Agrammatic and non-brain-damaged subjects' verb and verb argument structure production

Thompson, Cynthia K.; Lange, Kelly L.; Schneider, Sandra L.; Shapiro, Lewis P.

doi:10.1080/02687039708248485

Cited by 240 publications

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“…However, deficits were observed in verb naming and verb categorization, which required that participants sort verbs by their argument structure properties. 1 In both verb tasks, a hierarchy like that reported by Thompson et al (1995aThompson et al ( , 1997 was found, with verbs requiring more arguments more difficult than verbs requiring fewer. These findings suggested that verb production is influenced by the syntactically relevant argument-taking properties of verbs (Levin & Rappaport-Hovav, 1995).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 52%

“…Results of administration of the Western Aphasia Battery (WAB; Kertesz, 1982), the Northwestern Sentence Comprehension Test (NSCT; Thompson, unpublished), a sentence production priming task, the Northwestern Verb Production Battery (Thompson et al, 1997), and narrative discourse analysis led to a diagnosis of agrammatic aphasia for all subjects. (See Table 1 for results of testing.)…”

Section: Language Testingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…While recent research focused on determining the nature of verb production deficits has shown that several factors may play a role in this production difficulty, including frequency and familiarity (Kemmerer & Tranel, 2000), imageability (Bird, Howard, & Franklin, 2000), and semantic factors (Breedin, Saffran, & Schwartz, 1998), the number of syntactic arguments associated with the verb and corresponding participant roles has been shown to influence verb production in several studies (Jonkers & Bastiaanse, 1996Kegl, 1995;Kemmerer & Tranel, 2000;Kim & Thompson, 2000;Kiss, 2000 Lange, Schneider, & Shapiro, 1997; Thompson, Shapiro, Li, & Schendel, 1995a). For example, Thompson et al (1995aThompson et al ( , 1997 found that agrammatic aphasic subjects with verb retrieval difficulty in both verb naming and in sentence production showed a pattern of verb production deficit in both tasks related to the number of arguments associated with the verb. That is, verb retrieval difficulty increased as the number of arguments increased.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Lange, Schneider, & Shapiro, 1997;Thompson, Shapiro, Li, & Schendel, 1995a). For example, Thompson et al (1995aThompson et al ( , 1997 found that agrammatic aphasic subjects with verb retrieval difficulty in both verb naming and in sentence production showed a pattern of verb production deficit in both tasks related to the number of arguments associated with the verb.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For example, Thompson et al (1995aThompson et al ( , 1997 found that agrammatic aphasic subjects with verb retrieval difficulty in both verb naming and in sentence production showed a pattern of verb production deficit in both tasks related to the number of arguments associated with the verb. That is, verb retrieval difficulty increased as the number of arguments increased.…”

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confidence: 99%

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Unaccusative verb production in agrammatic aphasia: the argument structure complexity hypothesis

Thompson

2003

Journal of Neurolinguistics

151

118

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This study examined patterns of verb production in narrative samples of eight individuals with agrammatic aphasia and seven education-and age-matched normal subjects. Comprehension and constrained production of two types of intransitive verbs-unaccusatives whose argument structure triggers a complex syntactic derivation and unergatives that are considered syntactically simple-was also tested. Results showed that in narrative tasks a hierarchy of verb production difficulty as seen in previous studies [Aphasiology 11 (1997) 473; Brain and Language 74 (2000) 1] emerged for the aphasic participants, with a preference noted for production of verbs with a fewer number of arguments. Both normal and agrammatic subjects also showed fewer productions of unaccusative intransitive verbs in their narrative samples as compared to other verb types (supporting findings reported by Kegl [Brain and Language 50 (1995) 151]. In contrast to relatively spared comprehension of both unaccusative and unergative intransitives, the aphasic participants showed significantly greater difficulty producing unaccusatives as compared to unergatives in the constrained task. These findings suggest that deficits in accessing verbs for production are influenced by the verb's argument structure entry and led to what is referred to as the 'argument structure complexity hypothesis'. When verbs become more complex in terms of the number of associated arguments or when the argument structure entry of the verb does not directly map to its s-structure representation, production difficulty increases. KeywordsVerb production; Unaccusatives; Syntactic deficits; Agrammatism It has been well documented in the literature that some individuals with aphasia, particularly those showing deficit patterns consistent with a diagnosis of Broca's aphasia with agrammatism, evince greater difficulty producing verbs as compared to nouns (Berndt, Mitchum, Haendiges, & Sandson, 1997; Miceli, Silveri, Nocentini, & Caramazza, 1988;Miceli, Silveri, Villa, & Caramazza, 1984; Thompson et al., l995b;Zingeser & Berndt, 1990). While recent research focused on determining the nature of verb production deficits has shown that several factors may play a role in this production difficulty, including frequency and familiarity (Kemmerer & Tranel, 2000), imageability (Bird, Howard, & Franklin, 2000), and semantic factors (Breedin, Saffran, & Schwartz, 1998), the number of syntactic arguments associated with the verb and corresponding participant roles has been shown to influence verb production in several studies (Jonkers & Bastiaanse, 1996Kegl, 1995;Kemmerer & Tranel, 2000;Kim & Thompson, 2000;Kiss, 2000 Lange, Schneider, & Shapiro, 1997; Thompson, Shapiro, Li, & Schendel, 1995a). For example, Thompson et al. (1995aThompson et al. ( , 1997 found that agrammatic aphasic subjects with verb retrieval difficulty in both verb naming and in sentence production showed a pattern of verb production deficit in both tasks related to the number of arguments associated with the verb. That i...

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 52%

Section: Language Testingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Unaccusative verb production in agrammatic aphasia: the argument structure complexity hypothesis

Thompson

2003

Journal of Neurolinguistics

151

118

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Verb Retrieval in Brain-Damaged Subjects: 1. Analysis of Stimulus, Lexical, and Conceptual Factors

2000

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Patterns of Comprehension and Production of Nouns and Verbs in Agrammatism: Implications for Lexical Organization

Kim¹,

Thompson²

2000

Brain and Language

266

152

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This study examined the relationship between verb retrieval and verb-argument-structure properties in seven agrammatic aphasic patients using tasks requiring access to the verb's lexicon for both comprehension-and production like processes. Results showed intact comprehension of both nouns and verbs and noun naming, but impaired naming of verbs. Subjects also demonstrated near-normal performance on a grammaticality judgment task involving verb-argument-structure violations but were impaired in categorizing verbs by type (based on number of obligatory arguments). In both naming and categorization conditions, a hierarchy of verb difficulty emerged. Subjects were more accurate in naming/categorizing one-place verbs than two-place verbs and more accurate in naming/categorizing two-place verbs than three-place verbs. The pattern of selective impairment in lexical access/retrieval supports the hypothesis that one dimension of normal lexical organization is by form class. The results also suggest that no necessary relationship exists between production difficulties and comprehension of nouns/verbs in agrammatism. Further, the performance pattern noted supports the claim that verb-argumentstructure properties, an important component of the verb lexicon, influence verb production at the single-word and at the sentence level. Subjects' performance on different tasks suggests that the locus of breakdown in the verb-retrieval processes for production like tasks may be in accessing information at the lemma level of representation as per Bock's model (1995) of sentence production. Keywordsverb production in aphasia; verb categorization in aphasia; verb argument structure in aphasia; agrammatism; lexical organization in aphasia Comprehension and production of nouns and verbs have been studied in several neurological populations including aphasic patients. Researchers investigating production of nouns and verbs in aphasic patients have reported dissociations between these word classes HHS Public Access Author Manuscript Author ManuscriptAuthor ManuscriptAuthor Manuscript (Berndt, Mitchum, Haendiges, & Sandson, 1997;Miceli, Silveri, Nocentini, & Caramazza, 1988;Miceli, Silveri, Villa, & Caramazza, 1984; Zingeser & Berndt, 1990). Agrammatic aphasic patients show more difficulty naming verbs than nouns, while anomic aphasic subjects show the opposite pattern, suggesting that selective impairment in lexical representation and/or the lexical retrieval process can occur along the form class category. Miceli et al.'s (1988) Italian-speaking agrammatic aphasic subjects also showed such dissociations in comprehension, but this finding has not held up across studies (Berndt et al., 1997); most studies have shown a selective deficit in verb production, with comprehension remaining relatively unimpaired.Similar patterns also have been reported in studies examining sentence processing and production with a focus on verb-argument structure. Data from sentence comprehension studies indicate that agrammatic aphasic subjects show in...

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Agrammatic and non-brain-damaged subjects' verb and verb argument structure production

Cited by 240 publications

References 20 publications

Unaccusative verb production in agrammatic aphasia: the argument structure complexity hypothesis

Unaccusative verb production in agrammatic aphasia: the argument structure complexity hypothesis

Verb Retrieval in Brain-Damaged Subjects: 1. Analysis of Stimulus, Lexical, and Conceptual Factors

Patterns of Comprehension and Production of Nouns and Verbs in Agrammatism: Implications for Lexical Organization

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