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Production of verbs in base position by Dutch
agrammatic speakers: Inflection versus finiteness
Roelien Bastiaanse
Graduate School for Behavioral and Cognitive Neuroscience (BCN), University of Groningen, The Netherlands
Received 24 April 2006; received in revised form 25 July 2006; accepted 26 October 2006
Abstract
Several hypotheses have been formulated to predict the pattern of performance on finite verbs by
agrammatic speakers. The present study is focused on finite and nonfinite verbs in base-position.
Three finite verb forms (third person singular in past and present tense and third person plural in
present tense) and three nonfinite verb forms (infinitives in two different constructions and
participles) were tested.
The main results are that finite verbs are more difficult than nonfinite verbs, but both within the
finite verbs and within the nonfinite verbs, the forms referring to the past (third person singular past
tense and participle respectively) were more difficult than their counterparts referring to the present
(third person singular present tense and infinitives). None of the hypotheses on verb forms can
account for these results. Therefore, we suggest that an additional hypothesis is needed which
expresses that agrammatic speakers have difficulty making reference to the past.
r 2006 Published by Elsevier Ltd.
Keywords: Agrammatism; Broca’s aphasia; Verb inflection
1. Introduction
The production of agrammatic Broca patients is characterized by omission and
substitution of free and bound grammatical morphemes. It has been argued that the bound
morphemes on finite verbs are particularly difficult when they are in the left periphery of
the sentence, which is where finite verbs should move to in order to check their features
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(Bastiaanse, Hugen, Kos, & Zonneveld, 2002; Burchert, Swoboda-Moll, & De Bleser,
2005; Wenzlaff & Clahsen, 2004, 2005). In the next section the theoretically relevant issues
will be discussed.
It has been shown in previous studies of Dutch that finite verbs which ‘move’ to second
position are more difficult to produce than those in their base sentence–final position.
English yes/no questions, in which the auxiliary is has been ‘moved’, are more difficult to
produce than sentences in which is in its base position and sentences in which the finite
lexical verb is in its base position (Bastiaanse & Thompson, 2003). However, production of
sentences in which the finite lexical verb is in base position is not necessarily easy for
agrammatic Broca patients. The present study is focused on the production of finite and
nonfinite verbs in this position.
1.1. Linguistic background
Dutch is an SOV language. The verb is in final position as illustrated in (1).
(1)
de jongen die een boek leest
the boy who a book reads
In matrix clauses, the finite verb moves to second position (see 2). If there is an
auxiliary+participle construction, the auxiliary moves to second position and the
participle remains clause final (see 3).
(2)
de jongen leest een boek
the boy reads a book
(3) de jongen heeft een boek gelezen
the boy has a book read
This is illustrated in Fig. 1. The finite verb or auxiliary in the matrix clause moves to I
( ¼ inflection) to check its features.
In 1989, Pollock suggested that the inflectional node I should be divided into a tense
node (TP) and an agreement node (AgrP). In most languages, the time reference is
expressed by verb inflection. The tense node checks the features for time reference (e.g.
present, past, future) and the agreement node for person and number of the subject.
Basically, separate nodes are assumed for reference to extra-sentential relations (the tense
node) and for intra-sentential relations (the agreement node). Pollock (1989) assumed that
the tense node was above the agreement node, which was later disputed by Chomsky
(1995), among others.
Apart from this ‘overt’ movement to check features, there is also ‘covert’ movement
(Chomsky, 1995). The finite verb then remains in its base position, but the features have to
be checked (see Fig. 2). Because features must be checked, the elements are moved.
However, linguists postulate that this covert movement happens after spell out and,
therefore, it is not phonetically realized. So far, there is no psychological evidence for this
‘covert’ feature checking, but many theories in aphasiology make reference to covert
movement.
For the present study, only verbs that are in base position have been tested. Both finite
verbs that may check their features covertly (third person singular present and past tense,
third person plural present tense) and nonfinite verbs that do not need feature checking
(infinitives and participles) were included.
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Fig. 1. Syntactic tree of a Dutch embedded clause with the finite verb in base position (left) and a matrix clause
with the finite verb moved to second position (right). The t under V in the left tree indicates the trace that is left
behind in the base position of a moved constituent.
Fig. 2. Covert feature checking: the verb remains in base position, but ‘covertly’ checks its features in I.
1.2. Aphasiological background
Numerous studies have demonstrated that agrammatic speakers have problems with
verb inflection (Bastiaanse et al. (2002) for Dutch; Burchert et al. (2005) and Wenzlaff and
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Clahsen (2004, 2005) for German; Friedmann and Grodzinsky (1997) for Hebrew,
Stavrakaki and Kouvava (2003) for Greek. All of these studies suggest that the problems
are rather selective. According to Friedmann and Grodzinsky (1997) tense inflection is
impaired and agreement inflection is intact, resulting in the so-called Tree Pruning
Hypothesis (TPH). German data from Wenzlaff and Clahsen (2004, 2005) support the
TPH view but state that it is not necessarily the hierarchical position of the tense node that
causes the problem. Specifically, Wenzlaff and Clahsen suggest that tense production
problems result from the fact that tense inflection refers to extra-sentential information.
Their hypothesis is known as the Tense Underspecification Hypothesis (TUH).
The TUH, however, was not supported by German data from Burchert et al. (2005). The
performance pattern of their patients was rather diverse: some patients had selective
problems with Tense, others with Agreement. From their findings, Burchert et al.
suggested the Tense and Agreement Underspecification Hypothesis (TAUH). This means
that some patients loose the ability to express the intra-sentential relationship between
subject and finite verb, while others encounter specific deficits with the extra-sentential
relationship between finite verb and time frame. Bastiaanse et al. (2002), Friedmann and
Grodzinsky (1997) and Stavrakaki and Kouvava (2003) present the results of pure
production tasks, whereas both Burchert et al. (2005) and Wenzlaff and Clahsen (2004,
2005) do not test pure production (the focus of their studies is sentence anagram tasks).
Bastiaanse and Van Zonneveld (1998) compared the production of overtly moved finite
verbs to the production of finite verbs and infinitives in base position and found that the
former were more difficult. In a second study (Bastiaanse & Thompson, 2003), the production
of finite verbs in matrix and embedded clauses was tested in Dutch and English. A
discrepancy between the matrix and the embedded clause was found for Dutch (moved finite
verbs are more difficult), but not for English (where finite verbs are always in base position).
Since Dutch patients also have problems with scrambled objects (low in the syntactic tree)
and the problems seem to be similar in production and comprehension, the Derived Order
Problem Hypothesis (DOP-H) was formulated: sentences in which constituents have been
overtly moved are more difficult than sentences in which the constituents are in base position.
The problems with the moved finite verbs in Dutch support each of the mentioned
hypotheses. Only third person singular present tense was tested and this form was never
replaced by the past tense.1 Most errors in Bastiaanse and Van Zonneveld (1998) were
replacements of the target finite verb (third person singular present tense) by the infinitive.
Since this is the same form as the third person plural present tense, it was impossible to tell
whether this was an agreement error or replacement by an infinitive, although we think that
the latter is more plausible considering the large number of infinitives in spontaneous speech.
In order to shed more light on the problems with nonmoved verbs and the four
hypotheses mentioned earlier, the following verbs forms were tested in base position:
(1) Nonfinite
Uninflected
Inflected
Infinitives2 in two different constructions
(Past) participle
1
In Dutch, future tense is not expressed by inflection on the verb.
A Dutch infinitive is usually [stem+en]. However, the infinitive is considered to be the basic form of the verb.
The lemma in the dictionary is the infinitive and the Dutch grammars claim that the infinitive is uninflected
(Algemene Nderlandse Spraakkunst, 1997).
2
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(2) Finite
Tense
Agreement
5
Third person singular present and past
Third person singular and plural present tense
Note that in Dutch, the third person present plural and the infinitive have the same
form, but the latter is (tense,agreement). By testing both, we can find out whether it is
finiteness that is difficult (third person present pluraloinfinitive).
In a previous study (Bastiaanse & Van Zonneveld, 1998) infinitives were compared to
finite verbs. Two types of infinitives were used: (1) pure infinitive: de jongen kan het boek
lezen (lit. the boy can the book read); (2) (aan het+) infinitive: de jongen is een boek aan het
lezen (lit. the boy is the book on the read; ‘the boy is reading the book’). Some
grammarians consider the infinitive in the ‘aan het+infinitive construction to be a noun,
because of the use of het: ‘the’ (Zwart, p.c.). The reason to include both constructions was
to be sure that the previous findings were not blurred by two different kinds of infinitives.
This is why the infinitive in the first condition is called the ‘pure infinitive’: all grammarians
seem to agree that this is an infinitive.
The past participle was included for two reasons. The first was that a participle is inflected,
but it is not finite. In this way, it can be evaluated whether the problems with verb inflection
are due to the finiteness as such, or to inflection as such. The second reason was that past
participles, as the name shows, whether or not in combination with an auxiliary, refer to the
past, just like past tense (Palmer, 1987). In this way, the past participle (from now on
‘participle’) can be seen as the past counterpart of the (modal +) infinitive. The participle is
not inflected for tense (but the auxiliary is, usually it is present tense), but it does refer to the
past, both when it is used as a verb (wat heb je gisteren gedaan? geschreven (lit. what have you
yesterday done? written) and when it is used as an adjective (het geschreven boek: lit. the
written book), the latter indicating that the writing has been done). The infinitive or the
present participle in Dutch is used to refer to the present in similar constructions (wat doe je
op het ogenblik? lezen: lit. what are you doing? readinf; de schrijvende man: lit the writing
man), the latter indicating that the man is doing the writing now.
Hence, two constructions that refer to the past were tested: past tense and (auxiliary+)
participle. In Dutch, the past tense is used to refer to a time before the here and now;
(auxiliariy+) participle refers to a time before a certain reference point (Algemene
Nederlandse Spraakkunst, 1997). The difference is that the past tense is finite (inflected for
tense and agreement) and the Dutch participle is nonfinite. In Table 1, the tested verb
forms are specified for finiteness, inflection and reference to the past.
According to the TPH and the TUH, more tense errors than agreement errors will be
made. The Tense and Agreement Underspecification predicts that some patients will
produce more tense errors, other more agreement errors. The DOP-H has nothing to say
about these verbs in base position, since the sentences are not in derived order.
Interestingly, the first three hypotheses mention only the left periphery of the syntactic
tree. The TPH even states that the problems are restricted to this location (although it has
been shown that movement low in the syntactic tree is also difficult for agrammatic
speakers: Bastiaanse, Koekkoek, & Zonneveld, 2003). None of the other hypotheses makes
an explicit prediction for the participles. Since they are not in the left periphery or moved,
nor inflected for tense and agreement, production should be intact according to these
theories.
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Table 1
Tested verb form for inflection, finiteness and reference to the past
Verb form
Inflection
Finiteness
Ref. to past
Infinitive 1
Infinitive 2
Participle
+
+
Third person singular present
Third person plural present
Third person singular past
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
In summary, both the TPH and the TUH predict tense errors on the finite verbs
(assuming that these forms check their features covertly), whereas the other verb forms
should be spared. The TAUH predicts tense and agreement errors, whereas the infinitives
and participles will cause less difficulty. The DOP-H does not make any predictions
relevant for the present study, since only overt movement is considered relevant.
2. Methods
2.1. Subjects
Prior to the study with the agrammatic speakers, 10 nonbrain-damaged persons were
tested. Except for some responses that differed from the target lexically, no errors were
made. Since the error analysis of the aphasic data focused on inflectional errors and lexical
errors were ignored, the test was considered suitable for aphasic speakers.
Ten agrammatic speakers, diagnosed as having Broca’s aphasia according to the
ALLOC-scores of the Dutch Aachen Aphasia Test (Graetz, De Bleser, & Willmes, 1991),
were included. All produced so-called telegraphic speech and had relatively good
comprehension. None of the patients suffered from verbal apraxia at a level that it might
have influenced the results. Hardly any literal paraphasias were made and those that were
produced did not involve the verb inflection.
All of the agrammatic patients had aphasia due to a single stroke in the left frontal area,
except for one patient who experienced a stroke in the left posterior area. Eight patients
were right handed, two left handed. The mean age was 53.2 years, ranging from 40 to 60
years. The time post-onset was longer than 1 year for all but one patient. The individual
data are given in Appendix A.
2.2. Materials
Thirty action verbs were selected for use in this study (see Appendix B). All of the verbs
have been used successfully in previous studies to elicit the target verb. Half of these verbs
were transitive, half intransitive. Sentences were formed with these verbs and printed under
the picture, but the verb was left out and replaced by six dots. In case of an intransitive
verb, an adjunct was added so the sentences were equal in length. For the past tense items,
a temporal adjunct was added (‘‘yesterday’’, ‘‘last month’’, etc.) to all sentences. Two
examples are given in Fig. 3.
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Fig. 3. Covert examples of the test. One item of the infinitives (left) and one item of the third person present plural
(right).
The six verb forms tested included infinitives in two different constructions and
participles (all three nonfinite), third person singular present tense, third person plural
present tense and third person singular past tense3 (all three finite). The order of the 180
items (30 verbs, 6 verb forms) was pseudo-randomized, so that there were always at least
two items between the same verb. All items were presented on a separate page.
From this set of stimuli, the following comparisons could be made:
finite and nonfinite verbs
inflected (participles) and noninflected (infinitives) nonfinite verbs
forms that are similar in finite and nonfinite verbs (infinitive ¼ third person plural)
tense and agreement
finite verbs in past and present tense
finite and nonfinite past and present
2.3. Procedure
The picture with the sentence was presented to the patient. The patients were instructed
in the following way: ‘‘I will show you a picture with a sentence underneath. In this
sentence, the last word is missing. It is a verb. You should read the sentence aloud and fill
in the missing word. We will start with some examples’’. Six examples were given, one for
each verb form. If the patient made an error on these items, s/he was corrected. The
examples were repeated until it was clear that the task was fully understood. After the
examples, no more feedback was given. If the patient could not read (which was the case
for the majority of the patients), the sentence was read aloud by the examiner, with an
intonation that clearly indicated that the sentence was not yet finished.
3
Half of the transitive and half of the intransitive verbs had a weak, the others had a strong past tense and
participle. A first analysis showed that there was no difference in performance of the agrammatic speakers. These
results will be discussed in a separate paper.
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2.4. Scoring
Since the study focused on verb inflection, lexical semantic errors and mild phonological
errors that did not concern the inflection itself were counted as correct. As long as the verb
fitted into the sentence with respect to argument structure, only inflection was taken into
account. For example, if the picture showed a boy writing a book and the patient produced
the correct form of the verb to read, the answer was counted as correct. If the verb did not
fit into the sentence, but the inflection was correct, the answer was counted as verbal
paraphasia. All other errors (multiple errors, no reactions and neologism) were taken
together as other errors.
3. Results
The results of the group agrammatic speakers are given in Table 2 and graphically
represented in Fig. 4. The individual scores are given in Appendix C. Two groups of
comparisons were made: (1) finiteness versus inflection; (2) agreement versus tense. Since
the scores were not normally distributed, Wilcoxon signed ranks tests were used for
statistical testing.
For one patient (patient 5), no data were available for the participle. Since in his dialect
the participle might be pronounced in the same way as the past tense, one could not
determine if he made an error. Therefore, we did not include his score on the participles.
3.1. Error analysis
The results of the error analysis are given in Table 3. The individual results are given in
Appendix D. The majority of errors concerned inflection: 59%. A relatively small number of
verbal paraphasias was produced (9%). Many other errors were made (32%), most of them
multiple errors (49% of the ‘‘other errors’’) and nil reactions (18.4% of the ‘‘other errors’’).
3.2. Finiteness versus inflection
Three comparisons were made: (1) the finite verb forms (third person singular present
and past tense and third person plural present tense) were compared to the nonfinite forms
Table 2
Mean scores and ranges of the agrammatic speakers (n ¼ 10, for participles n ¼ 9)
Verb form
Mean
Range
Infinitive 1
Infinitive 2
Participle
26.4
25.7
19.2
12–30
12–30
0–29
Third person singular present
Third person plural present
Third person singular past
16.9
20.0
11.7
7–25
11–27
0–24
The first three forms are nonfinite, the rest finite.
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9
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
infinitive 1
infinitive 2
participle
3rd pl
3rd sg pres
3rd sg past
Fig. 4. Graphical representation of the mean scores on the six different verb forms.
Table 3
Mean numbers, ranges and percentages of inflectional errors, verbal paraphasias and other errors
Inflectional errors
Verbal paraphasias
Other errors
Mean (range)
Percentage
34.9 (7–29)
5.3 (0–23)
19.0 (17–130)
59.0
9.0
32.0
(the two kinds of infinitives and the participle); (2) within the nonfinite verbs, the
infinitives4 were compared to the participles; (3) the third person present plural was
compared to the infinitive (both have the same form, but the infinitive is nonfinite, the
third person present singular is finite). The results were:
(1) The finite verbs forms were significantly more difficult than the nonfinite (z ¼ 2.66,
p ¼ 0.01).5
(2) The infinitives were significantly easier than the participles (z ¼ 2.49, p ¼ 0.01).
(3) The infinitives were significantly easier than the third person present plural, although
both items have the same form (z ¼ 2.80, p ¼ 0.01).
4
There was no difference in performance of the agrammatic speakers between the two infinitives. In all cases
when the infinitives were compared to another verb form, the scores on the pure infinitives were used.
5
If the third person plural is not included in this analysis, as suggested by one of the reviewers, the statistics
remain exactly the same.
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From these results, it can be concluded that (1) finite verbs are more difficult than
nonfinite verbs, even when they have the same form; (2) the participle is more difficult than
the infinitive, even though both are nonfinite.
3.3. Tense versus agreement
Three comparisons were made: (1) tense versus agreement6 errors; (2) present tense
versus past tense; (3) verb forms for reference to the present (third person singular present
tense and infinitive) versus verb forms for reference to the past (third person singular past
tense and participle). The individual data are given in Appendices C and D.
(1) There is no difference between the number of tense and agreement errors (z ¼ 0.35,
p ¼ 0.72: Appendix D).
(2) Past tense is more difficult than present tense (z ¼ 1.99, p ¼ 0.04: Appendix D).
(3) Reference to the past is more difficult than reference to the present: past tense and
participle are more difficult than present tense and infinitive (z ¼ 1.96, p ¼ 0.05;
Appendix C).
3.4. Conclusions
The conclusions from these results are that there is no difference between tense and
agreement errors. The data also show that the participle is more difficult than the infinitive
(both nonfinite) and that past tense is more difficult than present tense (both finite). When
the finite and nonfinite present forms (third person singular present and infinitive) are
taken together and compared to the finite and nonfinite past forms (third person singular
past and participle), reference to the past turns out to be prone to more errors than
reference to the present.
4. Discussion
The main results were that (1) finite verbs are more difficult than nonfinite; (2) there is no
difference between tense and agreement errors; (3) participles are more difficult than
infinitives; (4) past tense is more difficult than present tense; (5) reference to the past is
more difficult than to the present. First points (1) and (2) will be discussed in the light of
the hypotheses mentioned in the introduction. Then we will go into the findings of present
and past.
4.1. Finiteness, tense and agreement
The finding that finite verb forms are more difficult than nonfinite verbs as such is not
surprising. However, it does rule out a morphological explanation for problems for verb
inflection. If only morphology were the problem agrammatic speakers would have similar
6
For agreement errors, only substitution of third person plural by third person singular was included. When
agreement errors are made with the third person singular, it is impossible to say whether this is substitution by the
third person plural or by an infinitive, since they have the same form. By including only agreement errors of the
third person plural, the analysis was as conservative as possible.
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(or no) problems with the third person plural and the infinitive, that both have the same
form. The three hypotheses that focus on tense and agreement (the TPH, TUH and the
TAUH) all predict that finite verbs are difficult. The TPH and TUH predict that more
errors with tense will be made than with agreement, the TAUH predicts that patients will
make tense and/or agreement errors.
In Fig. 5 the individual scores are represented for tense and agreement errors. This
shows that five patients make more tense than agreement errors, four patients have the
opposite pattern and one patient makes an equal number of tense and agreement errors.
This is in line with Burchert et al.’s TAUH.
The TUH and TAUH are based on findings in German, which is, like Dutch, an SOV
language with Verb Second. Wenzlaff and Clahsen (2005) took verbs in base position into
account and thus accepted the concept of covert movement, i.e. checking the features in
tense and agreement without overt movement. They predict a particular problem with
tense, which is not found in the present study. Burchert et al. (2005) only tested moved
verbs. The present data are in line with their findings, but only if one accepts covert feature
checking.
The DOP-H does not make predictions about the tested verb forms, as it only predicts
that overtly moved verbs are difficult. However, the findings for English led us to this
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
1
2
3
4
5
Agreement
6
7
8
9
10
Tense
Fig. 5. Tense and agreement errors in the individual agrammatic speakers. The number of agreement errors has
been multiplied by 2, since only substitutions of the third person plural by the third person singular has been taken
into account (max. 30 errors), whereas both substitutions of past by present and present by past tense were
counted (maximum 60 errors).
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present study, since the verbs in base position were better than those that were moved, but
performance of agrammatic speakers was not faultless. It turns out that verbs in base
position are difficult, but not only finite verbs: participles are more impaired than
infinitives as well. The other three hypotheses (TPH, TUH and TAUH) predict that
participles should not be impaired because they are not in the left periphery. In other
words, they are not inflected for tense and agreement, nor do they check their features in
the left periphery. Even if one assumes that participles have to check features, this happens
relatively low in the tree under AgrO. We would therefore like to opt for another theory.
4.2. Past versus present
If the problems with finite verbs reflect a general tense problem, as suggested by the TPH
(because tense is high in the tree), and the TUH (because tense refers to extra-sentential
information), then one expects a correlation between past and present tense. In other
words, one should expect that patients who are relatively good in present tense will be
relatively good in past tense and vice versa. It turns out that there is a low and
nonsignificant correlation between present and past tense (R ¼ 0.38, p ¼ 0.2788). This
suggests that tense, as such, is not the problem. The data do not only show that past tense
is more difficult than present tense, but also demonstrate that participles are more difficult
than infinitives. This suggests selective problems with reference to the past. If this is true,
then there should be a significant correlation between past tense and participle. The
correlation between past tense and participles is high and significant (R ¼ 0.87,
p ¼ 0.0045), implying that patients who are poor in past tense are also poor on participles
and vice versa. We interpret these findings as reference to the past being difficult for
agrammatic speakers.
Friedmann and Grodzinsky (1997) and Friedmann (2000) do not give data on errors in
past versus present tense. Neither Wenzlaff and Clahsen (2004, 2005), nor Burchert et al.
(2005) found differences between past and present tense. However, their tasks did not tap
into production: the patients saw a sentence in which the finite verb was left out and they
had to choose the correct verb form from three alternatives, whereas the patients in our
study had to produce the correct verb form based on a picture and an incomplete sentence.
Stavrakaki and Kouvava (2003) analyzed spontaneous speech and also found that past
was more difficult than present. They interpret this as a problem with marked forms. The
question then is: why is past tense more marked than present tense?
An alternative explanation is that agrammatic speakers have problems in expressing the
notion past by verb inflection on both finite verbs and participles. Finite verbs in Dutch are
inflected for agreement and tense. Agreement expresses an intra-sentential relationship
with the subject, tense expresses an extrasentential relation to a time frame. It seems as
though the latter is more difficult, especially when the tense inflection does not refer to the
here and now, but to the past. Some patients are more impaired in agreement, some in
tense and some in both, suggesting that both intra- and extrasentential reference are
difficult. However, extrasentential reference to the past is more difficult than
extrasentential reference to the present, not only for finite but also for nonfinite verbs:
participles are more difficult than infinitives.
In summary, we think that it is not so much the notion tense, but the notion past that is
difficult for agrammatic speakers. This means that none of the above-mentioned
hypotheses fits the present findings, since none of them predicts the problems with
Please cite this article as: Bastiaanse, R. Production of verbs in base position by Dutch agrammatic speakers:
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13
participles. We do not think that the problems with reference to the past and the earlier
findings that overtly moved verbs are more difficult than verbs in base position can be
captured under one hypothesis. One hypothesis for overt movement is needed to describe
the problems with overtly moved verbs and object scrambling (Bastiaanse et al., 2003).
These findings are covered by the DOP-H. A second theory is needed for the problems with
reference to the past. We do not know yet whether it is reference to the past expressed by
verb inflection or reference to the past in general that is the problem. It may be that
representations of events in the past are semantically more complex, possibly because there
are two time periods of relevance. For the past tense in Dutch these are the here and now
and a time before the here and now, for the past participle these are the here and now and a
time before a certain reference point. It might also be the case that it is not so much
reference to the past as such that is difficult for agrammatic speakers, but to express this
reference with verb inflection. In other words, the agrammatic speakers can refer to the
past, for example by using phrases such as ‘yesterday’, but they cannot express the
corresponding inflectional ending of the verb. In order to find that out, we are currently
conducting a study on Indonesian Bahasa, a language that has no tense inflection and in
which the past is referred to by adverbs. If it is just reference to the past that is difficult,
then the Bahasa agrammatic speakers will encounter difficulties with the adverbs used for
reference to the past. If it is expressing reference to the past through verb inflection, then
these patients should not have problems using the adverbs.
Finally, it can be concluded that there is a hierarchy in the production of verb forms,
infinitives in base position being easiest, moved finite verbs being most difficult:
K Infinitives base position
J movement, agreement, past
K Participle in base position
J movement, agreement, +past
K Present finite in base position
J movement, +agreement, past
K Past finite in base position
J movement,+agreement, +past
K Moved finite verbs
J +movement, +agreement7
Acknowledgment
The author wishes to thank Elze Ruizenveld de Winter, Annerieke Stienstra–Sikkema
and Katie Clark for their help in preparing the materials and comments on an earlier
version of this paper.
7
So far, only present tense was used for testing moved finite verbs and finite verbs in base position. Of course, it
is expected that moved finite verbs in past tense will be more difficult than those in present tense.
Please cite this article as: Bastiaanse, R. Production of verbs in base position by Dutch agrammatic speakers:
Inflection versus.... Journal of Neurolinguistics, (2007), doi:10.1016/j.jneuroling.2006.10.006
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14
Appendix A
Individual data are given in Table A1.
Table A1
Gender, age and months post-onset, etiology and handedness of the individual patients
B1
B2
B3
B4
B5
B6
B7
B8
B9
B10
Gender
Age
Months post-onset
Etiology
Male
Male
Male
Male
Male
Female
Male
Female
Male
Male
45
55
60
58
58
69
40
47
46
54
412
412
412
412
412
9
412
412
412
412
CVA
CVA
CVA
CVA
CVA
CVA
CVA
CVA
CVA
CVA
left
left
left
left
left
left
left
left
left
left
Handedness
frontal
frontal
frontal
frontal
posterior
frontal-temporal
frontal
frontal
frontal
frontal
Right
Left
Right
Right
Left
Right
Right
Right
Right
Right
Appendix B
Thirty action verbs selected for use in this study are given in Table B1.
Table B1
The 30 verbs that were used in the test
(1)
(2)
(3)
(4)
(5)
(6)
(7)
(8)
(9)
(10)
(11)
(12)
(13)
(14)
(15)
(16)
(17)
(18)
(19)
(20)
(21)
(22)
(23)
(24)
(25)
Bijten
Blazen
Drinken
Duiken
Duwen
Fietsen
Filmen
Gooien
Graven
Klimmen
Koken
Kussen
Lezen
Lopen
Maaien
Melken
Naaien
Poetsen
Rennen
Roeien
Roken
Schommelen
Schrijven
Slapen
Strijken
To
To
To
To
To
To
To
To
To
To
To
To
To
To
To
To
To
To
To
To
To
To
To
To
To
bite
blow
drink
dive
push
cycle
film
throw
dig
climb
cook
kiss
read
walk
mow
milk
sew
polish
run
row
smoke
swing
write
sleep
iron
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Table B1 (continued )
(26)
(27)
(28)
(29)
(30)
Vangen
Wassen
Zagen
Zitten
Zwemmen
To
To
To
To
To
catch
wash
saw
sit
swim
Appendix C
Individual scores are given in Table C1.
Table C1
Individual scores on the test
Non-finite verb
B1
B2
B3
B4
B5
B6
B7
B8
B9
B10
Finite verb
Infinitive1
Infinitive2
Participle
Third sg present
Third pl present
Third sg past
28
30
30
29
29
25
12
26
26
29
28
28
30
29
28
26
12
26
20
30
26
29
26
27
*
26
6
8
0
25
19
25
11
22
20
16
7
17
16
16
27
27
22
18
26
17
11
20
17
15
15
24
24
17
12
7
2
1
0
15
*Participles were not included for this patient, see text.
Appendix D
Individual error patterns are given in Table D1.
Table D1
Individual error patterns
Overall number of errors
B1
B2
B3
B4
B5
B6
B7
B8
B9
B10
Inflectional errors
Verbal paraphasias
Other errors
29
7
18
23
28
28
43
48
79
46
4
2
4
5
1
6
23
4
4
0
4
10
15
10
6
29
64
30
18
4
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16
Table D1 (Continued)
Errors on tense and agreement
B1
B2
B3
B4
B5
B6
B7
B8
B9
B10
Agreement (max. ¼ 10)
(third plural present-third
singular present)
Tense (max ¼ 20) (third
singular present2third
singular past)
Present-past
(max. ¼ 10)
Past-present
(max. ¼ 10)
6
0
0
2
5
1
8
6
11
1
5
5
9
12
6
15
3
12
10
11
2
5
9
9
4
5
2
1
0
9.
3
0
0
3
2
10
1
11
10
2
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