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Dissociations among functional categories in Korean agrammatism
1Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, Aphasia and Neurolinguistics Research Laboratory, Northwestern University, 2299 North Campus Drive, Evanston, IL 90802-3570, USA. miseon@northwestern.edu
Brain and Language
|February 20, 2003
Summary
Agrammatic aphasia impairs syntactic tree construction, but findings show functional categories like Mood and Tense are selectively affected. This challenges the tree-pruning hypothesis in Korean agrammatism.
Area of Science:
- Linguistics
- Neuroscience
- Psychology
Background:
- Investigating agrammatic aphasia and syntactic processing.
- Examining the tree-pruning hypothesis in language impairment.
- Assessing functional categories (Mood, Tense, Complementizer) in aphasia.
Observation:
- Two experiments tested a Korean agrammatic patient's production and comprehension.
- Dissociations observed within and among functional categories.
- Impairment varied based on linear position within the clause.
Findings:
- Higher syntactic nodes are preserved, while lower nodes are impaired.
- Functional categories exhibit differential impairment.
- Elements nearer to the clause's end are better preserved.
Implications:
- Contradicts predictions of the tree-pruning hypothesis.
- Suggests a positional effect on functional element processing in agrammatism.
- Informs theories of syntactic representation and impairment in aphasia.