Burchert Frank, Meissner Nadine, De Bleser Ria
University of Potsdam, Neurolinguistics Department, PF 60 15 53, 14415 Potsdam, Germany.
Brain Lang. 2008 Feb;104(2):170-9. doi: 10.1016/j.bandl.2007.06.004. Epub 2007 Aug 8.
The study reported here compares two linguistically informed hypotheses on agrammatic sentence production, the TPH [Friedmann, N., & Grodzinsky, Y. (1997). Tense and agreement in agrammatic production: Pruning the syntactic tree. Brain and Language, 56, 397-425.] and the DOP [Bastiaanse, R., & van Zonneveld, R. (2005). Sentence production with verbs of alternating transitivity in agrammatic Broca's aphasia. Journal of Neurolinguistics, 18, 59-66]. To explain impaired production of non-canonical sentences in agrammatism, the TPH basically relies on deleted or pruned clause structure positions in the left periphery, whereas the DOP appeals to limitations in the application of movement rules. Certain non-canonical sentences such as object-questions and object-relative clauses require the availability of nodes in the left periphery as well as movement to these nodes. In languages with relatively fixed word order such as English, the relevant test cases generally involve a coincidence of left periphery and movement, such that the predictions of the TPH and the DOP are identical although for different reasons. In languages with relatively free word order such as German, on the other hand, it is possible to devise specific tests of the different predictions due to the availability of scrambling. Scrambled object sentences, for example, do not involve the left periphery but do require application of movement in a domain below the left periphery. A study was conducted with German agrammatic subjects which elicited canonical sentences without object movement and non-canonical scrambled sentences with object movement. The results show that agrammatic speakers have a particular problem with the production of scrambled sentences. Further evidence reported in the study from spontaneous speech, elicitation of object relatives, questions and passives and with different agrammatic subjects confirms that non-canonical sentences are generally harder to produce for agrammatics. These findings provide evidence in favor of the DOP and it will be argued that a cross-modal explanation of agrammatic deficits is possible if two factors--movement and canonicity--are taken into consideration.
本文所报告的研究比较了关于语法缺失句子生成的两种基于语言学的假设，即TPH[弗里德曼，N.，&格罗茨尼希，Y.（1997年）。语法缺失生成中的时态和一致性：修剪句法树。《大脑与语言》，56，397 - 425]和DOP[巴斯蒂安斯，R.，&范宗内维尔德，R.（2005年）。语法缺失的布罗卡失语症患者中及物动词交替的句子生成。《神经语言学杂志》，18，59 - 66]。为了解释语法缺失中非常规句子生成受损的情况，TPH基本上依赖于左边缘删除或修剪的从句结构位置，而DOP则诉诸于移动规则应用的限制。某些非常规句子，如宾语疑问句和宾语关系从句，需要左边缘节点的可用性以及向这些节点的移动。在像英语这样词序相对固定的语言中，相关测试用例通常涉及左边缘和移动的重合，以至于TPH和DOP的预测虽然原因不同但却是相同的。另一方面，在像德语这样词序相对自由 的语言中，由于存在语序错乱现象，有可能设计针对不同预测的特定测试。例如，语序错乱的宾语句子不涉及左边缘，但确实需要在左边缘以下的区域应用移动。对德语语法缺失受试者进行了一项研究，该研究引出了没有宾语移动的常规句子和有宾语移动 的非常规语序错乱句子。结果表明，语法缺失的说话者在生成语序错乱句子方面存在特殊问题。该研究中从自发言语、宾语关系从句的引出、疑问句和被动句以及不同的语法缺失受试者那里报告的进一步证据证实，对于语法缺失者来说，非常规句子通常更难生成。这些发现为DOP提供了证据，并且有人认为，如果考虑移动和常规性这两个因素，对语法缺失缺陷进行跨模态解释是可能的。
