Verb retrieval, verb inflection and time reference in ... · PDF fileVerb retrieval, verb inflection and time ... – no difference between Past Tenses of verb ... • Turkish –

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Verb retrieval, verb inflection and time

reference in agrammatic aphasia

Roelien Bastiaanse

and many others

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Verbs are like the sun

“... any unit (...) which is added semantically to a

verb is added simultaneously to the entire

sentence which is built around that verb, in the

same way that anything which happens to the

sun affects the entire solar system. In contrast,

(...) a noun is like a planet whose internal

modifications affect it alone, and not the solar

system as a whole.” (Chafe, 1970, p. 97)

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Topics

1. verbs and verb inflection in Dutch agrammatic spontaneousspeech

2. verb finiteness in agrammatic aphasia

3. a hypothesis

4. Test for Assessing Time Reference (TART)

5. production and comprehension of Time Reference in Chinese, English and Turkish

6. time reference in Swahili – English bilingual agrammatic speakers

7. time reference in comprehension and production in Indonesian

8. verbs and time reference in Indonesian agrammatic spontaneousspeech

9. conclusion

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1. verbs and verb inflection in

agrammatic spontaneous speech

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Agrammatic Broca’s aphasia

• slow and effortful speech

• short sentences with simplified grammar

• mainly content words

– nouns, verbs, adjectives

• free and bound grammatical morphemes are

omitted or substituted

�telegraphic speech

• comprehension relatively intact

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Verbs in agrammatic aphasia

• agrammatic speech (Saffran et al., 1989)

– poor verb production

– poor verb inflection

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Verbs in agrammatic aphasia

• agrammatic speech (Saffran et al., 1989)

– poor verb production

– poor verb inflection

• action naming in agrammatic aphasia (Miceliet al., 1985)

– poor compared to object naming

• hypothesis

– poor verb production in spontaneous speech is due to poor verb retrieval

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Verbs in agrammatic

spontaneous speech (Bastiaanse & Jonkers, 1998)

• spontaneous speech analysis variables

– 300 words

– agrammatic and non-brain-damaged speakers

– number of lexical verbs

– diversity of lexical verbs

– proportion of finite verbs, copulas, modal verbs

and auxiliaries

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Verbs in agrammatic

spontaneous speech

• Results spontaneous speech analysis

– number of lexical verbs = normal

– diversity of lexical verbs


and auxiliaries

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Verbs in agrammatic

spontaneous speech



– diversity of lexical verbs < normal


and auxiliaries

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Verbs in agrammatic

spontaneous speech





and auxiliaries < normal

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Verbs in agrammatic

spontaneous speech





and auxiliaries < normal

• expectation: high and significant correlation

between diversity of lexical verbs and

performance on action naming task

• outcomes: low and non-significant correlation

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Verbs in agrammatic

spontaneous speech

• individual results

– comparisons of ranks for diversity of lexical verbs

and proportion of finite clauses

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Verbs in agrammatic

spontaneous speech

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Verbs in agrammatic

spontaneous speech

Conclusion

•there is a trade off between verb retrieval and

verb inflection

•to retrieve a verb and to inflect it for Tense and

Agreement is too difficult for agrammatic

speakers

•focus on retrieval � poor finiteness

•focus on finiteness � poor retrieval

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Question

• why are finite verbs difficult?

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2. Verb finiteness in

agrammatic aphasia

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Finite verbs

• in English: those verbs that are inflected to

mark Tense, Aspect and Agreement

– he walks

– he walked

– he has walked

– he is walking

– he has been walking

– he is going to walk

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Finite verbs

• why are finite verbs difficult for agrammatic

speakers?

– Tense?

– Aspect?

– Agreement?

– Inflection?

• Friedmann & Grodzinsky, 1997; Wenzlaff &

Clahsen, 2004; 2005

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Finite verbs


speakers?

– Tense?

– Aspect?

– Agreement?

– inflection?

• Stavrakaki & Kouvava, 2003; Nanousi et al.,

2008

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Finite verbs


speakers?

– Tense?

– Aspect?

– Agreement?

– inflection?

• Burchert et al. (2005); Bastiaanse (2008)

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Finite verbs


speakers?

– Tense?

– Aspect?

– Agreement?

– inflection?

• Bastiaanse

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Production of finite and non-finite

verbs(Bastiaanse, 2008)

finite

present tense

today the man writes a letter

past tense

yesterday the man wrote a

letter

non-finite

present continuous

today the man is writing a letter

present perfect

yesterday the man has written as

letter

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Bastiaanse (2008)

finite


+ inflected

+ finite

present

yesterday the man wrote a letter

+ inflected

+ finite

past

non-finite


– inflected (infinitive)

– finite

present

yesterday the man has written a letter

+ inflected

– finite

past

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If Tense is the problem

finite


+ inflected

+ finite

present


+ inflected

+ finite

past

non-finite



– finite

present


+ inflected

– finite

past

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If inflection is the problem

finite


+ inflected

+ finite

present


+ inflected

+ finite

past

non-finite



– finite

present


+ inflected

– finite

past

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However,

finite


+ inflected

+ finite

present


+ inflected

+ finite

past

non-finite



– finite

present


+ inflected

– finite

past

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Back to spontaneous speech

• trade off verb retrieval – verb inflection

• verb retrieval is hampered by the need to

inflect verbs

• this inflectional problem may be a related to

time reference, especially to time reference to

the past

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Support

• Simonsen & Lind (2002)– Norwegian agrammatic speaker

– in spontaneous speech no past tense, only present tense

• Stavrakaki & Kouvava (2003)– 2 Greek agrammatic speakers

– in spontaneous speech problems with perfective and perfect Aspect, whereas imperfect Aspect was intact

• Yarbay Duman & Bastiaanse (2009)– 7 Turkish agrammatic speakers

– past perfect < future imperfect

• Mehri et al. (2010)– 8 Farsi agrammatic speakers

– no difference between Past Tenses of verb

– significant difference between Past Tense in comparison to Present Tense and Future Tense

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Conclusion

• time reference through verb inflection is

impaired in agrammatic speakers

• all finite verbs and periphrastic verb forms

that refer to the past are particularly difficult

to produce

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3. a hypothesis

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Tense and discourse linking

(Zagona, 2004)

• present Tense: simultaneity between

evaluation time (‘speech time’) and event

time

• past Tense: lacks this simultaneity

– need for establishing a relation between speech

time and an earlier event

– this requires ‘discourse linking’

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Discourse linking

• Zagona

– Tense is used for time reference

– present Tense � simultaneity speech time - eventtime

– past Tense � discourse linking

• Bastiaanse

– time reference can be done by grammatical (verb) morphology

– present � simultaneity speech time - event time

– past � discourse linking

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Agrammatic aphasia and Discourse Linking(Avrutin, 2000; 2004)

• reflexives (himself, herself) are locally boundwithin the sentence

the girli is washing herselfi

• personal pronouns (him, her) are discourselinked

the girli is washing herj

• personal pronouns are more difficult to comprehend than bound reflexives

–Grodzinsky et al., Vasic et al.

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Hypothesis

• PAst DIscourse LInking Hypothesis

• PADILIH

• discourse linking is difficult for agrammatic

patients (Avrutin)

• reference to the past through grammatical

morphology is discourse linked (Zagona)

�

• reference to the past is difficult (Bastiaanse)

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Issues to address

• is time reference only impaired when verb

inflection is used?

– or also when time-reference is done through

Aspectual adverbs, as in Chinese?

• is reference to the past selectively impaired?

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4. Test for Assessing

Reference of Time: TART

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Large cross-linguistic project

• > 15 languages involved

• production and comprehension

• agrammatic and fluent aphasia

• ERP and fMRI-study

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TART

• production (and comprehension)

• same items in all languages

• 22 verbs

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Production test

• oral production

• prompting with the requested verb form

• verbs are given to avoid word finding

problems

• a temporal adverb is given (just, now, soon)

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push pull

Here you can say: “now the man is pushing the cart” and

here you can say: “now the man…….”

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Some problems with

cross-linguistic testing

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5. production of Time Reference in

Chinese, English and Turkish

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Group data (n≥10 agrammatic

speakers) from

• Chinese

– time reference through aspectual markers

– no paradigm

• English

– time reference through verb inflection + auxiliaries

– very simple paradigm

• Turkish

– time reference through verb inflection

– very complex paradigm

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Chinese: time reference through

Aspectual adverbs

zhe ge ren du le yi fong sin

the man read [perfect] a letter

‘the man read the letter’

zhe ge ren zai du yi fong sin

the man [progr] read a letter

‘the man is reading a letter’

zhe ge ren yao du yi fong sin

the man [fut] read a letter

‘the man will read a letter’

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Production results for Chinese(Chien-Ju Hsu)

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Data from English

the man read the letter

the man is reading the letter

the man will read the letter

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Production results for English(Lee, Thompson)

*

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Data from Turkish

adam mektup okudu

the man a letter read

‘the man read a letter’

adam mektup okuyor

the man a letter [is reading]


adam mektup okuyacak

the man a letter [will read]


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Production results for Turkish(Bamyaci)

*

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Overall results production

*

*

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Questions

• is time reference also impaired when aspectual

adverbs are used?

YES, very much so

• is reference to the past selectively impaired?

YES, at least for English and Turkish

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Aspectual adverbs

zhe ge ren du le yi fong sin

the man read [perfect] a letter


zhe ge ren zai du yi fong sin

the man [progr] read a letter


zhe ge ren yao du yi fong sin

the man [fut] read a letter


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Aspectual adverbs

zhe ge ren du yi fong sin

the man read a letter








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Conclusion

• in agrammatic production

– reference to past is more impaired than reference

to present and future

• as predicted by the PADILIH

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6. time reference in Swahili – English

bilingual agrammatic speakers

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Swahili

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fK0wPpLryc4

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Bilingual aphasia

• effect of brain damage depends on

– age of acquisition

– proficiency

– degree of usage

– ….

• but usually, when languages are more of less

balanced, the aphasia is similar in both

languages

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English-Swahili bilingual

agrammatic speakers (n=13, Abuom)

• Swahili and English are learned from 4 years

old and both used on daily basis

• Swahili has a very complex verb inflection

paradigm

• time reference is relatively simple

• morphemes are in the middle of the verb

complex

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Swahili

• the verb stem: ‘gonga’

• this stem is not a word

• there is a kind of agreement marking prefix

– for 3rd person sg this is ‘a’

• this is followed by a tense marker

a#li#gonga � (s/he) knocked

a#na#gonga � (s/he) is knocking

a#ta#gonga � (s/he) will knock

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fK0wPpLryc4

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Kenyan TART

push pull

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Kenyan TART

kunja pigac

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English agrammatic production data

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Production bilingual

agrammatic speakersEnglish Swahili

*

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agrammatic speakersEnglish Swahili

* *

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agrammatic speakersEnglish Swahili*

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Conclusion

• reference to the past is impaired in both

languages in bilingual agrammatic speakers

• though least impaired in the morphologically

most complex, but also most regular language

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7. adverbs and time reference in

Indonesian agrammatic aphasia

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Time reference in Indonesian(Harwintha Anjarningsih)

• Indonesian: aspectual adverbs

dia sudah menyetrika baju

she perfektif iron shirt

dia sedang menyetrika baju

she duratif iron shirt

dia akan menyetrika baju

she future iron shirt

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Time reference in Indonesian(Harwintha Anjarningsih)

• aspectual adverbs are grammatical morphemes

• aspectual adverbs are optional

• only used when the time frame is not clear fromthe context

�

• deictic and used for discourse linking – even in the present

�

• the time frames will be equally impaired in agrammatic production

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Indonesian production

• different from rest of the TART to avoid

problems with omission of optional aspectual

adverbs

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menyetrika

dia sudah menyetrika baju dia… [sedang menyetrika baju]

she perfektif iron shirt she… [duratif iron shirt]

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Production aspectual adverbs

Indonesian (n=5)

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Conclusion

• aspectual adverbs are discourse linked

• all time frames are impaired in Indonesian

agrammatic aphasia

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Indonesian

• aspectual adverbs are optional

• lexical adverbs can be used without parallel

verb inflection

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Time reference in Indonesian

• lexical adverbs

baru saja dia menyetrika baju

just she iron shirt

sekarang dia menyetrika baju

now she iron shirt

sebentar lagi dia menyetrika baju

soon she iron shirt

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Time reference through

temporal lexical adverbs

• temporal adverbs are lexical morphemes

• temporal lexical adverbs are optional and

used to link the event to the discourse

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Questions

• is time reference through discourse linking

impaired only when expressed by grammatical

morphology?

– temporal lexical adverbs > aspectual adverbs

or

• is time reference through discourse linking

always impaired?

– temporal adverbs = aspectual adverbs

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menyetrika

baru saja dia menyetrika baju sekarang dia menyetrika baju

just she iron shirt now she iron shirt

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Production aspectual and lexical

adverbs Indonesian

Aspectual adverbs Lexical adverbs

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Correlation Aspectual and

Lexical adverbs

• if this is a central deficit, there should be a

significant correlation between Aspectual and

Lexical adverbs

• R=0.60, p=0.019

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8. verbs in Indonesian

agrammatic spontaneous speech

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Back to the beginning

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Verbs in agrammatic

spontaneous speech

Conclusion


verb inflection

•to retrieve a verb and to inflect it for Tense and

Agreement is too difficult for agrammatic

speakers



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Verbs in agrammatic

spontaneous speech

Conclusion


verb inflection

•to retrieve a verb and to inflect it for Tense

and Agreement is too difficult for agrammatic

speakers



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Verbs in agrammatic

spontaneous speech

Conclusion


verb inflection

•to retrieve a verb and to inflect it for Tense


speakers



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Expectations (1)

• if it is true that the integration of verb

retrieval and Tense inflection is the core of

the problem

�

• no problems in Indonesian

– because it has no verb inflection

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Expectations (2)

• however, if agrammatic speakers have a problem

with the integration of verb retrieval and

expressing the time frame in which the event

takes place

�

• similar trade off problems in Indonesian

– good in verb retrieval � poor in aspectual adverbs

– good in aspectual adverbs � poor in verb retrieval

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Spontaneous speech Indonesian

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Conclusion

• there is a trade off between verb retrieval and

verb inflection

• to retrieve a verb and to inflect it for Tense


speakers

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9. Conclusion

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Conclusion (1)

• there is a trade off between retrieving the name

of an event and expressing the time frame in

which the event takes place

• agrammatic speakers can

1. focus on verb retrieval– poor in tense (and aspect) inflection

– poor in aspectual adverbs

2. focus on time frame– poor in the use of lexical verbs or verbal predicates

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Conclusion (2)

• there is no Tense problem

• there is no Aspect problem

• the problem lies in expressing the time frame in which the event takes place

• reference to the past is particularly vulnerable

• because reference to the past discourse linked

• in languages in which all time frames are discourselinked, all time frames are equally impaired

• this is not only the case for grammatical morphemes

• but also for lexical morphemes used for time reference

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Conclusion (3)

• the time reference problem is highly selective

– only for time reference that is discourse linked

• the time reference problem is a very central

problem

– comprehension and production

– grammatical and lexical morphemes

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Discourse linking

• discourse linking requires computation

• computation requires processing resources

• this is what agrammatic individuals seem to

lack

• this lack of computational resources may be

the cause of the problems with reference to

the past

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Linking of time reference

past present future

*moment of speech

= ?

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Linking of time reference

Indonesian

past present future

*moment of speech

?

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