Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel.
Cortex. 2012 Oct;48(9):1103-27. doi: 10.1016/j.cortex.2011.05.024. Epub 2011 Jun 14.
This study explored lexical-syntactic information - syntactic information that is stored in the lexicon - and its relation to syntactic and lexical impairments in aphasia. We focused on two types of lexical-syntactic information: predicate argument structure (PAS) of verbs (the number and types of arguments the verb selects) and grammatical gender of nouns. The participants were 17 Hebrew-speaking individuals with aphasia who had a syntactic deficit (agrammatism) or a lexical retrieval deficit (anomia) located at the semantic lexicon, the phonological output lexicon, or the phonological output buffer. After testing the participants' syntactic and lexical retrieval abilities and establishing the functional loci of their deficits, we assessed their PAS and grammatical gender knowledge. This assessment included sentence completion, sentence production, sentence repetition, and grammaticality judgment tasks. The participants' performance on these tests yielded several important dissociations. Three agrammatic participants had impaired syntax but unimpaired PAS knowledge. Three agrammatic participants had impaired syntax but unimpaired grammatical gender knowledge. This indicates that lexical-syntactic information is represented separately from syntax, and can be spared even when syntax at the sentence level, such as embedding and movement are impaired. All 5 individuals with phonological output buffer impairment and all 3 individuals with phonological output lexicon impairment had preserved lexical-syntactic knowledge. These selective impairments indicate that lexical-syntactic information is represented at a lexical stage prior to the phonological lexicon and the phonological buffer. Three participants with impaired PAS (aPASia) and impaired grammatical gender who showed intact lexical-semantic knowledge indicate that the lexical-syntactic information is represented separately from the semantic lexicon. This led us to conclude that lexical-syntactic information is stored in a separate syntactic lexicon. A double dissociation between PAS and grammatical gender impairments indicated that different types of lexical-syntactic information are represented separately in this syntactic lexicon.
本研究探索了词汇-句法信息——存储在词汇中的句法信息——及其与失语症中的句法和词汇损伤的关系。我们关注两种类型的词汇-句法信息：动词的谓语-论元结构（PAS）（动词选择的论元的数量和类型）和名词的语法性别。参与者是 17 名希伯来语失语症患者，他们有句法缺陷（语法障碍）或词汇检索缺陷（命名障碍），位于语义词汇、语音输出词汇或语音输出缓冲区。在测试参与者的句法和词汇检索能力并确定其缺陷的功能位置后，我们评估了他们的 PAS 和语法性别知识。这种评估包括句子完成、句子生成、句子重复和语法判断任务。参与者在这些测试中的表现产生了几个重要的分离。三名语法障碍患者的句法受损，但 PAS 知识未受损。三名语法障碍患者的句法受损，但语法性别知识未受损。这表明词汇-句法信息与句法分开表示，即使在句子层面的句法，如嵌入和移动受损时，也可以保留。所有 5 名语音输出缓冲区损伤的个体和所有 3 名语音输出词汇损伤的个体都保留了词汇-句法知识。这些选择性损伤表明词汇-句法信息在语音词汇和语音缓冲区之前的词汇阶段表示。三名 PAS 受损（aPASia）和语法性别受损但词汇语义知识完好的参与者表明词汇-句法信息与语义词汇分开表示。这使我们得出结论，词汇-句法信息存储在一个单独的句法词汇中。PAS 和语法性别损伤之间的双重分离表明，不同类型的词汇-句法信息在这个句法词汇中分别表示。
