Processing of syntactic dependencies in agrammatism : the role of predictability
The aim of this thesis is to explore the role of Predictability, that is, whether or not a dependency can be identified at an early stage of derivation on the basis of syntactic cues, in the sentence comprehension deficits in agrammatism. To that end, I investigate the comprehension of sentences with scope relations by Greek-speaking patients with agrammatic and non-agrammatic aphasia. Three different structures are investigated, namely sentences with contrastive focus in the object DP, ambiguous doubly quantified sentences and double object constructions with quantified object DPs. More specifically, sentences with contrastive foci provide an appropriate minimal pair to explore the role of Predictability. The reason is that in Greek object contrastive foci can either appear pre-verbally after Aâ-movement, resulting in predictable dependencies, or remain in situ. In situ contrastive foci require covert movement operations in order to be interpreted contrastively, resulting in unpredictable dependencies. My experimental hypothesis is that the agrammatic patients will exhibit a dissociation in processing predictable and unpredictable dependencies, with the former being impaired compared to the latter. To provide
Varkanitsa, Maria
Processing of syntactic dependencies in agrammatism : the role of predictability. The aim of this thesis is to explore the role of Predictability, that is, whether or not a dependency can be identified at an early stage of derivation on the basis of syntactic cues, in the sentence comprehension deficits in agrammatism. To that end, I investigate the comprehension of sentences with scope relations by Greek-speaking patients with agrammatic and non-agrammatic aphasia. Three different structures are investigated, namely sentences with contrastive focus in the object DP, ambiguous doubly quantified sentences and double object constructions with quantified object DPs. More specifically, sentences with contrastive foci provide an appropriate minimal pair to explore the role of Predictability. The reason is that in Greek object contrastive foci can either appear pre-verbally after Aâ-movement, resulting in predictable dependencies, or remain in situ. In situ contrastive foci require covert movement operations in order to be interpreted contrastively, resulting in unpredictable dependencies. My experimental hypothesis is that the agrammatic patients will exhibit a dissociation in processing predictable and unpredictable dependencies, with the former being impaired compared to the latter. To provide
processing syntactic dependency role predictability aim_explore role predictability whether dependency identify early_stage derivation basis syntactic cue sentence comprehension deficit end investigate comprehension sentence scope relation greek_speaking patient non aphasia three_different structure investigate namely sentence contrastive focus object ambiguous quantified sentence double object construction quantify object dps specifically sentence contrastive foci provide_appropriate minimal pair explore_role predictability reason greek object contrastive focus either appear pre movement result predictable dependency remain situ situ contrastive focus require covert movement operation order interpret result unpredictable dependency experimental hypothesis patient exhibit dissociation processing predictable unpredictable dependency former impair compare latter provide