a Center for Mind/Brain Sciences , University of Trento , Rovereto , Italy.
Cogn Neuropsychol. 2014;31(1-2):26-39. doi: 10.1080/02643294.2013.860024. Epub 2013 Dec 7.
Most compound words are constituted of a head constituent (e.g., light in moonlight) and a modifier constituent (e.g., moon in moonlight); the information transmitted by these head-modifier roles is fundamental for defining the grammatical and semantic properties of the compound and for identifying a correct combination of the constituents at the conceptual level. The objective of this study is to assess how lexical processing in aphasia is influenced by the head-modifier structure of nominal compounds. A picture-naming task of 35 compounds with head-initial (pescespada, swordfish, literally fishsword) and head-final (autostrada, highway, literally carroad) forms was administered to 45 Italian aphasic patients, and their accuracy in retrieving constituents was analysed with a mixed-effects logistic regression. The interaction between headedness and constituent position was significant: The modifier emerged as being more difficult to retrieve than the head, but only for head-final compounds. The results are consistent with previous data from priming experiments on healthy subjects and provide convincing evidence that compound headedness is represented at central processing levels.
大多数复合词由一个头成分（如 moonlight 中的 light）和一个修饰成分（如 moonlight 中的 moon）构成；这些头修饰成分所传递的信息对于定义复合词的语法和语义属性以及在概念层面上识别成分的正确组合至关重要。本研究旨在评估命名性失语症患者的词汇处理受名词复合词的头-修饰结构影响的程度。我们对 45 名意大利语失语症患者进行了一项包含 35 个复合词的图片命名任务，这些复合词的形式包括头位起始（pescespada，剑鱼，字面意思是 fishsword）和头位结束（autostrada，高速公路，字面意思是 carroad），并使用混合效应逻辑回归分析了他们在检索成分时的准确性。有头和无头之间的交互作用是显著的：修饰语比头更难被检索出来，但这种情况仅出现在头位结束的复合词中。这些结果与之前关于健康受试者的启动实验数据一致，为复合词的头位在中枢处理水平上的表示提供了令人信服的证据。
