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Negation in agrammatism: Evidence from greek
Brain and Language 99 (2006) 8–219 www.elsevier.com/locate/b&l
Negation in agrammatism: Evidence from greek Valantis Fyndanis a,*, Kyrana Tsapkini a, Spyridoula Varlokosta b, Konstantina Petropoulou c, Ilias Papathanasiou d a
d
Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece b University of the Aegean, Greece c National Rehabilitation Centre of Greece, Greece Technological Educational Institute of Patras, Greece Accepted 6 July 2006
Introduction It is well known that agrammatics encounter problems with functional categories. Recent studies have demonstrated that this impairment is selective and that not all functional categories are equally impaired. Against that frame, the Tree Pruning Hypothesis (TPH) (Friedmann & Grodzinsky, 1997) has been formulated, according to which agrammatic production arises because of deletion or ‘‘pruning’’ of the syntactic tree at the Tense node. TPH predicts that everything above this node is lost while material below is preserved. While functional categories, such as Tense, Agreement and Complementizer Phrase have been examined in a number of studies, other functional categories such as Negation, Aspect and Mood have been much less investigated. The present study investigates Negation in Greek agrammatism. Our methods are similar to those of Rispens, Bastiaanse, and Van Zonneveld (2001) Bastiaanse, Rispens, Ruigendijk, Rabadan, and Thompson (2002), who have examined Negation in agrammatism cross-linguistically. On the basis of their results, they have proposed that production of Negation is problematic when the negative element is in the head rather than in the specifier position of Negation Phrase (NegP). We compare our results with the ones reported in Bastiaanse et al. and discuss them in the light of the various accounts of agrammatism proposed so far. Methodology Subjects Two agrammatic aphasics and two age-, gender- and educationmatched control participants were tested. The first ones were aphasics due to a stroke in the left hemisphere. They were diagnosed as non-fluent agrammatic aphasics using the Greek version of the Boston Diagnostic Aphasia Examination (Papathanasiou, Feidatsi, Katsantoni, Panagiotopoulou, & Malefaki, 2004). Their testing took place at least 4 months
*
Corresponding author. E-mail address: [email protected] (V. Fyndanis).
doi:10.1016/j.bandl.2006.06.090
post-onset. The control participants made no error and their performances will be further ignored. Materials/procedures Comprehension of negative sentences was tested via a truth value judgement task, involving 29 sentence-picture pairs, 15 of which contained negative sentences and 14 control affirmatives. Subjects were asked to listen to each sentence and judge whether it matched the picture shown. Two anagram tasks were used, one with pictures and one without pictures, to test production of negative sentences. The first one consisted of 16 negative sentences and 13 control affirmatives. The anagram cards contained the negative elements dem [den] ‘‘not’’ and o´vi [o´c¸i] ‘‘not/no’’, which form sentential and constituent negation respectively. Participants were asked to construct a sentence matching the picture and on the basis of the picture they had to decide whether or not to choose one of the negative elements. The target sentences were simple structures, with a subject NP, a verb in present tense and active voice, and an object NP. The anagram task without pictures included 18 negative sentences and 18 control affirmatives. Each set of these sentences consisted of six sentences with the verb in present tense and active voice, six sentences with the verb in present tense and passive voice and six sentences with the verb in present perfect tense (PPT) and active voice. The negative elements were not contained in all the blocks of anagram cards. When the anagram cards did not include them, the participants were asked to use all cards. In contrast, when the anagram cards included them, the participants were asked to use one of them. Results and discussion Despite some variation, the patterns of performance of the two agrammatic participants are similar: in comprehension they make only a few errors, with no significant difference between affirmative and negative sentences, whereas in production they perform significantly worse on negative than affirmative sentences (v2 = 8.67, p < .01, see Table 1). Regarding the effect of syntactic complexity, only PPT seems to cause problems to the Greek-speaking agrammatics, as in the production of
Abstracts / Brain and Language 99 (2006) 8–219
163
Table 1 Raw scores and the percentage of errors for the Greek-speaking agrammatics
Comprehension Negative sentences Affirmative sentences Mean negative as a group in comprehension Mean affirmative as a group in comprehension Production Negative sentences Anagram + pictures Anagram – pictures Actives Passives PPT Affirmative sentences Anagram + pictures Anagram – pictures Actives Passives PPT Mean negative in production Mean affirmative in production Mean negative as a group in production Mean affirmative as a group in production
AB
GT
0/15 (0%) 1/14 (7.14%) 13.33% 10.71%
4/15 (26.67%) 2/14 (14.29%) 13.33% 10.71%
13/16 (81.25%)
14/16 (87.5%)
3/6 (50%) 3/6 (50%) 5/6 (83.33%)
11/18 (61.11%)
3/13 (23.08%) 0/6 (0%) 0/6 (0%) 4/6 (66.67%) 71.18% 22.65% 81.08% 18.27%
affirmative sentences performance of the agrammatic participants is only impaired when the verb is in that tense. Probably this effect is due to the complex structure of PPT. The most frequent errors the Greek-speaking agrammatics make with respect to the target negative sentences are: (a) incorrect order of negation (23.64%), (b) incorrect use of constituent negation instead of sentential negation (23.64%), (c) absence of the negative element (21.82%). Comparing our results with the ones reported in Bastiaanse et al., we can observe that the Greek-speaking agrammatics taken as a group are comparable with the English-speaking and Spanish-speaking agrammatics in their ability to construct negative sentences, as they all present low performances (81.08%, 96.67% and 78.33% errors, respectively). Moreover, the Greek-speaking (as well as the English-speaking and Spanish-speaking) agrammatics perform significantly worse than the Dutch-speaking and Norwegian-speaking agrammatics (7.78% and 37.78% errors, respectively) (Greek vs. Dutch: v2 = 13.49, p < .001; Greek vs. Norwegian: v2 = 4.24, p < .05). In Dutch and in Norwegian the negative elements are in the specifier position of NegP, whereas in English and in Spanish they occupy the head position. Given that in Greek the negative marker dem occupies the head position, our results provide support to Rispens et al.’s claim that ‘‘it is the negation’s status as a functional head that is problematic to the agrammatics’’ (p.78). The Greek results are also in line with the TPH, since in Greek NegP is above Inflection Phrase (IP) and therefore is expected to be severely
6/6 100%) 6/6 100%) 5/6 (83.33%)
17/18 (94.44%)
0/13 (0%) 4/18 (22.22%)
0/6 (0%) 0/6 (0%) 5/6 (83.33%) 90.97% 13.89%
5/18 (27.78%)
impaired. Nevertheless, since at least the English results cannot be accounted for by the TPH, as in English the NegP is below IP, the only proposal that accounts for all the cross-linguistic results reported here is that of Rispens et al.
References Bastiaanse, R., Rispens, J., Ruigendijk, E., Rabadan, O. J., & Thompson, C. K. (2002). Verbs: Some properties and their consequences for agrammatic Broca’s aphasia. Journal of Neurolinguistics, 15, 239–264. Friedmann, N., & Grodzinsky, Y. (1997). Tense and agreement in agrammatic production: Pruning the syntactic tree. Brain and Language, 56, 397–425. Papathanasiou, I., Feidatsi, M., Katsantoni, M., Panagiotopoulou, E., & Malefaki, S. (2004). The validation of Boston Diagnostic Aphasia Examination (BDAE-3) in Greek. Paper presented at the 26th World Congress of the International Association of Logopaedics and Phonetics, 29 August-2 September 2004, Brisbane Australia. Rispens, J., Bastiaanse, R., & Van Zonneveld, R. (2001). Negation in agrammatism: A cross-linguistic comparison. Journal of Neurolinguistics, 14, 59–83.
Negation in agrammatism: Evidence from greek Valantis Fyndanis a,*, Kyrana Tsapkini a, Spyridoula Varlokosta b, Konstantina Petropoulou c, Ilias Papathanasiou d a
d
Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece b University of the Aegean, Greece c National Rehabilitation Centre of Greece, Greece Technological Educational Institute of Patras, Greece Accepted 6 July 2006
Introduction It is well known that agrammatics encounter problems with functional categories. Recent studies have demonstrated that this impairment is selective and that not all functional categories are equally impaired. Against that frame, the Tree Pruning Hypothesis (TPH) (Friedmann & Grodzinsky, 1997) has been formulated, according to which agrammatic production arises because of deletion or ‘‘pruning’’ of the syntactic tree at the Tense node. TPH predicts that everything above this node is lost while material below is preserved. While functional categories, such as Tense, Agreement and Complementizer Phrase have been examined in a number of studies, other functional categories such as Negation, Aspect and Mood have been much less investigated. The present study investigates Negation in Greek agrammatism. Our methods are similar to those of Rispens, Bastiaanse, and Van Zonneveld (2001) Bastiaanse, Rispens, Ruigendijk, Rabadan, and Thompson (2002), who have examined Negation in agrammatism cross-linguistically. On the basis of their results, they have proposed that production of Negation is problematic when the negative element is in the head rather than in the specifier position of Negation Phrase (NegP). We compare our results with the ones reported in Bastiaanse et al. and discuss them in the light of the various accounts of agrammatism proposed so far. Methodology Subjects Two agrammatic aphasics and two age-, gender- and educationmatched control participants were tested. The first ones were aphasics due to a stroke in the left hemisphere. They were diagnosed as non-fluent agrammatic aphasics using the Greek version of the Boston Diagnostic Aphasia Examination (Papathanasiou, Feidatsi, Katsantoni, Panagiotopoulou, & Malefaki, 2004). Their testing took place at least 4 months
*
Corresponding author. E-mail address: [email protected] (V. Fyndanis).
doi:10.1016/j.bandl.2006.06.090
post-onset. The control participants made no error and their performances will be further ignored. Materials/procedures Comprehension of negative sentences was tested via a truth value judgement task, involving 29 sentence-picture pairs, 15 of which contained negative sentences and 14 control affirmatives. Subjects were asked to listen to each sentence and judge whether it matched the picture shown. Two anagram tasks were used, one with pictures and one without pictures, to test production of negative sentences. The first one consisted of 16 negative sentences and 13 control affirmatives. The anagram cards contained the negative elements dem [den] ‘‘not’’ and o´vi [o´c¸i] ‘‘not/no’’, which form sentential and constituent negation respectively. Participants were asked to construct a sentence matching the picture and on the basis of the picture they had to decide whether or not to choose one of the negative elements. The target sentences were simple structures, with a subject NP, a verb in present tense and active voice, and an object NP. The anagram task without pictures included 18 negative sentences and 18 control affirmatives. Each set of these sentences consisted of six sentences with the verb in present tense and active voice, six sentences with the verb in present tense and passive voice and six sentences with the verb in present perfect tense (PPT) and active voice. The negative elements were not contained in all the blocks of anagram cards. When the anagram cards did not include them, the participants were asked to use all cards. In contrast, when the anagram cards included them, the participants were asked to use one of them. Results and discussion Despite some variation, the patterns of performance of the two agrammatic participants are similar: in comprehension they make only a few errors, with no significant difference between affirmative and negative sentences, whereas in production they perform significantly worse on negative than affirmative sentences (v2 = 8.67, p < .01, see Table 1). Regarding the effect of syntactic complexity, only PPT seems to cause problems to the Greek-speaking agrammatics, as in the production of
Abstracts / Brain and Language 99 (2006) 8–219
163
Table 1 Raw scores and the percentage of errors for the Greek-speaking agrammatics
Comprehension Negative sentences Affirmative sentences Mean negative as a group in comprehension Mean affirmative as a group in comprehension Production Negative sentences Anagram + pictures Anagram – pictures Actives Passives PPT Affirmative sentences Anagram + pictures Anagram – pictures Actives Passives PPT Mean negative in production Mean affirmative in production Mean negative as a group in production Mean affirmative as a group in production
AB
GT
0/15 (0%) 1/14 (7.14%) 13.33% 10.71%
4/15 (26.67%) 2/14 (14.29%) 13.33% 10.71%
13/16 (81.25%)
14/16 (87.5%)
3/6 (50%) 3/6 (50%) 5/6 (83.33%)
11/18 (61.11%)
3/13 (23.08%) 0/6 (0%) 0/6 (0%) 4/6 (66.67%) 71.18% 22.65% 81.08% 18.27%
affirmative sentences performance of the agrammatic participants is only impaired when the verb is in that tense. Probably this effect is due to the complex structure of PPT. The most frequent errors the Greek-speaking agrammatics make with respect to the target negative sentences are: (a) incorrect order of negation (23.64%), (b) incorrect use of constituent negation instead of sentential negation (23.64%), (c) absence of the negative element (21.82%). Comparing our results with the ones reported in Bastiaanse et al., we can observe that the Greek-speaking agrammatics taken as a group are comparable with the English-speaking and Spanish-speaking agrammatics in their ability to construct negative sentences, as they all present low performances (81.08%, 96.67% and 78.33% errors, respectively). Moreover, the Greek-speaking (as well as the English-speaking and Spanish-speaking) agrammatics perform significantly worse than the Dutch-speaking and Norwegian-speaking agrammatics (7.78% and 37.78% errors, respectively) (Greek vs. Dutch: v2 = 13.49, p < .001; Greek vs. Norwegian: v2 = 4.24, p < .05). In Dutch and in Norwegian the negative elements are in the specifier position of NegP, whereas in English and in Spanish they occupy the head position. Given that in Greek the negative marker dem occupies the head position, our results provide support to Rispens et al.’s claim that ‘‘it is the negation’s status as a functional head that is problematic to the agrammatics’’ (p.78). The Greek results are also in line with the TPH, since in Greek NegP is above Inflection Phrase (IP) and therefore is expected to be severely
6/6 100%) 6/6 100%) 5/6 (83.33%)
17/18 (94.44%)
0/13 (0%) 4/18 (22.22%)
0/6 (0%) 0/6 (0%) 5/6 (83.33%) 90.97% 13.89%
5/18 (27.78%)
impaired. Nevertheless, since at least the English results cannot be accounted for by the TPH, as in English the NegP is below IP, the only proposal that accounts for all the cross-linguistic results reported here is that of Rispens et al.
References Bastiaanse, R., Rispens, J., Ruigendijk, E., Rabadan, O. J., & Thompson, C. K. (2002). Verbs: Some properties and their consequences for agrammatic Broca’s aphasia. Journal of Neurolinguistics, 15, 239–264. Friedmann, N., & Grodzinsky, Y. (1997). Tense and agreement in agrammatic production: Pruning the syntactic tree. Brain and Language, 56, 397–425. Papathanasiou, I., Feidatsi, M., Katsantoni, M., Panagiotopoulou, E., & Malefaki, S. (2004). The validation of Boston Diagnostic Aphasia Examination (BDAE-3) in Greek. Paper presented at the 26th World Congress of the International Association of Logopaedics and Phonetics, 29 August-2 September 2004, Brisbane Australia. Rispens, J., Bastiaanse, R., & Van Zonneveld, R. (2001). Negation in agrammatism: A cross-linguistic comparison. Journal of Neurolinguistics, 14, 59–83.