pattern of results showed up as both immediate and delayed effects. The results speak against the notion of head licensing proposed by Abney (1989) and Prichett (1991).     

Are spoken surface structure ambiguities perceptually unambiguous?

This study was devised to ascertain the extent to which objective intonational cues determine the listener's interpretation of surface structure ambiguities. Highly biased ambiguities (as determined by a pretest) were recorded with intonation patterns appropriate to either the more probable (high-bias) interpretation or the less probable (low-bias) interpretation. Each reading was paired with three context questions: a question appropriate only to the high-bias reading, one appropriate only to the low-bias reading, and a neutral question appropriate to either interpretation. Subjects provided appropriateness judgments for the question-answer pairs, and were timed on their responses. A second task involved paraphrasing the answer in each question-answer pair regardless of compatibility. The results indicated that perception of intonation is affected by the interpretive bias of an ambiguous sentence, and that the strength of the preferred reading is attenuated to a greater degree by an opposing context than by an opposing intonation.This research was carried out at the City University of New York, and was supported in part by the Faculty Research Award Program under Grant # 10668 to H. S. Cairns.     

Preschool children’s interpretation of object‐initial sentences: Neural correlates of their behavioral performance

The acquisition of the function of case‐marking is a key step in the development of sentence processing for German‐speaking children since case‐marking reveals the relations between sentential arguments. In this study, we investigated the development of the processing of case‐marking and argument structures in children at 3, 4;6 and 6 years of age, as well as its processing in adults. Using EEG, we measured event‐related potentials (ERPs) in response to object‐initial compared to subject‐initial German sentences including transitive verbs and case‐marked noun phrases referring to animate arguments. We also tested children’s behavioral competence in a sentence‐picture matching task. Word order and case‐marking were manipulated in German main clauses. Adults’ behavioral performance was close to perfect and their ERPs revealed a negativity for the processing of the topicalized accusative marked noun phrase (NP1) and no effect for the second NP (NP2) in the object‐initial structure. Children’s behavioral data showed a significant above‐chance outcome in the subject‐initial condition for all age groups, but not for the object‐initial condition. In contrast to adults, the ERPs of 3‐year‐olds showed a positivity at NP1, indicating difficulties in processing the non‐canonical object‐initial structures. Children at the age of 4;6 did not differ in the processing patterns of object‐initial vs. subject‐initial sentences at NP1 but showed a slight positivity at NP2. This positivity at NP2, which implies syntactic integration difficulties, is more pronounced in 6‐year‐olds but is absent in adults. At NP1, however, 6‐year‐olds show the same negativity as adults. In sum, the behavioral and electrophysiological findings demonstrate that children in each age group use different strategies, which are indicative of their developmental stage. While 3‐year‐olds merely detect differences in the two sentence structures without being able to use this information for sentence comprehension, 4;6‐year‐olds proceed to use mainly a word‐order strategy, processing NP1 in both conditions in the same manner, which leads to processing difficulties upon detecting case‐marking cues at NP2. At the age of 6, children are able to use case‐marking cues for comprehension but still show enhanced effort for correct thematic‐role assignment.     

Effects and Limitations of Prosodic and Semantic Biases on Syntactic Disambiguation

This paper examined the effects of prosody on the syntactic ambiguity resolution of Japanese sentences, especially with reference to the interaction with semantic bias. Syntactically ambiguous sentences with different types of semantic bias were constructed. The degree of bias in each sentence was evaluated through visual presentation experiments. Three types of sentences were selected based on the results of visual presentation experiments, were recorded with prosody maximally favoring each possible interpretation of the sentences, and were used as the stimuli for the auditory presentation experiments. The results showed that prosodic cues can influence the interpretation of a sentence even when the sentence is strongly semantically biased. The results also showed a limitation to prosodic cues. The prosodic biases alone were not sufficient to fully determine the interpretation of the sentences even when the sentences were neutrally biased semantically.     

Difficulty processing temporary syntactic ambiguities in Lewy body spectrum disorder

While grammatical aspects of language are preserved, executive deficits are prominent in Lewy body spectrum disorder (LBSD), including Parkinson’s disease (PD), Parkinson’s dementia (PDD) and dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB). We examined executive control during sentence processing in LBSD by assessing temporary structural ambiguities. Using an on-line word detection procedure, patients heard sentences with a syntactic structure that has high-compatibility or low-compatibility with the main verb’s statistically preferred syntactic structure, and half of the sentences were lengthened strategically between the onset of the ambiguity and its resolution. We found selectively slowed processing of lengthened ambiguous sentences in the PDD/DLB subgroup. This correlated with impairments on measures of executive control. Regression analyses related the working memory deficit during ambiguous sentence processing to significant cortical thinning in frontal and parietal regions. These findings emphasize the role of prefrontal disease in the executive limitations that interfere with processing ambiguous sentences in LBSD.     

句子结构与控制动词类型对题元角色指派的影响

扩展论元依存模型认为：语序固定语言的题元角色指派依赖论元的语序线索; 论元线索与动词论元表征不一致时, 题元角色再分析会产生额外的加工负荷。为检验该模型, 本研究采用眼动记录方法, 实验为2 (句子结构：居中、前置) × 2 (控制动词类型：主语控制、宾语控制)被试内设计。通过操纵句子结构, 考察汉语读者对语序线索的依赖性; 通过操纵控制动词类型, 考察汉语论元线索与动词论元表征的一致性对题元角色指派的影响。结果发现：(1)前置结构的句子在名词1、名词2和动词区域的阅读时间和回视次数多于居中结构的句子; (2)宾语控制动词条件在动词和动词后区域的第二遍阅读时间和总回视次数多于主语控制动词条件; (3)在居中结构中, 宾语控制动词条件在名词2和动词区域的阅读时间和回视次数多于主语控制动词条件; 在前置结构中, 宾语控制动词条件在动词后区域的阅读时间多于主语控制动词条件。结果支持扩展论元依存模型。     

To end ambiguous sentences

A study of the time required to complete ambiguous sentences suggested that: even though Ss are unaware of the ambiguity while completing sentences, they take more time to complete ambiguous sentences than unambiguous ones: the degree of difficulty in completing ambiguous sentences is related to the linguistic level at which the ambiguity occurs: sentences containing two ambiguities are more difficult to complete than those containing only one, and when these two ambiguities occur at different linguistic levels, these sentences are harder to complete than when both occur within the same linguistic level: ambiguity may affect the grammaticality and relevance of completions; and may cause stuttering and laughter, even without awareness of the ambiguity. An attempt to fit these results to several theories of the processing of ambiguous sentences led us to the conclusion that ambiguity interferes with our understanding of a single meaning of a sentence, and that the degree of interference varies with the linguistic level at which the ambiguity occurs.     

Constraints on sentence comprehension

The process of comprehending sentences involves the integration of a variety of different information sources, constrained by the available computational resources. This paper surveys the evidence for four types of constraints on sentence comprehension: (1) lexical constraints, (2) contextual constraints, (3) locality-based computational resource constraints, and (4) phrase-level contingent frequency constraints. These four constraints, in combination with grammatical phrase-formation information and prosody, are sufficient to explain how interpretations are constructed for sentences as they are encountered, including complexity effects in unambiguous sentences and interpretation preferences in ambiguous sentences.     

To end ambiguous sentences

A study of the time required to complete ambiguous sentences suggested that: even though Ss are unaware of the ambiguity while completing sentences, they take more time to complete ambiguous sentences than unambiguous ones: the degree of difficulty in completing ambiguous sentences is related to the linguistic level at which the ambiguity occurs: sentences containing two ambiguities are more difficult to complete than those containing only one, and when these two ambiguities occur at different linguistic levels, these sentences are harder to complete than when both occur within the same linguistic level: ambiguity may affect the grammaticality and relevance of completions; and may cause stuttering and laughter, even without awareness of the ambiguity. An attempt to fit these results to several theories of the processing of ambiguous sentences led us to the conclusion that ambiguity interferes with our understanding of a single meaning of a sentence, and that the degree of interference varies with the linguistic level at which the ambiguity occurs.     

Understanding words in sentence contexts: the time course of ambiguity resolution

Spoken language comprehension requires rapid integration of information from multiple linguistic sources. In the present study we addressed the temporal aspects of this integration process by focusing on the time course of the selection of the appropriate meaning of lexical ambiguities ("bank") in sentence contexts. Successful selection of the contextually appropriate meaning of the ambiguous word is dependent upon the rapid binding of the contextual information in the sentence to the appropriate meaning of the ambiguity. We used the N400 to identify the time course of this binding process. The N400 was measured to target words that followed three types of context sentences. In the concordant context, the sentence biased the meaning of the sentence-final ambiguous word so that it was related to the target. In the discordant context, the sentence context biased the meaning so that it was not related to the target. In the unrelated control condition, the sentences ended in an unambiguous noun that was unrelated to the target. Half of the concordant sentences biased the dominant meaning, and the other half biased the subordinate meaning of the sentence-final ambiguous words. The ISI between onset of the target word and offset of the sentence-final word of the context sentence was 100 ms in one version of the experiment, and 1250 ms in the second version. We found that (i) the lexically dominant meaning is always partly activated, independent of context, (ii) initially both dominant and subordinate meaning are (partly) activated, which suggests that contextual and lexical factors both contribute to sentence interpretation without context completely overriding lexical information, and (iii) strong lexical influences remain present for a relatively long period of time.     

The influence of sentential position on noun phrase structure priming

This article explores the interaction between global sentence context and local syntactic decision making. Specifically, four noun phrase (NP) structural priming experiments investigated whether the position of an NP within a sentence increased speakers' tendency to repeat primed structure. We crossed the position of the NP with the structure of the NP, such that NPs could be sentence initial or final in prime sentences. We further manipulated whether the to-be-modified target NP was sentence initial or final. Structural persistence effects were consistently observed, but there was no influence of parallel position. Rather, sentence-initial NP primes had a stronger influence on subsequent syntactic decisions than sentence-final primes, suggesting a primacy effect. Sentence-initial target NPs contributed to this primacy effect, while sentence-final target NPs did not. We argue that this primacy effect arises as the result of greater processing demands and resources for early than for late sentence constituents as well as deeper encoding and more focused attention when processing the beginnings of sentences.     

The role of intonation cues in aphasic patients' performance of the grammaticality judgment task

This study investigated the possibility that the reported success of agrammatic aphasic patients in performing auditory grammaticality judgments results from their use of intonational cues to sentence well-formedness. Two agrammatic aphasics, two anomic aphasics, and two nonagrammatic patients with comprehension deficits for semantically reversible sentences were asked to judge grammatical well-formedness in three conditions. Results in a "natural" listening condition replicated the finding of M.C. Linebarger, M.F. Schwartz, and E. M. Saffran (1983, Cognition, 13, 361-392) that agrammatic patients are sensitive to grammaticality despite poor ability to use syntatic cues in comprehension tasks. Two additional listening conditions employed signal-processed auditory stimuli in which the fundamental frequency was normal or was set at a constant level. Right-hemisphere-damaged and normal controls showed no performance deficit for judgments of monotone sentences. The aphasic patients' performance was slightly worse for both signal-processed conditions, but there was little apparent effect of removing sentence intonation on their ability to judge sentence grammaticality. These results indicate that the high levels of performance on grammaticality judgement tasks have not resulted from patients' detection of intonational cues in ungrammatical sentences.     

The influence of sentential position on noun phrase structure priming

This article explores the interaction between global sentence context and local syntactic decision making. Specifically, four noun phrase (NP) structural priming experiments investigated whether the position of an NP within a sentence increased speakers' tendency to repeat primed structure. We crossed the position of the NP with the structure of the NP, such that NPs could be sentence initial or final in prime sentences. We further manipulated whether the to-be-modified target NP was sentence initial or final. Structural persistence effects were consistently observed, but there was no influence of parallel position. Rather, sentence-initial NP primes had a stronger influence on subsequent syntactic decisions than sentence-final primes, suggesting a primacy effect. Sentence-initial target NPs contributed to this primacy effect, while sentence-final target NPs did not. We argue that this primacy effect arises as the result of greater processing demands and resources for early than for late sentence constituents as well as deeper encoding and more focused attention when processing the beginnings of sentences.     

The effects of “effort after meaning” on recall: Differences in within- and between-subjects designs

In four experiments, we examined free recall of ambiguous sentences with or without corresponding cues to facilitate comprehension, using Auble and Franks’s (1978) paradigm to examine effort after meaning (Bartlett, 1932). The ambiguous sentences were studied without cues, with cues meaningfully embedded in them, with cues provided shortly before the sentence (precue), or with cues following the sentence after several seconds (delayed cue). When these conditions were manipulated within subjects, the process of cue integration in the pre- and delayed-cue conditions enhanced recall, relative to the no-cue and embedded-cue conditions. Furthermore, in a test condition in which subjects first attempted to recall the cues alone, recall was also best in the delayed-cue condition. The effects described above did not occur when the cue presentation conditions varied between subjects, and on a test of order reconstruction, there was even an advantage for sentences studied in the embedded-cue condition over those studied in the delayed-cue condition. The dissociative effects of experimental design on sentence recall and order reconstruction suggest that effort after meaning might enhance memory for study items at the cost of impairing memory for temporal order information.     

Effect of lexical cues on the production of active and passive sentences in Broca's and Wernicke's aphasia

This study compared the sentence production abilities of individuals with Broca's and Wernicke's aphasia in an attempt to explore the extent to which impaired lexical retrieval impedes sentence production. The ability to produce active and passive reversible and non-reversible sentences was examined when varying amounts of lexical information was provided. The results showed that both Wernicke's and Broca's aphasic individuals were impaired in passive sentence production and that these difficulties were not overcome when lexical cues (the relevant nouns and uninflected verb) were provided. However when auxiliary and past tense morphemes were provided along with the verb stem, production of passive sentences improved drastically for both groups. Analysis of error patterns, however, revealed differences between the two groups, suggesting that Broca's aphasic subjects may find passive sentences difficult due to problems with retrieving the relevant grammatical morphemes. Subjects with Wernicke's aphasia may have been unable to automatically access the passive sentence structure.     

Parallel function strategy in pronoun assignment

Subjects completed sentences of the form NP1 aux V NP2 because (but) Pro … (e.g., John may scold Bill because he …) with a reason or motive for the action described. A basic perceptual strategy was hypothesized to underlie the comprehension of these sentences which have a potentially ambiguous pronoun in the subject position of the subordinate clause. It was expected that listeners would interpret the pronoun as being coreferential with the subject NP of the main clause, the NP with the same grammatical function. While this strategy accounted for the major share of the results, semantic factors restricted its use, establishing an interpretation in which the pronoun was coreferential with the object NP of the main clause.     

Intonational marking of given and new information: Some consequences for comprehension

The role of intonation in conveying discourse relationships in auditory sentence comprehension was investigated in two experiments. Using the simple comprehension time paradigm, Experiment 1 found that sentences with accented new information were understood faster than sentences with a neutral intonation contour and that the presence of accent in context sentences facilitated comprehension of subsequent targets. Both experiments showed faster comprehension times in conditions in which accent placement was appropriate for the information structure of the sentence. In Experiment I, comprehension times were faster when the accent fell on the information focus than when it fell elsewhere in the sentence. In Experiment 2, faster times resulted when new information was accented and given information was not, compared to conditions in which this accent pattern was reversed. This effect held for both active and passive sentences, and whether the new information occurred in the subject or object position.