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Research report
The representation of lexical-syntactic information: Evidence
from syntactic and lexical retrieval impairments in aphasia
Michal Biran a,b and Naama Friedmann a,*
a
b
Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel
Loewenstein Hospital Rehabilitation Center, Ra’anana, Israel
article info
abstract
Article history:
This study explored lexical-syntactic information e syntactic information that is stored in
Received 6 June 2008
the lexicon e and its relation to syntactic and lexical impairments in aphasia. We focused
Reviewed 24 October 2008
on two types of lexical-syntactic information: predicate argument structure (PAS) of verbs
Revised 9 February 2011
(the number and types of arguments the verb selects) and grammatical gender of nouns.
Accepted 26 May 2011
The participants were 17 Hebrew-speaking individuals with aphasia who had a syntactic
Action editor Roberto Cubelli
deficit (agrammatism) or a lexical retrieval deficit (anomia) located at the semantic lexicon,
Published online 14 June 2011
the phonological output lexicon, or the phonological output buffer. After testing the
participants’ syntactic and lexical retrieval abilities and establishing the functional loci of
Keywords:
their deficits, we assessed their PAS and grammatical gender knowledge. This assessment
Aphasia
included sentence completion, sentence production, sentence repetition, and grammati-
Predicate argument structure (PAS)
cality judgment tasks. The participants’ performance on these tests yielded several
Grammatical gender
important dissociations. Three agrammatic participants had impaired syntax but unim-
Hebrew
paired PAS knowledge. Three agrammatic participants had impaired syntax but unim-
Syntactic lexicon
paired 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.
ª 2011 Elsevier Srl. All rights reserved.
* Corresponding author. Language and Brain Lab, School of Education, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv 69978, Israel.
E-mail address: [email protected] (N. Friedmann).
0010-9452/$ e see front matter ª 2011 Elsevier Srl. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cortex.2011.05.024
1104
1.
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Introduction
Sentence construction and lexical retrieval of single words
are two different processes, but there are close relations
between them. One interface between them is the lexicalsyntactic information e syntactic information that is stored in
the lexicon. This lexical information dictates the syntactic
environment in which a word can be inserted. Viewed
differently, this information about words, and especially
about verbs, creates the syntactic structure of the sentence.
For example, the argument structure of a verb and its
subcategorization are lexical properties that determine which
arguments and phrases can and should occur with the verb.
Similarly in the noun domain, the grammatical gender of
a noun is a lexical property that determines in many
languages the inflection of various constituents in the sentence that agree with the noun.
The lexicon includes (only) idiosyncratic properties of
lexical items, that is, everything that does not stem from
general principles of Universal Grammar or of a specific
language (Chomsky, 1995). For example, the fact that verbs in
certain languages are followed by their complements (I ate
pasta and not I pasta ate) is a general property of those
languages (head-first languages) and therefore not part of the
lexical knowledge about each verb. In contrast, the set of
complements that can follow a particular verb is an idiosyncratic property of that verb, hence part of the verb’s lexical
entry. Similarly, a particular noun’s grammatical gender is an
idiosyncratic property and therefore has to be listed in its
lexical entry.
In this study, we explored the relations between singleword retrieval and sentence construction by looking at
this interface between them, the lexical-syntactic information. More specifically, we asked two main questions about
this relation: one was whether lexical-syntactic information
is independent of sentence structure building beyond the
verb phrase, by testing whether lexical-syntactic information can be preserved when syntax is impaired in agrammatism; the other question was where in the lexical
retrieval process is lexical-syntactic information stored.
This question was explored via the assessment of lexicalsyntactic information of individuals with impairments at
various stages of lexical retrieval. The basic rationale was
that if an individual has a selective impairment located at
a certain stage of the lexical retrieval process, then the
status of lexical-syntactic information would be indicative
as to the location of this information e if it is unimpaired,
then the impaired stage is not where the lexical-syntactic
information is stored. We focused on two types of
lexical-syntactic information: predicate argument structure
(PAS) of verbs, and grammatical gender of nouns.
Another question that we asked was whether each of these
types of lexical-syntactic information are stored together, or
whether they are stored separately, in which case one
type of information can be selectively impaired, while the
other type remains intact. Below we briefly describe
several approaches to what lexical-syntactic information
includes and where it is stored in the lexical retrieval
process.
1.1.
Types of lexical-syntactic information
1.1.1.
Predicate argument structure
The lexicon includes several types of information about
arguments and complements of verbs: PAS, thematic grid, and
subcategorization.
A verb’s PAS specifies the number of arguments it takes.
Different verbs require different numbers of arguments,
depending on the number of entities that can participate in an
event described by the verb (see examples 1ae1c). Adding or
omitting an argument creates an ungrammatical sentence.
The verb sneeze, for example, can take only one argument, the
sneezer; hence, adding a second argument leads to an
ungrammatical sentence (e.g., *Danny sneezed Dana, where the
asterisk marks ungrammaticality). The verb push, on the other
hand, requires two arguments (someone who pushes and
someone or something that is being pushed); here, omitting
one argument causes ungrammaticality (e.g., *Danny pushed ).
In the notation of PAS (example 1), the first argument (x) is an
external argument that relates to the subject of the sentence
(Danny in these sentences), and y and z are the verb’s
complements. The common assumption is that PAS information is part of the representation of the verb in the lexicon
(e.g., Levelt, 1989, 1992; Shapiro, 1997, 2000; Shapiro et al.,
1987), as it is an idiosyncratic property of the verb
(Haegeman, 1994).
(1) a. one argument: sneeze (x)
b. two arguments: push (x,y)
c. three arguments: give (x,y,z)
Danny sneezed
Danny pushed the car
Danny gave a book to Dana
Different arguments also have different semantic roles in
relation to the verb. This fact is encoded in a verb’s thematic
grid e that is, the thematic roles assigned to the arguments
associated with the verb. Thematic roles (also known as theta
roles or q-roles) are the roles played by the participants in an
event. Very generally, they describe “who did what to whom”
in the sentence. The main thematic roles include agent (the
entity that performs the action or brings about some change),
theme (the entity that the action is performed upon), and goal
(the entity that is the target of transfer or motion) (Chomsky,
1986; Grimshaw, 1979, 2006; Pesetsky, 1991; Shapiro et al.,
1987, 1989). For example, in sentence (1c) Danny is assigned
the agent role, book the theme role, and Dana the goal.
Another characterization that is taken to be part of each
verb’s lexical entry is its subcategorization frame, which specifies the number and syntactic types of phrases that can
complement a verb (Chomsky, 1965; Friederici, 1995;
Grimshaw, 1979). That is, subcategorization stipulates the
syntactic environments associated with verbs (and nouns)
and hence constrains the verbs to well-formed environments.
Unlike PAS and thematic grid, subcategorization relates solely
to the complements of the verb (the phrases that follow the
verb in the basic word order in languages like Hebrew and
English) and does not include the subject (Haegeman, 1994;
Shapiro, 2000). For example, the verb push can only take
a noun phrase (NP) as its complement, as illustrated in
example (2a), and the verb depend can only take a prepositional
phrase (PP), as illustrated in (2b). The verb give takes NP and PP
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as its complements (2c). Besides noun phrases and prepositional phrases, verbs can take sentences as their complements. For example, the verb hear in sentence (2d) takes
a sentence (CP) as its complement.
(2) a. push [NP]
b. depend [PP]
c. give [NP] [PP]
d. hear [CP]
a book]
Danny pushed [NP the dancer]
Danny depends [PP on the spell checker]
Danny gave [NP the book] [PP to the dancer]
Danny heard [CP that Dana is writing
Thus, subcategorization differentiates among types of
verbs. Verbs differ both with respect to the type of subcategorization they select and with respect to the number of
subcategorization options they allow. Whereas push and
depend have only one subcategorization option, discover has
two subcategorization options. It can take either an NP or a CP
as its complement, as shown in example (3).
(3) a. Esther discovered [NP the story]
b. Esther discovered [CP that the story is real]
In addition to the various types of arguments, a sentence
can include adjuncts e phrases that are not arguments of the
verb, but are rather optional phrases that add information,
usually about the time, place, or manner of action. For
example, the bracketed phrases in the sentence Anne wrote
a book [in a charming apartment] [last year] are adjuncts. Unlike
arguments, adjuncts do not contribute to the verb’s thematic
roles, are not part of its lexical representation, and can be
omitted without violating the grammaticality of a sentence in
which they occur (Shapiro et al., 1993).
In sum, the lexical representation of a verb includes
knowledge about its arguments: the number of arguments it
takes (its PAS); the thematic role of each argument, describing
“who did what to whom” in the sentence; and its subcategorization frame, which specifies the syntactic types of phrases
that can complement the verb.
1.1.1.1. THE
PSYCHOLINGUISTICS OF PREDICATE ARGUMENT STRUCTURE.
The complexity of a verb’s PAS and its subcategorization
frame has been shown to affect access to its lexical entry in
responseetime studies as well as in brain imaging techniques
(Shapiro et al., 1987, 1989, 1991, 1993; Shapiro and Levine,
1990; Shetreet et al., 2007, 2009a, 2009b, 2010a). Shapiro and
his colleagues found that access to argument structure of
verbs is exhaustive, and hence, accessing verbs with more
argument structure options induces longer reaction times in
a secondary task. This was found for individuals without
language impairment, and, crucially, also for individuals with
Broca’s aphasia. Shapiro and his colleagues found that individuals with Broca’s aphasia, who have a syntactic deficit at
the sentence level, have intact PAS knowledge, as indicated by
their showing the same effect of verb complexity as healthy
adults. In contrast, individuals with Wernicke’s aphasia were
found to have impaired PAS knowledge; they do not exhibit
the normal PAS complexity effect in lexical access (Shapiro
and Levine, 1990). These results are further supported by
results from imaging studies. Shetreet et al. (2007, 2010a)
found brain areas that are more active when hearing a verb
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with more complementation options (subcategorization
options). Furthermore, whereas syntactic operations like Whmovement are often found to activate Broca’s area (BenShachar et al., 2004; Grodzinsky, 2000; Shetreet et al., 2010b.
But see Wartenburger et al., 2003 who failed to find specific
activation to syntactic operations in Broca’s area), information
about argument structure activates other brain areas, specifically Wernicke’s area (Shetreet et al., 2007, 2009a, 2009b,
2010a). These behavioral and imaging findings indicate
a possible dissociation between syntactic processing and
lexical-syntactic information. Results from grammaticality
judgment of PAS knowledge (more specifically, subcategorization knowledge) in agrammatic aphasia reach similar
conclusions. Linebarger et al. (1983) found that their 4
agrammatic participants performed well on judgment of
subcategorization violations, indicating that the agrammatic
participants, although impaired in syntax, had preserved
subcategorization knowledge.
Studies that examined the production of verbs with
various PAS frames in agrammatism (Broca’s aphasia) (Kim
and Thompson, 2000; Thompson et al., 1997a) report that
individuals with agrammatism performed better in producing
verbs with one obligatory argument than in producing verbs
with two or three obligatory arguments (and produced verbs
with two arguments better than verbs with three). They were
better able to name verbs with two arguments (two-place
verbs) than verbs with three arguments (three-place verbs). In
addition, there was an effect of the number of argument
structures a verb has: verbs with one argument structure were
produced better than verbs with several optional argument
structures. However, these studies required an oral response,
which might have been affected by the participants’ word
retrieval deficits and by their deficit in producing embedded
sentences (sentences with a CP argument), as some of the
verbs used in these studies had CP complements. (We will
return to this point in the Discussion.)
A deficit in PAS knowledge has been reported for individuals
with Wernicke’s aphasia. Edwards (2002) tested PAS knowledge
in three individuals with Wernicke’s aphasia using a picture
description task, and reports omission of obligatory arguments
and incorrect thematic role assignment in production.
The picture emerging from imaging studies and aphasia
research thus converge to suggest that Wernicke’s area, but
not Broca’s area, is responsible for PAS knowledge, and hence
individuals with agrammatism may have intact PAS knowledge whereas individuals with a damage in Wernicke’s area
show PAS impairment (aPASia). We do not know how individuals with various types of anomia process PAS. In the
current study, we tested the knowledge of individuals with
agrammatic aphasia and various types of anomia about the
arguments of verbs, including their number and their
syntactic and thematic properties. We refer below to all of
these properties using the general term PAS.
1.1.2.
Grammatical gender
In some languages, nouns are marked for grammatical
gender. Unlike conceptual (natural) gender of animate nouns
(such as mother and father), for which gender assignment is
transparent and related to biological gender, the grammatical
gender of inanimate nouns (masculine, feminine, or neuter) is
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determined arbitrarily, without any relation to their meaning.
That is, grammatical gender is an arbitrary idiosyncratic
lexical-syntactic property of the noun, distinct from its
semantic properties. There are two sources of evidence for the
arbitrariness of grammatical gender. One type of evidence
comes from synonyms that refer to the same entity and carry
different genders. For example, in Hebrew the moon has three
names, two of them masculine ( yare’ax, sahar) and one
feminine (levana). The second source of evidence comes from
words in different languages that refer to the same entity and
carry different genders. For example, the word for ‘house’ is
masculine in Hebrew and Arabic (bayit, bayt), feminine in
Italian and Spanish (casa), and neutral in German (Haus). In
some languages, grammatical gender is assigned primarily on
the basis of the form of the noun, such as its morphological
suffix. For example, in Spanish most nouns ending in -o are
masculine, and most nouns ending in -a are feminine.
In many languages, the grammatical gender of the noun
enters syntactic agreement relations with other elements in
the phrase or sentence. In noun phrases, agreement occurs
between the head noun and a determiner, an adjective, and so
on. In sentences, agreement occurs between the subject (and
in some languages also the object) and the predicate (a verb,
a copula, or an adjectival predicate) or between a noun phrase
(NP) and a pronoun that refers to it.
Hebrew, the language tested in the current study, has two
genders for both animate and inanimate nouns: masculine
and feminine. Most feminine nouns are marked with a suffix
(-a, -et, or -it), and most masculine nouns are morphologically
unmarked. Irregular nouns exist in both genders e that is,
feminine nouns without a suffix and masculine nouns with
a suffix. Verbs, adjectives, and pronouns inflect for gender and
agree with the noun they are syntactically connected to. An
adjective almost invariably follows the noun it modifies, and
the main verb usually follows the noun in subject position.
The definite article (ha-, the Hebrew word meaning ‘the’),
which precedes the noun, is not inflected for gender.
1.1.2.1. THE PSYCHOLINGUISTICS OF GRAMMATICAL GENDER. Some
studies that tested agreement between the head of the subject
NP and an adjective in healthy individuals found that participants made fewer errors of agreement when the gender of the
subject was not only grammatical but also could be determined conceptually e that is, when the subject was animate
(Deutsch et al., 1999 for Hebrew; Vigliocco and Franck, 1999 for
Italian and French; Vigliocco and Zilli, 1999 for Italian). These
findings suggest that conceptual information contributes to
gender agreement accuracy. In the current study, we
compared purely grammatical gender information, which is
encoded at the lexical-syntactic level, and conceptual gender,
which can be determined by drawing on semantic properties
of the word, to examine whether conceptual gender information of animate, and specifically, human nouns can be
spared when grammatical gender information of inanimate
nouns is impaired in people with aphasia.
Another path of studies examined the relation between
grammatical gender and lexical retrieval. Studies in various
languages (e.g., Italian, French, Spanish, and German) examined
the knowledge speakers have about the grammatical gender of
words they fail to retrieve, both in tip-of-the-tongue (TOT) states
of individuals without a language deficit and for individuals
with anomia. The findings from both populations indicated that
the speakers had information about the gender of the word even
when they did not have phonological information about it (for
TOT states, see Caramazza and Miozzo, 1997; Miozzo and
Caramazza, 1997; Vigliocco et al., 1997; for results from
anomia, see Avila et al., 2001; Badecker et al., 1995; Costa et al.,
1999; Henaff Gonon et al., 1989; Kulke and Blanken, 2001).
Namely, these participants had preserved lexical-syntactic
information e grammatical gender knowledge e although
they had incomplete or deficient phonological information. Can
this result indicate where lexical-syntactic information is
stored? Specifically, does it indicate that gender information is
stored separately from the phonological output lexicon? To
conclude on the basis of these findings that lexical-syntactic
information is not stored in the phonological output lexicon, it
is necessary to prove that the locus of these participants’ deficit
was actually the phonological lexicon and not a later, postlexical, stage of phonological processing, such as the phonological output buffer (a post-lexical phonological stage that
assembles the information retrieved from the lexicon, and/or
buffers it.) A deficit at the phonological lexicon is explicitly
mentioned only for the anomic participants reported by Avila
et al. (2001), Henaff Gonon et al. (1989), and for the patient
described by Badecker et al. (1995) and Miozzo and Caramazza
(1997).
Imaging studies are yet another source of evidence
regarding the storage of grammatical gender information and
its separation from phonological information. The metaanalysis performed by Indefrey and Levelt (2004) suggested
that the middle section of the left middle temporal gyrus is
related to the selection of an entry from the semantic lexicon
(lemma, which includes grammatical gender information),
whereas word-form (lexeme) retrieval is related to other areas,
including the left anterior insula and the posterior sections of
the superior and middle temporal gyri of the left hemisphere. In
an MEG study (Levelt et al., 1998), different time windows were
found in a naming task for lemma selection (150e275 msec)
and for phonological encoding (275e400 msec). Similar results
were found by van Turennout et al. (1998) in an ERP study.
In the current study, we compared the ability to access
lexical-syntactic information of individuals with impairment
in one of the levels of the lexical retrieval process e semantic
lexicon, phonological output lexicon, or phonological output
buffer.
1.2.
Where is the lexical-syntactic information stored?
Models of lexical retrieval describe the intact word production
process and the possible loci of deficits that cause word
retrieval difficulties (see Fig. 1). These models suggest that the
first stage of this process is the formation of a conceptual
representation, which is still not formulated in words. This
representation then activates a lexical-semantic representation
in the semantic lexicon, a lexicon that is organized semantically and contains information about the meaning of words,
for example, about the semantic category, function, color, and
size of the items the words refer to. The selected semantic
representation activates the lexical-phonological representation
in the phonological output lexicon: the representation of the
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Fig. 1 e Stages in lexical retrieval.
spoken form of the word, which includes metrical information
(number of syllables and stress pattern) and segmental
information (the phonemes of the word e consonants and
vowels and their relative position). This activation is in turn
transferred to the phonological output buffer, a post-lexical stage
in which the word is assembled from its metrical frame and
segments, and which is responsible for morphological
composition (Dotan and Friedmann, 2007, 2010; Kohn and
Melvold, 2000). This buffer also holds the phonological
representation until the word is produced (e.g., Biran and
Friedmann, 2005; Butterworth, 1989, 1992; Dell, 1986, 1988;
Garrett, 1976, 1992; Kempen and Huijbers, 1983; Levelt, 1989,
1992; Nickels, 1997; Patterson and Shewell, 1987). Two separate phonological buffers exist e an input phonological buffer
and an output phonological buffer (Franklin et al., 2002; Gvion
and Friedmann, 2008; Shallice et al., 2000; Shallice and
Warrington, 1977). In the current study we discuss only the
phonological output buffer.
Some researchers refer to lemma as the lexical
representation in the semantic lexicon which includes the
word’s lexical-syntactic information,1 and to lexeme as the
lexical representation in the phonological output lexicon.
Therefore, it is well-accepted that the lexical-syntactic and
phonological information are stored separately (Caramazza,
1
As lexical retrieval theories developed, the term lemma split
into two: lemma had narrowed to refer to syntactic representation, and the semantic representation was called lexical concept.
Although Levelt et al. (1999) note that this modification in terms
does not signify a modification in the theory, it obviously has
implications for predictions about which selective impairments
are possible as a result of deficits in different levels of lexical
processing e specifically, whether a lexical-semantic deficit is
possible without a lexical-syntactic impairment and vice versa.
1107
1997; Garrett, 1976; Levelt et al., 1998; Roelofs, 1992, but see
Caramazza and Hillis (1991) on grammatical category in the
phonological lexicon). However, the relation between the
lexical-syntactic and the lexical-semantic information is
controversial. Some researchers claim that the lemma includes
a word’s semantic representation as well as its syntactic
representation (Kempen and Hoenkamp, 1987; Kempen and
Huijbers, 1983; Levelt, 1989, 1992). Other researchers assume
that the lemma contains only the lexical-syntactic representation, separately from the lexical-semantic representation
(Bock and Levelt, 1994; Levelt et al., 1998; Roelofs, 1992).
As for the relation between lexical-syntactic information
and phonological information, whereas most researchers
agree that they are represented separately, there are various
theories about the way information flows between them. Some
researchers assume a serial model according to which phonological information is accessible only after lexical-syntactic
information has been accessed (Roelofs et al., 1998). This
model was called “Syntactic Mediation” by Caramazza (1997).
According to this model, a person who has access to the lemma
but not to the lexeme has information about the syntactic
properties of the word, even though s/he cannot retrieve it, or
retrieves it with a phonological error due to missing phonological information. According to other approaches, the
semantic representations activate the lexical-syntactic representations and the lexical-phonological representations in
parallel (Caramazza, 1997; Caramazza and Miozzo, 1997). This
model, entitled “Independent Network”, predicts a double
dissociation: access to lexical-syntactic information with
a deficit in accessing phonological information, and access to
phonological information with a deficit in accessing lexicalsyntactic information.
Thus, there are several approaches to the representation of
lexical-syntactic information. In this study, we will explore
where this information is represented by examining individuals with anomia who have deficits in various stages of lexical
retrieval.
1.3.
How lexical-syntactic information interacts with
syntax
According to Levelt et al. (1998, 1999), when the syntactic
representation in the lexicon (which they term lemma) is
retrieved, its syntax becomes accessible for forming
a syntactic environment that is appropriate for the word. For
instance, the lexical-syntactic information includes the
word’s grammatical category e whether it is, say, a noun or
a verb. This in turn determines the type of phrase the word is
the head of: a noun will project a noun phrase, and a verb,
a verb phrase. When the lexical-syntactic representation of
a noun is accessed, its grammatical gender becomes available,
and the gender in turn determines the inflection of sentential
components that agree with the noun, such as the determiner
or the verb. Within linguistic theory, similar notions exist to
explain gender agreement with a noun. For example, according to Chomsky (1995), the gender of a noun is retrieved as part
of the numeration (the list of items retrieved from the lexicon
before the structure is built), and then either the agreement
features of the elements that agree with the noun enter the
numeration or, when the noun moves to an agreement
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c o r t e x 4 8 ( 2 0 1 2 ) 1 1 0 3 e1 1 2 7
phrase, syntactic operations create the agreement of the
agreeing elements. Another possibility Chomsky mentions is
that the words that agree with the noun reach the phonological component uninflected and the inflection is added at the
phonological interface. (See Dotan and Friedmann, 2007, 2010
and Kohn and Melvold, 2000 for similar suggestions that
morphological processes take place at the phonological
output buffer.)
A similar process occurs at the interface between argument structure information in the lexicon and structure
building. The syntactic component builds a syntactic structure from the numeration. Syntax operates on the selected
elements and the lexical-syntactic information they bear, so
that the arguments that appear in the lexical entry of the verb
as required by the verb determine the syntactic structure of
the verb phrase. For example, if the verb retrieved does not
require a complement (like sneeze), then the syntactic structure of the verb phrase includes only the verb, without
a complement. If, however, the verb retrieved requires two
complements (like give), the verb phrase will include the verb
and two complements.
How does lexical-syntactic information relate to the
syntactic tree? In the syntactic tree, the VP forms the lowest
layer of the syntactic tree, the lexical layer (Chomsky, 1986,
1995; Pollock, 1989; Rizzi, 1997). The layers above VP consist
of functional nodes: the inflectional layer, which is responsible for the inflection of verbs for tense and agreement (this
layer includes the tense phrase, TP, and, according to some
accounts, an agreement phrase, AgrP, which represents
agreement between the subject and the verb); and the
complementizer CP-layer, which is responsible for embedded
sentences, Wh-questions, and other elements that undergo
Wh-movement, and also for the verb when it moves to second
position in the sentence, in sentences with verb movement.
Thus, lexical-syntactic information about the PAS of the
verb determines the verb phrase level. According to some
accounts for agrammatism, individuals with agrammatism
have deficits beyond the VP level e in the higher, functional
nodes of the syntactic tree (Friedmann, 1999, 2001, 2005, 2006;
Friedmann and Grodzinsky, 1997), and in sentences that
involve syntactic movement (Grodzinsky, 1989; Grodzinsky
et al., 1999). Are individuals who show impairment to these
higher nodes also necessarily impaired in the ability to
represent lexical-syntactic information and use it to build the
VP? For this aim we will assess PAS knowledge of individuals
with agrammatism who have impairments in sentences that
involve Wh-movement, verb movement, tense inflection, and
embedding, and see whether they may demonstrate intact
PAS knowledge.
The lexical-syntactic information about the gender of the
noun determines the inflection of elements within the NP, but
also of elements in the inflectional layer, such as the agreement inflection of the verb. One question we will ask would
be, like in the case of PAS, whether individuals with agrammatism who have deficits in the higher syntactic layers, are
also necessarily impaired in the ability to represent lexicalsyntactic information with respect to grammatical gender.
We will further ask whether it is possible to distinguish
between impairments of grammatical gender knowledge
which lead to incorrect inflection also at the inflectional level,
and syntactic impairments at the inflectional level. For this
aim we will compare grammatical gender, which is stored as
part of the lexical-syntactic knowledge, with conceptual
gender, which is also encoded in the conceptual system and
the semantic lexicon. A selective deficit at the lexicalsyntactic knowledge of grammatical gender is expected to
affect inflections at the inflectional layer for inanimate nouns,
but not for animate nouns. Individuals with impaired access
to lexical-syntactic knowledge may still be able to access the
natural gender of animate nouns and hence may still be able
to use correct inflection at the inflectional layer. On the other
hand, individuals whose impaired gender inflection results
from a syntactic deficit in the inflectional layer are expected to
show similar impairment for grammatical and natural gender.
Therefore, the aims of the current study are to examine
whether lexical-syntactic information (PAS and grammatical
gender) can be intact when syntax beyond the verb phrase
level is impaired. We will also test the specific relation
between incorrect inflection that results from lexicalsyntactic impairment and impaired inflection as a result of
impaired syntactic mechanism; A further research aim, as we
detailed above, is to find where lexical-syntactic information
is stored in the lexical retrieval process. This will be tested by
assessing lexical-syntactic information in individuals with
impairments at different stages of lexical retrieval. The
rationale is that if there are individuals with anomia who are
impaired in a certain lexical retrieval stage but have intact
lexical-syntactic information, this would indicate that lexicalsyntactic information is not stored in that impaired lexical
stage. A systematic exploration of all stages may then lead to
a conclusion as to where lexical-syntactic information is
stored. The last research question relates to whether different
types of lexical-syntactic information, PAS of verbs and
grammatical gender of nouns, can be selectively impaired. If
they can, this would suggest that they are stored separately.
To explore these questions we first diagnosed the functional locus of deficit of each participant. We assessed
whether it is a syntactic impairment or an impairment in
lexical retrieval, and if the impairment was in lexical retrieval,
we diagnosed which of the lexical retrieval stages is impaired,
using an extensive battery of syntactic and lexical tests and
analyses (detailed in Appendix B). Then, we administered two
test batteries that examined the PAS and gender information
of each of the participants, and compared the lexical-syntactic
performance of individuals who are impaired in different
components of syntax and lexical retrieval.
2.
Participants
2.1.
Individuals with aphasia
Seventeen individuals with aphasia, 11 men and 6 women,
participated in the study. Sixteen participants had a lesion in
the left hemisphere, and one (AE) had a lesion in the right
hemisphere. The participants’ mean age was 51 years (range
23e73 years). Sixteen participants were native speakers of
Hebrew, and one (RT) has spoken Hebrew for 44 years. Their
mean number of years of education was 13 (range 8e19 years).
Thirteen participants were right-handed, three were left-
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c o r t e x 4 8 ( 2 0 1 2 ) 1 1 0 3 e1 1 2 7
handed, and one was ambidextrous. Fifteen participants had
aphasia following stroke, and two (RA, AL) had a traumatic
brain injury. Mean time post onset was 33 months (range 1
month to 13 years). See Appendix A for detailed background
information on the participants.
Because we were interested in the relation between lexicalsyntactic information and syntactic and lexical impairments,
we included in the study participants who had a syntactic deficit
(agrammatism) or a lexical retrieval deficit. We selected the 17
participants for the experiment on the basis of an initial diagnosis of lexical and/or syntactic problems (using the ILAT,
Shechther, 1965, and the BAFLA, Friedmann, 1998). Ten participants showed lexical processing impairments, 4 participants
had agrammatic aphasia, and 3 participants had a mixed
syntactic and phonological impairment. We then administered
an extensive battery of tests to establish and characterize the
participants’ impairments and to identify the functional locus of
each participant’s syntactic and lexical retrieval deficits. These
tests are described in Appendix B. In Sections 2.1.1 and 2.1.2, and
in Section 3 which evaluates the lexical-syntactic performance
of the participants we present results for the individuals who
had a selective deficit in syntax or lexical retrieval. We then
present separately, in Section 4.1, the three participants with
mixed syntactic and phonological impairment.
The tests were administered to each participant individually in a quiet room at the rehabilitation center, in our
Language and Brain Lab at the university, or at their homes.
Testing was performed over 5e10 sessions per participant;
each session lasted between one and two hours, depending on
the participant’s ability. All of the sessions were recorded and
then transcribed by two independent judges. The reliability
between the judges was very high for all tests.
2.1.1.
and object relative clauses, and subject and object Whquestions. The production tasks were embedded-sentence
repetition, relative clause elicitation, repetition of sentences
with verb movement, and tense inflection completion (See
Appendix B1 for a detailed description of these tests used to
assess the syntactic impairment). Only participants who performed poorly on both comprehension and production in
these tests, showing a clearly agrammatic pattern in both
comprehension and production were included in the agrammatic group.
The four participants who were diagnosed with agrammatism showed a clear agrammatic pattern in comprehension and production. They showed impaired comprehension of
the non-canonical structures e object relatives and object
questions (at least which-object questions), on which they
performed at chance, and better comprehension of subject
relatives and subject questions, which can be comprehended
on the basis of the canonical order of arguments. None of
them could produce embedded sentences in the repetition task
(or in spontaneous speech), or relative clauses in the elicitation and repetition tasks. All three participants who were
tested on production of verb movement to the second
sentential position showed poor repetition of sentences with
verb movement, and much better repetition of sentences
without movement (as can also be seen in their good repetition of simple sentences in the PAS sentence repetition task,
see Table 3 below). Three of the participants displayed
impairment in tense inflection as well (RA, who was impaired
in tense in earlier studies [Friedmann, 2001, 2006], improved
and performed relatively well on tasks involving tense in the
current testing period). See Table 1 for a summary of the 4
participants’ performance on the syntactic tests.
Testing for inclusion in the syntactic impairment group
Four participants presented the characteristic agrammatic
pattern in speech production: non-fluent speech, use of
simple sentences, ungrammatical utterances, tense inflection
errors, and impaired production of embedded clauses, relative
clauses, and Wh-questions.
To make sure that they indeed had agrammatism and could
be safely included in this study, and to determine the layer of
the syntactic tree at which they are impaired, we tested these 4
individuals with a line of structured syntactic tasks of sentence comprehension and production from the BAFLA
syntactic battery (Friedmann, 1998). In comprehension, we
included individuals who failed to understand non-canonical
semantically reversible object relatives and object Wh-questions.2 For this aim, we tested their comprehension of subject
Table 1 e Performance of the agrammatic participants in
the syntactic tasks (% correct).
RA
RT
AE
GR
Relative clause comprehension
Subject relative
Object relative
83
57c
97
40c
96
55c
100
55c
Wh-question comprehension
Who subject
Who object
Which subject
Which object
97
57c
63c
53c
70c
40c
65c
15
95
70c
90
70c
100
45c
85
50c
Embedded-sentence repetition
12
20
0
25
30
9
Verb movement repetition
2
Indeed, some studies reported individuals with agrammatism
who demonstrated other comprehension patterns (Berndt and
Caramazza, 1980; Berndt, et al., 1996; Caplan, 1985; Caplan and
Futter, 1986; Schwartz, et al., 1987). However, because we were
mainly interested in identifying individuals who were clearly
agrammatic in order to ask the research questions regardng
lexical-syntactic information in individuals with agrammatism,
we only included individuals who we could be sure are agrammatic. We therefore selected for this study individuals with
impaired comprehension of non-canonical reversible sentences
and relatively good comprehension of canonical sentences, in
addition to agrammatic speech production.
a
Relative clause elicitation
Subject relative
Object relative
23
8
0
0
12
0
50
0
Verb inflection e tense completionb
88
42
50
50
The repetition tests were not administered to RT.
a Percentage correct repetition of the sentences with verb
movement.
b The sentences in the test were simple sentences without verb
movement.
c Performance at chance level on the comprehension tasks.
1110
2.1.2.
group
c o r t e x 4 8 ( 2 0 1 2 ) 1 1 0 3 e1 1 2 7
Testing for inclusion in the lexical retrieval impairment
The lexical impairment group included 10 individuals who had
a marked lexical retrieval deficit. Their impairment was
initially established on the basis of poor performance (under
70% correct) on the SHEMESH naming test (naming 100 pictures
of objects, Biran and Friedmann, 2004). These individuals were
later given conceptual, semantic, and phonological tests in
order to determine the locus of their impairment within the
lexical retrieval process. These tests included: picture naming,
picture association, word association, semantic and phonological verbal fluency, synonym judgment, spoken/written
word-picture matching, word and nonword repetition, and
nonword reading. See Appendix B2 for a detailed description of
the tests used to assess their lexical retrieval impairment.
Because we were interested in lexical deficits, rather than
general conceptual deficits, we included only participants
without a conceptual deficit. To identify a conceptual deficit, we
administered a picture association test, and analyzed the error
types in the SHEMESH naming test, looking for paraphasias
that were semantically and phonologically unrelated to the
target word (e.g., cherry-glasses). We only included in the study
individuals with good performance in the picture association
test and without unrelated paraphasias in naming.
A lexical-semantic deficit was diagnosed by the existence of
semantic paraphasias in naming (errors that are semantically
related to the target word; e.g., pineapple-coconut) and difficulty
in various lexical-semantic tasks: semantic verbal fluency,3
synonym judgment, word association test, and spoken/
written word-picture matching.
A phonological deficit, at the phonological output lexicon or
the phonological output buffer, was diagnosed by the existence phonological paraphasias (errors that are phonologically related to the target word, e.g., trumpet-trumlet) in
naming (for phonological lexicon impairment, typically
alongside semantic paraphasias), and difficulty in a phonological verbal fluency task.
Given a phonological deficit, to distinguish between a deficit
at the phonological output lexicon and a deficit at the phonological
buffer we also tested nonword repetition and nonword reading.
The distinction was made on the basis of the following criteria.
A frequency effect in naming was taken to indicate a deficit at
the phonological output lexicon (Jescheniak and Levelt, 1994).
Several factors indicated a phonological buffer deficit: a length
effect (Franklin et al., 2002; Nickels and Howard, 2004) and
a syllable frequency effect (Laganaro, 2005), as well as impaired
nonword reading and nonword repetition. A limited working
memory span was also taken to support a phonological buffer
deficit (Gvion and Friedmann, 2008; Shallice et al., 2000;
Shallice and Warrington, 1977). A criterion we used to point
to a phonological buffer impairment without a phonological
3
In this regard, we must note that verbal fluency tasks are
problematic to interpret, because many factors can lead to poor
performance. Individuals with a phonological deficit would be
expected to perform poorly on both semantic and phonological
fluency tasks, and it is unclear whether individuals with
a semantic deficit can directly access the phonological output
lexicon. Thus, although these tasks indicate a naming deficit,
they are not a very good tool for distinguishing among possible
sources of this deficit.
lexicon impairment was the type of approximation produced.
We considered faithful approximations (those that include
only phonemes of the target word) to characterize a late
phonological output impairment with correct input from the
phonological lexicon (Dotan and Friedmann, 2007, 2010).
Furthermore, semantic errors should be scarce in phonological
output buffer impairments and more frequent in a phonological output lexicon impairment.
The results of these tests are presented in Table 2. In the
analysis of errors in the naming task, semantic errors include
semantic paraphasias; Phonological errors include phonemic
paraphasias and formal paraphasias; The unrelated errors
include paraphasias that are semantically and phonologically
unrelated to the target and neologisms; Hesitations, “don’t
know” responses, perseverations, and visual errors were counted as part of the total number of errors (and are thus reflected in
the Table in the naming score). We considered an effect to exist if
a significant Point Biserial correlation ( p < .05) was found
between success in producing each word or syllable, and the
tested measure. The frequency effect was calculated for word
frequency as judged by 75 Hebrew speakers on a scale of 1e7.
The length effect was measured as the number of phonemes in
a word, because this was found to be a more indicative measure
than syllables (Dotan and Friedmann, 2007; Nickels and Howard,
2004). The syllable frequency effect (Laganaro, 2005) was evaluated according to the frequency (taken from Schocken, 2008) of
each syllable in phonological paraphasias.
The results of the lexical retrieval tests are presented in
Table 2, and the classification of the participants according to the
results and the above considerations is explained in detail in
Appendix B3. The results indicated that two participants (SN, AA)
had a lexical-semantic deficit e although they performed well on
the non-verbal conceptual tests, they performed poorly on tests
of synonym judgment and semantic fluency. Three participants
(AO, SM, BP) were diagnosed with a lexical-phonological deficit4 e
they produced semantic and phonological paraphasias, showed
a frequency effect in naming, had difficulties on the phonological
fluency task, and performed well in tests of word-picture
matching, synonym judgment, and nonword repetition. Five
participants (YD, ND, MK, AG, BT) were diagnosed with a phonological output buffer deficit e they produced mainly phonological
errors, many of them faithful approximations and metatheses,
and showed a length effect and a syllable frequency effect in
naming. They performed flawlessly on the semantic tests and
poorly in the nonword reading and nonword repetition tests.
2.2.
Control participants
Healthy individuals with normal language were examined in
order to test the tests and to achieve indication as to the normal
performance on the tests. The control group for each test
consisted of 20e30 participants. Each control group included
5e8 men and 15e22 women. Their mean age was 36 years
4
In diagnosing a deficit at the phonological output lexicon we
did not distinguish between a deficit at the lexicon itself and
a possible deficit in accessing the lexicon or at the output from
the lexicon. When considering a deficit at the phonological
output buffer we relate only to a deficit at the buffer itself and not
at the access to it.
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c o r t e x 4 8 ( 2 0 1 2 ) 1 1 0 3 e1 1 2 7
Table 2 e Performance of the participants with lexical processing impairments on the lexical tests (% correct unless
otherwise noted).
Deficit location
Phonological buffer
Phonological lexicon
Semantic lexicon
Participant
YD
ND
MK
AG
BT
AO
SM
BP
SN
AA
Naming (SHEMESH)
Num. of unrelated errors
Num. of semantic errors
Num. of phonological errors
Frequency effect
Length effect in phonemesb
Syllable frequency effectb
Faithful approximations
36
0
3
13
þ
þ
þ
þ
67
0
2
3
64
0
3
10
þ
þ
þ
23
0
5
31
þ
þ
þ
12
5
9
47
þ
c
39
4
17
24
þ
77d
0
16
3
þ
68
0
10
12
þ
c
0
27
7
2
0
5
0
0
97
91
70
þ
Associations Pictures
Written words
100
100
100
Word-picture matching
Spoken
Written
100
100
100
Synonym judgment
100
100
100
Semantic fluencya
Phonological fluencya
8.5
2.5
11
5
Word repetition
Nonword repetition
Nonword reading
66
41
20
42
7
100
100
100
100
100
100
100
100
83
100
100
100
100
60e
10
4
0
8
3.5
80
56
41
39
88
86
96
97
84
95
0
50
0
Empty cells indicate that the test was not administered. In the presentation of effects, a plus sign (þ) indicates a significant effect ( p < .05);
a minus sign () indicates no effect.
a Average number of items in the two categories tested.
b ND and SM had many hesitation responses and did not produce enough phonological errors to allow for a reliable assessment of syllable
frequency effect and length effect on their errors.
c Both faithful and unfaithful approximations appeared. BT had more faithful than unfaithful approximations.
d SM’s performance on the SHEMESH naming test was higher than 70%, the threshold that we defined as a word retrieval deficit, but we
included him within the group of participants with lexical deficits because he was diagnosed with a significant deficit in the phonological output
lexicon, and because his performance was significantly poorer than the control participants, who were above than 95% correct.
e Performance at chance level on the synonym judgment task.
(range 19e61 years). All the control participants were native
speakers of Hebrew, with no history of neurological deficits.
3.
Assessment of lexical-syntactic abilities
After identifying each participant’s type and locus of deficit,
we turned to assess the lexical-syntactic knowledge of each of
them. We administered tests to examine their PAS and
grammatical gender abilities. No time limit was imposed
during testing, and no response-contingent feedback was
given by the experimenter. The sentences were repeated as
many times as the participant requested.
3.1.
Tests examining predicate argument structure e the
PASTA battery (PAS tests for aphasia)
3.1.1.
Material selection
To select and classify the verbs to be used in the PAS tests, we
requested six linguists and psycholinguists to classify Hebrew
verbs according to the syntactic and thematic types of phrases
they can take as complements, and the number of their
complementation options. We selected only verbs for which
all 6 judges assigned the same argument structure. These
verbs were then given to larger groups of native speakers of
Hebrew, in four tasks that assessed the PAS of each verb. For
the sentence production task, in which 41 judges participated,
a verb was presented and the judge was asked to produce
a sentence with it. To assess the use of a clausal complement
compared with other complements, the verbs that allow for
an embedded complement were given to 57 native speakers in
an incomplete sentence consisting of just a subject and the
verb, and they were asked to complete the sentence. For the
judgment task, each verb was incorporated into sentences
with varying numbers and types of complements, and 30
native speakers judged the grammaticality of the sentences.
For the sentence completion task, each verb was incorporated
into a sentence with a subject and a complement. The sentence was then presented without the verb, and 30 native
speakers were asked to insert an appropriate verb.
All sentence productions and completions complied with the
original classifications and the judgments of the linguists and
psycholinguists. There was no more than one different response
for any of the verbs. We therefore kept all the original verbs.
3.1.2.
Tasks
(a) Verb completion in a sentence. This test included 35 sentences from which the verb was missing from the
1112
c o r t e x 4 8 ( 2 0 1 2 ) 1 1 0 3 e1 1 2 7
canonical verb position after the subject. Accompanying
each sentence were four verbs, and participants were
asked to choose the verb that could complete the sentence.5 For example, The baby ___ in bed. {sleeps, hugs,
depends, says} (Here and throughout the article the word
and sentence examples are English equivalents of the
Hebrew words and sentences that were used in the tests).
For each sentence, each of the four verbs had a different
PAS: unergative, transitive, PP complement, and sentential
complement (finite or nonfinite [CP or IP]). All options were
related to the sentence semantically, but only one had
a PAS that matched the arguments in the sentence. The
sentences and the four verbs were written on a page in
front of the participants and were also read to them as
many times as they requested. We examined whether the
PAS of the selected verb (number of arguments and their
syntactic types) fit the arguments given in the sentence.
(b) Grammaticality judgment of PAS. This test included 65 sentences, 30 grammatical and 35 ungrammatical, randomly
ordered. All the sentences were simple sentences, without
movement. The ungrammaticality of each of the ungrammatical sentences resulted from one of three types of PAS
violations: complement addition (*Tali fell the vase), complement deletion (*Danny wears), and complement substitution
(subcategorization violation) of PP for NP or NP for PP (*Ron
broke on the glass, *Ron relied the judge). The participants heard
the sentences, and for each sentence they were asked to judge
whether it was grammatical or not. They were also asked to
correct sentences they had judged as ungrammatical or to
explain why they are ungrammatical (Examples of corrections which were accepted as correct: for the sentence *Rami
gave. e “What? to whom? Rami gave. the keys to his father”; for
the sentence *The boy wore in the coat. e “Wore the coat”). The
participants who succeeded in the judgment task could all
correct the ungrammatical sentences or explain why they are
ungrammatical. The participants with the semantic deficit,
who failed on the judgment task, also could not correct or
explain the ungrammaticality. Namely, the performance on
the ungrammaticality correction task was compatible with
the participants’ performance on the other PAS tasks, and the
preserved PAS information was manifested also in this task
(one participant could not provide corrections due to his very
severe production difficulties).
(c) Sentence production to a given verb. The participants
heard a verb and were asked to use it to construct a sentence. The test included verbs with various numbers of
arguments, types of complements, and numbers of
complementation options. In all, participants were given
77 verbs, 7 verbs for each of 11 PAS frames: unergatives (no
complement), transitives (one complement), ditransitives
(two complements), unaccusatives (one argument,
a theme), reflexives, verbs with two complementation
5
In an earlier version of this test, we used free oral completion,
without given options. This method turned out to be very difficult
for the participants because of their word retrieval deficits. It led to
poor performance even for participants who performed well on the
task when it included selection from given options. Therefore, we
preferred to use the selection-from-given-options method. MK was
the only participant who was tested using only the free version,
and his results in Table 3 are from this version.
options, verbs with 4 or 5 complementation options, verbs
with a PP complement, verbs with an IP complement
(nonfinite clause), verbs with a CP complement (finite
clause), and alternating transitive-intransitive verbs (e.g.,
darken; Hebrew has only a few verbs of this type). The
various types of verbs were presented in random order.
(d) Sentence repetition. The participants heard sentences and
were asked to repeat them as accurately as they could. The
test included 100 sentences, 10 with each of the following
types of verbs: unergatives, transitives, ditransitives, unaccusatives, reflexives, verbs with two complementation
options, verbs with 4 or 5 complementation options, verbs
with a PP complement, alternating transitive-intransitive
verbs, and transitive verbs with an adjunct (as a sentencelength control for the sentences with ditransitive verbs).
The sentences with the various types of verbs were presented
in random order. Most of the sentences were presented with
an NP complement and the rest with a PP complement. Verbs
that do not take a complement were presented with an
adjunct. All the sentences were simple sentences, in the past
tense, without Wh-movement or verb movement.
In the sentence production and the sentence repetition tests
we examined (for the analysis in the current study) whether the
sentences produced matched the PAS (including subcategorization) of the verbs, or whether complements were omitted, added,
or substituted. A response was scored as correct or incorrect
exclusively according to the PAS provided; we disregarded hesitations, lexical retrieval failures, and phonological errors. Thus,
percentage correct (in Tables 3 and 5 below) was calculated as the
number of sentences that were produced with correct PAS, i.e.,
sentences that did not include omission, substitution, or addition
of an argument, out of the total number of sentences the participant produced. (For example, for the verb “fixed”, in the sentence
production test, the response: “The man fixed” was scored as an
error, while the response: “the man fixed ah. the. he fixed the.
what can he fix. fixed the ra. the car” was scored as correct).
In the repetition test we also disregarded lexical substitutions
that did not violate PAS information. (An example, translated to
English: ‘The suspect evaded the answer’ instead of ‘The suspect
evaded the question’ was scored as repetition with correct PAS).6
3.2.
Tests examining grammatical gender e the MINDY
(MIN DIKDUKI) battery
The grammatical gender tests were presented only orally, so
that participants would not use orthographic-morphological
cues to the word’s written suffix.
3.2.1.
Grammatical gender of inanimate nouns
(a) Verb completion in a sentence. In this task (from BAFLA,
Friedmann, 1998), participants heard 24 test items. Each
consisted of two conjoined sentences whose subjects were
different inanimate nouns of either different genders or of
6
Because this repetition test and the sentence production test
were very long, not all of the participants completed it. However,
since the tests were randomized, each individual participant
responded to similar numbers of verbs from each type.
c o r t e x 4 8 ( 2 0 1 2 ) 1 1 0 3 e1 1 2 7
the same gender. In the second sentence, the verb was
missing. Participants were asked to insert the missing verb
using the verb that appeared in the first sentence, inflected
for the gender of the new subject (e.g., etmol ha-otobus acar
ve-ha-rakevet acra ‘Yesterday the busMASC stoppedMASC and
the trainFEM stoppedFEM’; etmol ha-paamon cilcel ve-ha-telefon
cilcel ‘Yesterday the bellMASC rangMASC and the phoneMASC
rangMASC’). All sentences were presented in the past tense,
to reduce the effect of tense impairment of the individuals
with agrammatism. We disregarded tense errors in this task
and only scored gender inflection as correct or incorrect.
(b) Phrase-level grammaticality judgment. The participants
heard 80 noun phrases composed of an inanimate noun and
an adjective (e.g., big house). Forty of the phrases were
grammatical and 40 were ungrammatical, presented in
random order. Violations involved gender mismatch
between the adjective and the noun. Half of the nouns in the
grammatical phrases and half of the nouns in the ungrammatical phrases were masculine, and half were feminine.
Half of the nouns had a regular phonological gender marking
(i.e., feminine nouns marked with one of the suffixes -a, -et,
-it, such as maclema ‘camera’, and unmarked masculine
nouns, such as duvdevan ‘cherry’), and half of the nouns had
an irregular ending (i.e., feminine nouns without a suffix,
such as kos ‘glass’, and masculine nouns with a feminine
suffix, such as taxshit ‘jewel’). The participants were asked to
judge whether each phrase was grammatical or not. Nine of
the participants (with syntactic and phonological deficits)
spontaneously corrected some of the phrases they had
judged as ungrammatical. Like in the PAS grammaticality
judgment corrections, the success in the ungrammaticality
corrections was compatible with the participants’ performance on the other grammatical gender tasks.
(c) Free completion of inanimate nouns in sentences. 15 sentences including a temporal adverb and a verb (unaccusative or unergatives) inflected for gender, without
a noun, were presented to the participants, and they were
asked to complete the sentence with an appropriate inanimate noun. (For example, etmol ____ nikre’a ’Yesterday ____
was tornFEM’). We examined whether the noun they chose
matched the gender inflection of the verb. If the participants could not find appropriate nouns because of a lexical
retrieval deficit, two pictures of nouns, one masculine and
the other feminine, were presented to them and they were
asked to choose between them. (The version with the
pictures was presented for two of the participants).
(d) Verb agreement in sentences produced with inanimate
subjects. An additional source of information regarding
the participants’ ability to access the gender of inanimate
subjects was the sentences they produced in the PASTA
test of sentence production for a given verb, described in
the PAS tasks in Section 3.1. We examined, for sentences
produced with inanimate subjects, whether the verbs
agreed with the inanimate subjects in gender.
3.2.2. Grammatical gender of animate nouns: the
contribution of conceptual gender
Unlike purely grammatical gender information, which is
encoded at the lexical-syntactic level, conceptual gender
1113
draws on semantic properties of the word. Conceptual gender
can be used to determine an animate noun’s grammatical
gender, and this in turn can be used to determine the agreement inflection of other sentential elements.
To compare participants’ ability to determine grammatical
gender for inanimate nouns with their ability to determine
grammatical gender when the noun also has a conceptual
gender, and to assess whether conceptual gender can be
determined even when lexical-syntactic information is
unavailable, we administered tests examining gender of
animate nouns, and more specifically e of human nouns.
(a) Verb completion in a sentence. In this task (from BAFLA,
Friedmann, 1998), participants heard 24 test items. Each
consisted of two conjoined sentences whose subjects were
different animate nouns of different genders or different
number (singular/plural). In the second sentence, the verb
was missing. Participants were asked to insert the missing
verb using the verb that appeared in the first sentence,
inflected for the gender of the new subject (e.g., etmol
ha-yeled rakad ve-ha-yalda rakda ‘Yesterday the boyMASC
dancedMASC and the girlFEM dancedFEM’).
(b) Phrase-level grammaticality judgment. The participants
heard 30 noun phrases, 15 grammatical and 15 ungrammatical, randomly ordered, composed of an animate noun
(referring to a profession or occupation) and an adjective.
The adjective either matched the gender of the noun (e.g.,
melcarit xaxama, waitress smartFEM, ‘a smart waitress’), or
created an ungrammatical phrase because of a mismatch
between its gender and the gender of the noun (e.g.,
melcarit xaxam, waitress smartMAS). Half of the nouns in
each condition (7 or 8) were unambiguously masculine and
half were unambiguously feminine. The participants were
asked to judge whether the phrase was grammatical or
not. Two participants (RT, RA e with syntactic deficit)
spontaneously corrected some of the phrases they had
judged as ungrammatical.
(c) Free completion of animate nouns in sentences. 15 sentences from which a subject noun was missing were presented to the participants. The sentences included
a temporal adverb and an intransitive verb that required
an animate subject (unaccusative or unergatives) inflected
for gender. The participants were asked to complete the
sentence with an appropriate animate noun. (For example,
etmol ____ hictanen ‘Yesterday ____ caught a coldMASC’). We
examined whether the noun the participants chose
matched the gender inflection of the verb. If the participants could not find appropriate nouns because of a lexical
retrieval deficit, two pictures of nouns, one human
masculine and the other human feminine, were presented
to them and they were asked to choose between them.
(The pictures were presented for two of the participants,
the same participants who were assisted with the pictures
in the inanimate nouns test).
(d) Verb agreement in sentences produced with animate
subjects. An additional source of information regarding
the participants’ ability to access the gender of animate
subjects was the sentences they produced in the PASTA
test of sentence production for a given verb, described
among the PAS tasks in Section 3.1. We examined, for
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c o r t e x 4 8 ( 2 0 1 2 ) 1 1 0 3 e1 1 2 7
sentences produced with animate subjects, whether the
verbs agreed with the animate subjects in gender.
4.
Results
Control group. The healthy individuals performed at ceiling in
all the tests. Their percentage correct in the PAS sentence
completion task was 99% (SD 0.38); PAS grammaticality judgment, 97% (SD 3.77); sentence production to a given verb, 99%
(SD 0.84); grammatical gender sentence completion, 100%;
grammaticality judgment of grammatical gender, 99% (SD
0.64); conceptual gender sentence completion, 100%; phraselevel grammaticality judgment of conceptual gender, 100%;
gender agreement in sentences produced to a given verb with
animate subject, 100%.
Because the control group scored 100% correct with no variance on four of the tests (and 99% correct on three other tests,
with a very small standard deviation), it was impossible to use ttests and, consequently, it was impossible to apply dissociation
analyses that are based on Crawford and Howell’s (1998) t-test
(Crawford and Garthwaite, 2007; see Willmes, 1990, regarding
the difficulty in using ceiling-level scores of healthy individuals).
Therefore, we based our analyses on the decision that for the
individuals with brain damage, a score of 85% correct and above
in each test indicates preserved knowledge of the relevant
domain (along the lines advocated in Willmes, 1990, p. 419).
Aphasia group. The results of the PAS and gender tests for
each participant with aphasia are presented in Table 3.
On the basis of these results, we are now in a position to
answer the research questions we posed in the Introduction.
4.1.
Where in the lexical retrieval process is
lexical-syntactic information stored?
One of the main questions we explored was where in the
process of lexical retrieval is lexical-syntactic information
stored. The rationale was that data about individuals who are
impaired at a certain lexical level and who still have intact
lexical-syntactic information can indicate that lexicalsyntactic information is not stored at that stage.
And indeed, two such dissociations were found in the performance of the 8 participants with a selective deficit in the phonological stages of lexical retrieval: a dissociation between impaired
phonological output buffer and preserved lexical-syntactic
information, and a dissociation between impaired phonological
output lexicon and preserved lexical-syntactic information.
Table 3 e Participants’ performance on the PAS and gender tests (% correct).
Deficit location
Syntax
Phonological buffer Phonological lexicon Semantic lexicon
Participant
RA RT AE GR YD ND MK AG BT
AO
SM
BP
SN
AA
PAS
Verb completion in a sentence
Grammaticality judgment of PAS
Correction of the ungrammatical sentences
Sentence production to a given verb
Sentence repetition
100
95
91
90
80
91
85
94
100
77
100
100
93
100
100
100
100
96
100
64
45
72
88
91
96
93
100
87
100
100
99
70
70
100
100
100
100
100
100
100
100
63
85
87
79
95
92
100
89
93
99
91 97 100 100 100 100
91 100 94 92 100 100
88 100 100 92
95 b
85 100 93 100 100 88c
96 100 98
98
Grammatical gender
Verb completion in a sentence e inanimate
63 100 92 96 100
Grammaticality judgment e inanimate
74 86 98 87 85
Correction of the ungrammatical phrases e inanimate 64
100 100 100
Free completion of inanimate nouns in sentences
87 100 100 87
a
100 100 100 100
Verb agreement in sentences produced with
inanimate subjects
Conceptual gender
Verb completion in a sentence e animate
Grammaticality judgment e animate
Correction of the ungrammatical phrases e animate
Free completion of animate nouns in sentences
Verb agreement in sentences produced with
animate subjects
100 100 100
100 100 100
100 100
100 100
100 100 100
100 100 100 88
94 97 98 94
100 100 100 100
100
100 100
100 98 100 100
100 95 100 100 100 100
100 100 100
100 100
100 100 100
100 100
100 100 100 100 100 100
100
100
100
d
100
100
80
Note. Shaded cells indicate good performance: above 85% correct on the task; Empty cells indicate that the test was not administered.
a RA did not make verb agreement errors, but in 35% of the sentences he either omitted the subject so any agreement on the verb would be
acceptable, or produced the verb inflected for the first person, which does not require a gender agreement in the past and future tenses in
Hebrew.
b YD had a severe production impairment with many phonological paraphasias which prevented him from providing a correction to the
sentences he judged correctly as ungrammatical.
c Correct performance in 8/9 sentences.
d The participants with the semantic deficit were unable to understand and perform the sentence production task and most of the completion
tasks, their performance was at floor level, and the tests were not administered fully. Because we could not be sure that the poor performance in
these tasks could be ascribed to impaired lexical-syntactic information rather than to their failing to understand the task instructions, to be
conservative we did not include these tests in the results.
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c o r t e x 4 8 ( 2 0 1 2 ) 1 1 0 3 e1 1 2 7
All of the participants with a selective phonological output
buffer deficit (YD, ND, MK, AG, BT) performed well on both types
of lexical-syntactic information. Namely, they all showed
mastery of PAS and grammatical gender. This dissociation
between impaired phonological buffer and preserved lexicalsyntactic knowledge indicates that the lexical-syntactic
information is not encoded at the buffer level; instead, it is
expected to be encoded at an earlier lexical level. The next
question is at which lexical level is this information encoded?
The three participants with a selective deficit at the
phonological output lexicon (AO, SM, BP) also performed well on
tasks of lexical-syntactic information: they showed preserved
grammatical gender and PAS information (except for AO’s and
SM’s performance on the PAS sentence completion test, in
which they scored 80% and 77% correct, respectively, significantly above chance but below the threshold we considered as
preserved knowledge). Thus, for the individuals with a lexicalphonological deficit, a clear dissociation between impaired
phonological lexicon and preserved lexical-syntactic knowledge was observed. If lexical-syntactic information can be
accessible when lexical-phonological information is not, this
indicates that lexical-syntactic information is not encoded at
the phonological lexicon level. Namely, it has to be encoded
earlier than the phonological output lexicon.
As for the two participants who had a lexical-semantic deficit
(SN, AA), both showed impaired lexical-syntactic information,
failing on tests of both types of lexical-syntactic informationPAS and grammatical gender. These participants do not
contribute to the question of whether lexical-syntactic information is stored at the semantic lexicon, together with the
semantic attributes of words. Because they only demonstrate
an association between two deficits, one cannot reliably
conclude a shared functional locus on the basis of these
results (Ellis and Young, 1996; Shallice, 1988).
Data that do provide a clear answer to the question of
whether lexical-syntactic information is encoded in the
semantic lexicon come from a different group of participants.
AL, HY, ZH had a mixed deficit. As shown in Table 4, which
summarizes their performance in the syntactic and lexical
tests, the three of them had a syntactic impairment as well as
a phonological deficit in lexical retrieval. HY had a deficit in
the phonological lexicon, and AL and ZH had a deficit in the
phonological lexicon and in the buffer.
After establishing their loci of deficit in syntax and lexical
retrieval, we administered PAS and grammatical gender tests.
The results of the lexical-syntactic information testing, presented in Table 5, demonstrate that these patients failed on
both the PAS tests and the grammatical gender tests.
Crucially, the lexical tests (Table 4) indicated that their lexicalsemantic information was preserved. They performed well on
the written association task, on the synonym judgment task,
and on the word-picture matching task.
The dissociation observed for these three participants,
between impaired lexical-syntactic information and intact
semantic lexicon, suggests that lexical-syntactic information
is not encoded in the semantic lexicon. Together with our
earlier conclusion that lexical-syntactic information is not
encoded in the phonological lexicon either, these dissociations point to the position of the lexical-syntactic information.
They suggest that lexical-syntactic information is stored
Table 4 e Performance of the participants with a mixed
deficit in the syntactic and in the lexical tests (% correct
unless otherwise noted).
Syntactic tests
Relative clause comprehension
Subject relative
Object relative
AL
ZH
HY
100
63b
100
50b
93
53b
Wh-question comprehension
Who subject
Who object
Which subject
Which object
82
57b
68
65b
Embedded-sentence repetition
0
Verb movement repetition
15
Relative clause elicitation
Subject relative
Object relative
6
0
40
10
0
0
Verb inflection e tense completion
38
50
58
Lexical tests
Naming (SHEMESH)
Number of semantic errors
Number of phonological errors
Number of unrelated errors
Frequency effect
Length effect in phonemes
Syllable frequency effect
44
6
17
10
þ
19
16
25
0
þ
54
11
24
0
þ
þ
Faithful approximations
Associations
pictures
written words
100
100
100
100
100
100
Word-picture matching
Spoken
Written
100
100
98
Synonym judgment
100
100
100
Semantic fluency
Phonological fluencya
8
3
6
0
4.5
3
Nonword repetition
Nonword reading
9
43
71
47
a
Empty cells indicate that the test was not administered.
A plus sign (þ) indicates a significant effect ( p < .05); a minus sign
() indicates no effect.
a Average number of items in the two categories tested.
b Performance at chance level on the comprehension tasks.
neither in the semantic lexicon nor in the phonological
lexicon, but rather in a separate syntactic lexicon.
4.2.
Can lexical-syntactic information be intact when
syntax is impaired?
A very clear dissociation was found between impaired
sentence-level syntax and preserved lexical-syntactic information: the 4 participants with a syntactic deficit showed
preserved lexical-syntactic knowledge in at least one type of
lexical-syntactic information. As Table 3 indicates, 3 of the 4
participants evinced mastery of PAS, with the notable
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c o r t e x 4 8 ( 2 0 1 2 ) 1 1 0 3 e1 1 2 7
Table 5 e Performance of the participants with a mixed
deficit in the PAS and gender tests (% correct).
Participant
AL
ZH
HY
PAS
Verb completion in a sentence
Grammaticality judgment of PAS
Correction of the ungrammatical sentences
Sentence production to a given verb
Sentence repetition
48
71
72
75
74
75
48
63
77
54
75
87
63
65
75
76
78
75
68
Grammatical gender
Verb completion in a sentence e inanimate
Grammaticality judgment e inanimate
Free completion of inanimate nouns
in sentences
Verb agreement in sentences produced
with inanimate subjects
Conceptual gender
Verb completion in a sentence e animate
Grammaticality judgment e animate
Verb agreement in sentences produced
with animate subjects
98
92
98
100
83
77
96
98
Shaded cells indicate good performance: above 85% correct on the
task.
Empty cells indicate that the test was not administered.
exception of patient RT. Three of the 4 participants also
exhibited mastery of grammatical gender, with the exception
of RA (see below, Section 4.3). Thus, a clear dissociation
between sentence-level deficits and syntactically-relevant
lexical information was observed. These results show that
although the ability of these participants to construct
syntactic trees above VP was severely compromised, they had
unimpaired lexical-syntactic information, and could
construct the VP level, including the verb and its arguments,
well. They could also access the grammatical gender of nouns.
We can thus conclude that lexical-syntactic information is
separate from the syntactic level of sentence construction.
These results thus indicate that individuals with agrammatism can have intact PAS and grammatical gender knowledge.
4.3.
Can the two types of lexical-syntactic information
be selectively impaired?
The results in Table 3 also bear on another research question:
whether different types of lexical-syntactic information, in
this case PAS and grammatical gender, are stored together.
A double dissociation was found between PAS and grammatical gender. One of the participants with agrammatism
(RA) showed preserved PAS information and impaired grammatical gender information. Another participant with
agrammatism (RT) showed the opposite pattern: her grammatical gender information was preserved but she had PAS
impairment (which might be termed “aPASia”). Importantly,
across all three PAS tasks, RT’s PAS errors did not just occur in
sentences that included an embedded (CP) complement or
sentences that required production of an embedded complement. Thus, embedding, which is known to be impaired in
agrammatism, and was impaired for her as well, was not the
source of her difficulty in the PAS tasks. (This pattern held also
Fig. 2 e Dissociations between two types of lexicalsyntactic information (% correct).
for the other agrammatic individuals who had PAS impairment e their production of CP complements was significantly
worse than NP and PP complements, but their aPASia caused
impairment in sentences with all the complement types.
Individuals without aPASia and without agrammatism
showed similar performance in the various complement
types.)
Fig. 2 parses out the average performance in the various
gender and PAS tasks of the two participants with agrammatism (RA, RT) who showed dissociations between PAS and
grammatical gender. This double dissociation indicates that
the different types of lexical-syntactic information can be
selectively impaired, indicating that they are stored
separately.
4.4.
Can conceptual gender be preserved when
grammatical gender is impaired?
Whereas grammatical gender of genderless objects (such as
door, house, or kite) is stored only as part of the lexical-syntactic
information, represented in the syntactic lexicon, the gender
of nouns with a natural gender is not only grammatical but
can also be accessed through semantic knowledge. Thus, it is
possible that whereas grammatical gender of inanimate
nouns would be affected by a damage in the syntactic lexicon,
the gender of nouns with natural gender would still be
accessible.
Fig. 3 e Grammatical and conceptual gender (average %
correct in the completion, judgment, and verb agreement
production tasks).
c o r t e x 4 8 ( 2 0 1 2 ) 1 1 0 3 e1 1 2 7
The results in Table 3 and Fig. 3 show that conceptual
gender information was preserved for all the participants who
had intact semantic lexicon. The 4 agrammatic participants,
the 5 participants with a phonological buffer deficit, and the 3
participants with a lexical-phonological deficit performed well
on the conceptual gender tasks. Their good performance was
evinced both in the structured tests of verb completion, noun
completion and grammaticality judgment, and also in the test
in which they were asked to produce a sentence to a given verb.
When they produced a sentence with an animate subject, none
of them produced any agreement error with animate nouns.
The preserved access to conceptual gender created
a dissociation, with impaired grammatical gender and intact
conceptual gender. This dissociation was evinced for RA, who
had impaired grammatical gender but intact semantic
lexicon, and also for two of the three individuals with the
mixed syntactic-phonological deficit (see Table 5). AL and HY,
who were impaired in the syntactic lexicon but had intact
semantic lexicon, showed impaired grammatical gender but
good performance with respect to conceptual gender.
Because conceptual gender is most probably a feature of the
semantic lexicon (and the conceptual system), conceptual
gender was impaired for SN, the participant with a lexicalsemantic deficit. (Conceptual gender tests were not administered to AA, the other participant with a lexical-semantic deficit.)
The dissociation between grammatical and natural gender
created an interesting pattern with respect to gender agreement, for RA, for example. Whereas RA showed impaired
gender knowledge and impaired gender agreement when the
agreement involved inanimate nouns (i.e., grammatical
gender), he showed preserved gender agreement when the
agreement involved animate nouns (i.e., conceptual gender).
RA scored only 63% correct on the grammatical gender sentence completion task, but 100% correct on the parallel
conceptual gender task, c2 ¼ 12.63, p < .001. He scored 74%
correct on the grammatical gender judgment task but, again,
100% correct on the parallel conceptual gender task, c2 ¼ 9.54,
p ¼ .002.7 Similarly, he was the only participant who failed in
the corrections of the phrases he had judged as ungrammatical
in the grammatical gender condition, performing 64% correct,
but he flawlessly corrected the ungrammatical phrases with
the conceptual gender (100%). These results show that
whereas RA’s syntactic machinery for agreement checking
was intact, this ability could only manifest itself when he could
access the gender of the subject e that is, when the subject was
animate. However, when the subject was inanimate, the intact
syntactic mechanism of subjecteverb agreement (or
7
This difference did not stem from a difference in regularity
between the tasks. In the completion tasks, most or all of the
nouns in the grammatical and conceptual gender items were
regular. In the grammaticality judgment task, a comparison of
only the regular items in the conceptual and grammatical gender
tests also yielded significantly better performance on the
conceptual gender test, c2 ¼ 5.09, p ¼ .02. This is different from
Luzzatti and De Bleser (1996) who found a regularity effect in the
performance of one of their agrammatic participants (DR) in
a task of inflecting singular masculine and feminine nouns to
plural and vice versa e he produced regularization errors on the
irregular nouns while his performance on the regular nouns was
preserved.
1117
nouneadjective agreement) could not lead to correct gender
agreement, because RA could not determine the grammatical
gender of the subject and therefore failed in agreement
completion in sentences with inanimate subjects.
5.
Discussion
This study explored lexical-syntactic knowledge and its relation to syntax and lexical retrieval by assessing lexicalsyntactic information in individuals with syntactic and/or
lexical retrieval deficits. We assessed the PAS and grammatical gender of 17 individuals with aphasia: individuals with
agrammatism, a syntactic deficit, and individuals with
anomia, a lexical retrieval deficit. The lexical retrieval deficits
of the anomic participants resulted from impairments at
various stages of lexical retrieval, a difference that we used to
explore where in the lexical retrieval process the lexicalsyntactic information is stored.
We focused on several main questions. We tried to find out,
via the assessment of lexical-syntactic information in individuals with selective impairments at various stages of the
lexical retrieval process, where lexical-syntactic information
is stored. We also tested whether the two types of lexicalsyntactic information that we tested in the current study,
PAS and grammatical gender, can be selectively impaired, in
order to learn whether they are stored separately. We were
further interested in the relations between grammatical
gender and natural gender and their intricate relations with
the syntactic machinery of gender inflection. Finally, we tried
to establish whether individuals who show impairments in
syntactic abilities that are related to high nodes in the
syntactic tree can still construct VP correctly, including the
syntactically and thematically correct arguments for the verb.
The dissociations found in the current study shed light on
these questions. We will detail the answers these dissociations give to each of the questions below.
5.1.
Lexical-syntactic information is stored in a separate
syntactic lexicon
One of the main aims of this study was to find out, via the
assessment of individuals with impaired lexical retrieval,
where is lexical-syntactic information stored. The dissociations between deficits at different stages of the lexical
retrieval process suggest a clear answer to this question. All
the individuals who had a deficit at the phonological output
buffer showed preserved lexical-syntactic information. This
dissociation indicates that the lexical-syntactic information is
not stored at the phonological output buffer. This should
come as no surprise if we think about the phonological buffer
as a short-term memory for phonological units. Therefore, the
lexical-syntactic information is stored at one of the lexical
levels. The individuals who had a deficit at the phonological
output lexicon also showed preserved lexical-syntactic information. This dissociation indicates that the lexical-syntactic
information is not stored at the phonological output lexicon
either. If it had been stored at this stage, a deficit at the
phonological output lexicon should have entailed a deficit in
lexical-syntactic information too. Thus, we are left with two
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c o r t e x 4 8 ( 2 0 1 2 ) 1 1 0 3 e1 1 2 7
options. Either lexical-syntactic information is stored in the
semantic lexicon, or it is stored separately from the semantic
lexicon, in a separate syntactic lexicon, located in parallel
with or before the phonological output lexicon. The two
participants with a deficit at the semantic lexicon could not
shed light on this question, because they both showed
a lexical-syntactic information impairment in addition to
their lexical-semantic impairment. Such an association does
not bear on whether or not the lexical-syntactic information is
stored in the semantic lexicon. It might be that the semantic
lexicon impairment blocked further access to the following
separate syntactic lexicon, or it might be that the information
is stored at the semantic lexicon, or it might even be that these
two impairments, the lexical-syntactic and the lexicalsemantic impairments, are unrelated but happened to occur
together in these two participants.
The answer to the question of whether the lexical-syntactic
information is located in the semantic lexicon or separately
comes from a group of three patients demonstrating the other
direction of the dissociation: a deficit in lexical-syntactic
information with intact semantic lexicon. This dissociation
indicates that the lexical-syntactic information is not encoded
in the semantic lexicon, and the conclusion is that lexicalsyntactic information is stored in a separate syntactic
lexicon, distinct from the semantic lexicon.
This conclusion is in line with Miozzo and Caramazza (1997)
and Nickels and Howard (2000), who also claimed, on the basis
of TOT studies, that a type of syntactic information, grammatical gender, is stored separately from the semantic information. According to these researchers, the semantic
representation is separately connected to syntactic information and to phonological information. The access to each of
these types of information is independent. Miozzo and
Caramazza (1997) base this conclusion on their findings of
similar rates of correct recognition of gender and of initial
phoneme in TOT states. Jescheniak and Levelt (1994) brought
further evidence that Miozzo and Caramazza interpreted as
indicating parallel access to the syntactic and phonological
lexicons. Jescheniak and Levelt examined reaction times for
gender decisions which followed a naming task. Before making
the gender decision, the participants were required to name the
pictures either by producing a bare noun or by producing
a noun phrase (definite article þ noun). A facilitatory effect for
the gender decision was found only after a noun phrase.
Miozzo and Caramazza suggest that this finding supports the
claim that phonological information might be accessed independently of grammatical information. Namely, when a bare
noun was produced (i.e., its phonology was accessed), its
gender was not accessed, and thus, it did not affect the reaction
times of the gender decision task as did the production of
a noun phrase, which obligates access to gender information.
(The suggestion of a parallel syntactic lexicon differs from the
view expressed by Levelt et al., 1999 and Roelofs et al., 1998,
who postulated a model in which the lemma links between the
word’s meaning and phonology, i.e., a serial model in which the
syntactic information precedes the phonological information).
In fact, after having established that the syntactic information is stored separately from the semantic information it
makes conceptually more sense that the access from the
semantic lexicon to the phonological lexicon will not be
Fig. 4 e Stages of lexical retrieval and the representation of
lexical-syntactic information at a separate syntactic
lexicon.
mediated by the syntactic lexicon, as it is hard to see why the
access to phonological forms should depend on the existence
of syntactic information.
Support for the idea of parallel access to syntactic and
phonological lexicons from the semantic lexicon (as shown in
Fig. 4) can also be seen in the current study. In the two
production tasks, sentence production to a given verb and the
sentence repetition task, there were cases in which a phonologically intact verb was produced with incorrect PAS (i.e.,
omission, addition, or substitution of arguments). This applied
both for patient RT and for the three individuals with mixed
syntactic and phonological impairments, who all had aPASia,
and occasionally produced the target verb in a phonologically
correct fashion but within an incorrect PAS environment.
(Similar cases were found for grammatical gender. In several of
RA’s incorrect corrections of phrases that included a noun and
an agreeing adjective, RA produced the noun correctly, but
with incorrect adjective inflection, i.e., with incorrect grammatical gender, because we know his inflection mechanism is
intact. For example, eshkolit ta’im, grapefruit-FEM tasty-MAS), in
which the noun was produced with correct phonology but
incorrect gender. It should be noted, however, that in these
tasks the verb had been given earlier to the participants, and
they did not retrieve it by themselves, so further studies of
individuals with aPASia and intact phonological lexicon, or
individuals who sometimes fail to apply PAS and gender
constraints to the sentence but still produce the verbs and
nouns phonologically correctly, will be required.
To conclude, the findings of the current study indicate that
lexical-syntactic information is stored at a separate syntactic
lexicon, which is accessed in parallel to the phonological
output lexicon (see Fig. 4).
Caramazza and Miozzo (1998) argued that “the lemma/
lexeme distinction may be unnecessary” (p. 240. See also
c o r t e x 4 8 ( 2 0 1 2 ) 1 1 0 3 e1 1 2 7
Caramazza, 1997; Caramazza and Miozzo, 1997). Our findings
indicate the existence of a syntactic lexicon, separate from the
phonological output lexicon, and hence the necessity of the
distinction between a lexical-syntactic representation
(lemma) and a lexical-phonological representation (lexeme).
(See also Biedermann and Nickels, 2008 for evidence from
homographic and heterographic homophones production for
separate syntactic and phonological representations.) Therefore, our findings support a “lemma” representation, in which
syntactic information is stored, as advocated by Levelt et al.
(1999), Roelofs et al. (1998) and others, and at the same time
determine that this lexical-syntatic representation is also
coded separately from the lexical-semantic information,
contrary to some perceptions of the lemma.
Another point with respect to grammatical gender information relates to its preservation in Hebrew-speaking individuals with a lexical deficit. Unlike speakers of other languages, for
whom research reported knowledge of gender even when they
could not access lexical-phonological information on the target
word, Hebrew-speaking individuals with a lexical-phonological
deficit were found in previous studies to lack gender knowledge
in single-noun retrieval tasks both in TOT states (Gollan and
Silverberg, 2001) and for individuals with deficits in various
levels of the lexical retrieval process (Friedmann and Biran,
2003). How can this be reconciled with the current results in
which three individuals with a lexical-phonological deficit
showed good judgment and production of grammatical gender?
The explanation probably lies in the fact that whereas the
previous studies tested access to grammatical gender at the
single-noun level, gender information in the current study was
tested within the syntactic context of phrases and sentences.
This supports our earlier suggestion that grammatical gender is
accessed only when it is needed e that is, in the context of
a phrase or a sentence, when the syntactic structure requires
syntactic agreement checking (Friedmann and Biran, 2003). (See
also Cubelli et al., 2005; La Heij et al., 1998; Levelt et al., 1999;
Schriefers, 1993; Schriefers and Jescheniak, 1999, for arguments regarding a difference between access to gender in
syntactic contexts and in bare nouns.)
Some interesting open questions arise from the concept of
a separate syntactic lexicon. For example: what it means to
have aPASia, or, in general, a deficit in lexical-syntactic information e is this a deficit affecting the information itself, a deficit
in accessing this information, or a deficit in implementing it into
the syntactic representation. Another question that arises is
where does the output of the syntactic lexicon go. In the model
we suggested in Fig. 4, the syntactic lexicon is only connected to
the phonological output lexicon. However, it may well be that it
is connected to a component that is responsible to sentence
structure building. Moreover, in line with linguistic theory that
now argues that several morpho-syntactic operations do not
take place in narrow syntax, but rather in the phonological
component (Chomsky, 1995, 2001), the syntactic lexicon may be
directly connected to the phonological output buffer.
5.2.
Different types of lexical-syntactic information are
stored separately
The results also shed light on the representation of different
types of lexical-syntactic information. A double dissociation
1119
was found between the two types of lexical-syntactic information studied here. One individual with agrammatism showed
intact PAS information and impaired grammatical gender
information, whereas another individual with agrammatism
showed the reversed pattern e impaired PAS information and
intact grammatical gender information. This dissociation
shows that different types of lexical-syntactic information can
be impaired selectively (at least the two types examined in this
study), indicating that they are stored separately.
5.3.
Grammatical and conceptual gender are dissociable
Finally, a dissociation between impaired grammatical gender
(of inanimate nouns) and preserved conceptual gender (of
animate nouns) was found for one of the agrammatic participants, RA, as well as for two individuals with a mixed syntacticphonological deficit. These participants had poor grammatical
gender but good lexical-semantics. A possible explanation for
this dissociation is that when a patient has a deficit in the
syntactic lexicon that impairs access to grammatical gender, he
cannot determine the gender of inanimate nouns, which only
have arbitrary, grammatical gender. However, if his semantic
lexicon and conceptual system are unimpaired, the gender of
animate nouns may still be accessible for him. He would be able
to rely on conceptual-semantic information to infer the gender
of animate nouns. A consequence of this situation is that
inflection that relies solely on the identification of grammatical
gender in the syntactic lexicon, such as agreement with inanimate nouns, would be impaired following a deficit in the
syntactic lexicon. However, when considering animate nouns,
the inflection status would be different. When the morphosyntactic processing of agreement is intact, the inflection of
animate nouns is expected to be fine. This is exactly the picture
that emerged from our participants’ inflection abilities: RA, for
example, made errors on verbal inflection when the verb had to
agree with an inanimate noun, but inflected the verb correctly
for gender when the subject was animate.
One implication of this finding is that grammatical gender
is stored separately from semantic aspects of gender. This
may put lexical-syntactic information, or at least grammatical
gender information, at a stage following the semantic lexicon.
This explains why, when the semantic lexicon is impaired
further access to the syntactic lexicon is blocked, but when
the syntactic lexicon is impaired, patients can still access the
semantic lexicon to retrieve semantic information that is
relevant for the gender of the item. Not surprisingly, SN, who
was impaired at the semantic lexicon, showed impairment in
conceptual gender knowledge as well, and could not use
conceptual-semantic information regarding the gender of
animate nouns to determine their grammatical gender.
Another implication of this finding regards the way the
syntactic ability of gender agreement should be assessed in
individuals with agrammatism, for example. The results
indicate that when assessing gender agreement inflection, it is
necessary to examine animate (and specifically, nouns with
a clear natural gender), rather than inanimate, nouns. An
agreement test that includes inanimate nouns may create the
incorrect impression of impaired agreement ability when
administered to a patient with intact morpho-syntactic
agreement ability and impaired grammatical gender
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c o r t e x 4 8 ( 2 0 1 2 ) 1 1 0 3 e1 1 2 7
information. Giving such a patient an agreement test with
only animate nouns would allow her to show her intact
agreement ability by using the semantic cues for gender that
exist in the animate nouns. Otherwise, individuals who have
intact agreement but impaired grammatical gender information can fail in an agreement task, a failure that might lead to
a wrong conclusion as to their syntactic agreement ability.
5.4.
PAS can be intact in agrammatism: lexical-syntactic
information is separate from higher-level syntax
A dissociation was found between impaired syntax and
preserved lexical-syntactic information. This dissociation
supports the view that lexical-syntactic information is stored
separately from syntactic knowledge of sentence construction, and that there are two separate abilities e one that
constructs the syntactic tree up to is highest nodes and parses
syntactic movement, the other encoding the syntactic environments in which a verb can appear. Whereas syntax uses
lexical-syntactic information for structure building (specifically, for building the VP), structure building can be impaired
when lexical-syntactic information is intact. This accords
with results from imaging studies indicating that whereas the
left IFG (inferior frontal gyrus, Broca’s area, Brodmann areas
44/45) is typically related to the processing of syntax (in fMRI
and lesion studies of individuals with agrammatism, BenShachar et al., 2004; Grodzinsky, 2000), other areas are
related to the processing of lexical-syntactic information.
Specifically, the left posterior STG (left superior temporal
gyrus, Wernicke’s area) was found to be involved in PAS processing in neuroimaging (Shetreet et al., 2007, 2010a) and
lesion studies (Shapiro et al., 1991, 1993). Other areas, BA 9 and
BA 46, the precuneus and bilateral anterior MTG (middle
temporal gyrus), also showed activation related to PAS information in neuroimaging studies (Shetreet et al., 2007, 2009a).
This dissociation, between impaired syntax at the sentence
level and preserved lexical-syntactic information, also bears
on constraint-based accounts of language processing that
claim that syntactic processing is based only on lexical
representations (e.g., MacDonald et al., 1994). MacDonald et al.
(1994) claim that the information inherent to lexical items
(including probabilistic information, argument structure,
lexical-semantic constraints, and even phrase structure
fragments) is used predictively to suggest the analysis of
sentence input. Such lexicalist approaches argue that
syntactic processing is simply the result of concatenated
lexical processing (see Shapiro et al., 2003 for a review). Had
syntax been only a reflection of lexical information, we would
not expect dissociations between impaired syntactic ability
and intact lexical-syntactic information.
This is not to say that PAS is not an important part of
sentence construction. On the contrary. Shapiro et al. (2003),
for example, showed that the initial stage of sentence processing parses input based on lexical categories and the
skeleton of a verb’s argument structure, deriving a shallow
representation of phrase structure and syntactic categories.
This finding indicates that PAS information is a central axis
in sentence processing. Thus, a deficit in PAS information
(aPASia) will indeed affect sentence construction, but the
manifestation of this deficit will be different from the deficit in
agrammatism. In aPASia we expect errors of substitution,
omission, and addition of arguments (Biran and Friedmann,
2008), which are not the characteristic errors of the agrammatism, but not, for example, a deficit in verb movement to
the second sentential position.
An important finding of the current study is that agrammatic participants had intact PAS information. These findings
are perfectly consistent with the studies of Shapiro and his
colleagues (Shapiro et al., 1993; Shapiro and Levine, 1990), who
found, using response-time measurements in online
comprehension tasks, that individuals with agrammatic Broca’s aphasia show the same effect of PAS complexity as
healthy adults, indicating that they have intact PAS knowledge. The results also support previous grammaticality judgment studies (Linebarger et al., 1983) on agrammatism. Prima
facie, Shapiro et al.’s results, Linebarger et al.’s results, as well
as the results of the current study do not seem to be consistent
with studies that examined agrammatic individuals’ production of verbs with different PAS frames and reported a verb
complexity effect: participants made more errors with verbs
that have a more complex PAS (Kim and Thompson, 2000;
Thompson et al., 1997a). However, two considerations e one
methodological-clinical, the other logical e suggest that these
production data cannot be taken to indicate a deficit in PAS in
agrammatism, and even that they can be taken to demonstrate spared PAS. On the methodological-clinical side, the
production studies required an oral response, which might be
compromised because of the participants’ deficit in
embedded-sentence production (sentences with a CP argument) and their word retrieval deficit. In the current study, we
used also tasks that did not require production of full sentences, or even did not require an oral response at all, and
used various types of complements, to prevent interference
from other deficits, such as impaired embedded-sentence
production and word retrieval. Consequently, the preserved
PAS knowledge of the agrammatic participants emerged. On
the logical-theoretical side, it can be argued that the studies by
Kim and Thompson and Thompson et al. actually indicate
preserved PAS knowledge in agrammatism. These authors
report that the complexity of the verb affected agrammatic
participants’ ability to produce verbs and sentences. Had
these participants been impaired in PAS knowledge, no effect
of the verbs’ PAS should have been found. The fact that
participants’ responses were influenced by the verbs’ PAS
suggests that their deficit lay not in PAS knowledge itself but
in their ability to insert the verb into a syntactic construction.
In this context, it is important to notice that the “optional
three-place verbs” in Thompson et al.’s study take a CP
complement as one of their options, thus causing a difficulty
in production not because of the type of verb, but because of
the participants’ impaired ability to produce CP constructions
(Friedmann, 2001, 2006). Support for the unimpaired PAS
knowledge of the agrammatic participants in Kim and
Thompson’s study comes from their finding that all the
participants in their study succeeded in a task requiring them
to judge the grammaticality of sentences with missing and
redundant arguments (6 participants scored above 90%
correct and one scored 83% correct). Kim and Thompson
explain this preserved performance by noting that only simple
canonical sentences were used in this judgment task, and that
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“only” subcategorization violations were involved (rather than
sentences with Wh-movement). They indicate that “The
grammaticality judgment task employed. minimally
requires the subjects to access the lexical-syntactic entry of
the verb at the lemma level” (p. 15). Indeed, if one is interested
in subcategorization and in the lexical-syntactic ability of
agrammatic patients, then their study indicates, like ours and
like Shapiro’s and Linebarger’s, that access to lexical-syntactic
knowledge can be intact in agrammatism.
The finding that individuals with agrammatism, who have
great difficulty in producing embedded sentences and sentences with movement and in comprehending sentences
derived by movement, can have unimpaired lexical-syntactic
information e is very important for treatment. It suggests
that treatment of syntactic movement, for example, can rely on
the individual’s intact lexical-syntactic information e and
specifically, on the ability to identify the roles of the arguments
each verb in a sentence selects. This strategy has indeed been
used in treatment by Shapiro, Thompson, and colleagues with
promising results (Shapiro and Thompson, 2006; Thompson
and Shapiro, 1995; Thompson et al., 1996, 1997b, 1998; and
see also Levy and Friedmann, 2009, for a description of
a treatment based on the intact PAS knowledge of a child with
syntactic-SLI [Specific Language Impairment]).
To summarize: Rapp and Goldrick (2006) have emphasized
the importance of investigating the relations between word
production and sentence production. This study takes one
step toward this goal, by investigating the relations between
the word level and the sentence level. Knowledge about these
relations can assist in planning a suitable therapy for each
individual with aphasia, according to his or her deficit.
Participant
Diagnosis
Specifically, our findings indicate that neither a syntactic
deficit nor a lexical retrieval deficit automatically implies that
an individual with aphasia has a deficit in lexical-syntactic
knowledge. We have shown that individuals can have
a severe syntactic impairment or a (phonological) lexical
retrieval impairment and still normally access knowledge
about the complements each verb takes and about the
grammatical gender of nouns.
Acknowledgements
We thank our Language and Brain Lab members Aviah Gvion,
Dror Dotan, Julia Reznick, and Maya Yachini for stimulating
and fruitful discussions of this research and paper, Yaron
Sacher for his help with the CT scans, and Mali Gil for her
support throughout the study. We also deeply thank Lew
Shapiro, whose deep and innovative research of predicate
argument structure inspired us and led us to conduct this
study. This research was supported by the Israel Science
Foundation (grant no. 1296/06, Friedmann), by the ARC Centre
of Excellence in Cognition and its Disorders (CCD), Macquarie
University, and by the Joseph Sagol Fellowship Program for
Brain Research in Tel Aviv University.
Appendix A
Background information on the participants
Sex Hand Age Native Education Etiology
language (years)
Time
post
onset
Plegia/
paresis
Lesion site
RA
Agrammatism M Right
32
Hebrew
12
TBI
13 years
Right
Left temporo-parietal hematoma
hemiplegia due to a left frontal contusion.
RT
Agrammatism F
Right
58
French
(Hebrew
44 years)
8
CVA
7 years
Right
Left ischemic infarct.
hemiplegia
AE
Agrammatism M Right
63
Hebrew
12
CVA
4 years
e
GR
Agrammatism F
Right
37
Hebrew
12
CVA
8 years
Right
Left ischemic infarct involving
hemiparesis temporo-parietal areas.
YD
Phonological
buffer
M Right
46
Hebrew
11
CVA
1.5
months
Right
Ischemic infarct in the territory
hemiparesis of left MCA. Low density in left
parietal area.
ND
Phonological
buffer
M Left
60
Hebrew
16
CVA
22
months
e
MK
Phonological
buffer
M Left
38
Hebrew
12
CVA
9 months Right
Left parietal hemorrhage and left
hemiparesis subarachnoid hemorrhage. Left
temporal craniotomy for
evacuation of hemorrhage.
Right temporo-parietal ischemic
infarct. Subcortical hypodense
area. Several left frontal and temporal
lacunar hypodense
areas.
Ischemic infarct in the territory
of left MCA.
(continued on next page)
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c o r t e x 4 8 ( 2 0 1 2 ) 1 1 0 3 e1 1 2 7
(continued )
Participant
Diagnosis
Sex Hand Age Native Education Etiology
language (years)
Time
post
onset
Plegia/
paresis
Lesion site
AG
Phonological
buffer
M Right
63
Hebrew
17
CVA
3 months e
BT
Phonological
buffer
F
53
Hebrew
12
CVA
9 months Right
Ischemic infarct in the territory
hemiplegia of left ACA and MCA. Large hypodense
area in the left frontal
lobe.
AO
Phonological
lexicon
M Mixed 73
L>R
Hebrew
19
CVA
1 month
SM
Phonological
lexicon
M Right
49
Hebrew
12
CVA
3 months e
BP
Phonological
lexicon
F
Right
23
Hebrew
12
CVA
3 months Right
Left ischemic infarct involving
hemiparesis temporo-parietal areas.
SN
Semantic
lexicon
M Right
62
Hebrew
8
CVA
2.5
months
AA
Semantic
lexicon
F
Right
70
Hebrew
15
CVA
5 months Right
Left subarachnoid hemorrhage
hemiplegia with large parieto-temporal
hematoma. Bleeding of left MCA
aneurysm. Craniotomy for
evacuation of hemorrhage. Clipping of
bleeding aneurysm.
Vasospasm. Extensive left
hypodense area.
AL
Phonological
M Right
lexicon þ
Phonological
buffer þ
Agrammatism
56
Hebrew
12
TBI
7 months e
ZH
Phonological
M Left
lexicon þ
Phonological
buffer þ
Agrammatism
55
Hebrew
16
CVA
13
months
e
HY
Phonological
F
lexicon þ
Agrammatism
37
Hebrew
15
CVA
8 years
Right
Left ischemic infarct involving
hemiplegia fronto-temporal areas. Hypodense
area in the basal ganglia.
Right
Right
Appendix B
A detailed assessment of the syntactic
and lexical abilities of the participants
B1 Tests for inclusion in the syntactic impairment group
Comprehension of reversible subject and object relative
clauses was assessed by a sentence-picture matching test
(BAFLA ZT). The test includes 90 semantically reversible sentences: 30 sentences with subject relative clauses (Show me the
woman that is drawing the girl ), 30 sentences with object relative clauses (Show me the girl that the woman is drawing), and 30
filler simple subject-verb-object (SVO) sentences (e.g., The
woman is drawing the girl ). All sentences include characters of
e
e
Left ischemic infarct.
Ischemic infarct in the territory
of left MCA involving temporoparietal areas.
Left periventricular white matter
lesion. Subcortical hypodense area.
Left ischemic infarct involving
temporo-parietal areas.
Left ischemic infarct involving
frontal and parietal areas.
Subarachnoid and subdural
hemorrhage. Left fronto-temporal
craniotomy for evacuation of
hemorrhage.
Left ischemic infarct involving
temporo-parietal areas.
the same gender and number. The participants heard a sentence as many times as they needed. They were shown two
pictures e one where the roles matched the sentence and one
where the roles were reversed e and were asked to point to
the matching picture (see Friedmann and Shapiro, 2003 and
Fattal et al., 2011 for details on this test).
Comprehension of Wh-questions was also assessed using
a picture selection task (BAFLA ST). This test includes 120
questions: 30 which-subject questions (Which girl is kissing the
grandma?), 30 which-object questions (Which grandma is the girl
kissing?), 30 who-subject questions (Who is kissing the grandma?),
and 30 who-object questions (Who is the girl kissing?). The
experimenter asked a question while the participant was looking at a picture. The participant was then requested to point at
the figure that answered the question, selecting one of three
c o r t e x 4 8 ( 2 0 1 2 ) 1 1 0 3 e1 1 2 7
figures. Each picture included three figures: two of the same
type, which differed in at least one feature (a blue and a purple
elephant; a blond and a red-headed girl) and a third figure of
a different kind. In the picture, the first figure was performing an
action on the second, and the second figure was performing the
same action on the third figure, which was of the same type of
the first one. (A dark dog biting a cat, who is biting a light-colored
dog. see Friedmann and Novogrodsky, 2011, and Friedmann and
Szterman, 2011 for details on this test).
For both the relative clause and the Wh-question
comprehension tasks, we were looking for individuals who
show a clear indication of a deficit in non-canonical structures
(or, under syntax-based theories, a deficit in movement
derived sentences in which the object crosses the subject).
Such a deficit manifests in these tests in impaired comprehension of the non-canonical structures e object relatives and
object questions (at least which-object questions) e and better
comprehension of subject relatives and subject questions,
which can be comprehended on the basis of the canonical
order of arguments, in which the agent precedes the theme.
The relatively good comprehension of the canonical sentences also indicates the participants’ comprehension of the task,
the words in the sentences, and the pictures.
The embedded-sentence repetition test includes 20 sentences: 10 with sentential complements (The-doctor knew thatthe-child sneezed, which is a 4-word sentence in Hebrew) and 10
with semantically reversible object relatives (I-saw the-doctor
that-the-child knew, also 4 words). The participants were
asked to repeat each sentence immediately after hearing it.
(See Friedmann, 1999, 2001 for a description of this test.)
The verb movement repetition test includes 40 sentences:
20 with verb movement to second position in the sentence,
following a temporal adverb (AdvVSO), and 20 without verb
movement (AdvSVO). The participants were asked to repeat
the sentences. (See Friedmann, 2006 for this test and its
rationale.)
Relative clause production was examined with a relative
clause elicitation task (BAFLA ZIBUV). The task includes 20
target sentences (10 subject relatives and 10 object relatives),
elicited by 10 pairs of drawings. The experimenter described the
two pictures in simple sentences, and the participants were
then asked to depict each figure using a single sentence, starting, for example, with “This is the girl.”. Some of the participants were also tested using another relative clause elicitation
task (BAFLA ADIF), which includes six target subject relatives
and six target object relatives. In this test, they were told about
two people and were asked which one they would rather be,
starting with “I would rather be the woman.”. (See Friedmann,
2001; Friedmann and Szterman, 2006; and Novogrodsky and
Friedmann, 2006 for details on these two tests.)
The verb inflection completion test (BAFLA VE) includes 24
sentences. Each sentence included two parts. The first part
included a verb in infinitival form, and in the second part
a verb was missing. The participants were asked to insert the
same verb in the empty space, in the correct tense and
agreement inflection (e.g., Grandma wanted to draw, so she took
a charcoal and _____ [drew-past-3rd-sg-fem]). (See Friedmann
and Grodzinsky, 1997 for details on this test.)
Because relative clauses and embedded sentences without
movement involve the highest node in the syntactic tree, CP,
1123
assessing their production indicates whether a participant
can access CP or not. When the verb moves to second position
in the sentence (etmol axla ha-yalda xumus, lit.- yesterday ate
the-girl hummus), it moves to CP; hence, sentences involving
this type of movement also serve as an indication for the
availability of the CP node. Correct tense inflection relates to
another functional node, TP. Failure to inflect the verb
correctly for tense can thus indicate inaccessibility of TP.
B2 Tests for inclusion in the lexical impairment group
The SHEMESH naming test includes 100 pictures of objects of
various semantic categories. The object names are one to four
syllables long, with ultimate and penultimate stress and with
various first phonemes; they include both masculine and
feminine nouns, with regular and irregular gender morphology.
The frequency of the nouns ranges from 2.39 to 6.84 on a scale of
1e7 (M ¼ 4.90, SD ¼ 1.09). The average performance of adults
without a language deficit in this test is 97% correct naming.
We included in the study only participants whose
conceptual level was intact. To rule out a conceptual deficit, we
analyzed the error types in the SHEMESH naming test (looking
for paraphasias that were semantically and phonologically
unrelated to the target word) and administered a picture
association test. The picture association test includes 35
items. The target picture is presented with two additional
pictures. The items shown in the additional pictures are
semantically related to each other, but only one relates to the
target item, for example, a bottle of wine, presented with
grapes and apples; an egg, presented with a hen and a dog.
Participants had to point to the picture that was semantically
more closely related to the target. Intact performance in the
picture association test (no more than one error) and absence
of unrelated paraphasias in naming were taken to rule out
a conceptual deficit.
A lexical-semantic deficit was diagnosed by semantic paraphasias in naming (errors that are semantically related to the
target word) and difficulty in various semantic tasks: semantic
verbal fluency, synonym judgment, a word association test,
and a spoken/written word-picture matching test (PALPA 47/
48, Kay et al., 1992; Hebrew version by Gil and Edelstein, 2001).
These tasks are described below.
In the semantic verbal fluency task, participants were
asked to say as many names of clothes and as many names of
wild animals as they could think of, each in 1 min.
The synonym judgment test includes 37 pairs of words, of
which 16 pairs are synonyms (e.g., maxol-rikud ‘dance’), 16 are
semantically related but not synonyms (sky-stars), and 5 are
non-synonym (box-table). The participants were asked to
judge for each pair whether the two words were synonyms. In
the results we report the scores in the judgment of the unrelated non-synonym pairs.
The word association test includes 35 items. Each target
word is presented in writing with two other written words,
both words are semantically related to each other but only one
is closely related to the target (e.g., pot e {soup, cake}; cold e
{winter, summer}). Twenty five of the words depict imageable
nouns that also appear in the picture association test, and 10
items are abstract nouns and adjectives. The participants
were asked to point to the word related to the target word.
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c o r t e x 4 8 ( 2 0 1 2 ) 1 1 0 3 e1 1 2 7
In the spoken/written word-picture matching tests (PALPA
47/48), a word is presented orally or in written form along with
five pictures, and the participant is asked to point to the picture
that matches the word. The four non-matching distracter
pictures in each set are: semantically related to the target,
semantically distant from the target, visually similar to the
target, and unrelated to the target. The spoken and written tests
include the same 40 target words and the same distracters.
A phonological deficit, at the phonological output lexicon or
the phonological output buffer, was diagnosed by phonological paraphasias in naming (errors that are phonologically
related to the target word) and difficulty in a phonological
verbal fluency task (naming words starting with m and words
starting with d, each in 1 min). To further distinguish between
lexical and buffer deficits, we also tested word and nonword
repetition (25 words and 30 nonwords, respectively, from the
BLIP battery for the assessment of phonological abilities,
Friedmann, 2003), and nonword reading (30 nonwords, from
the TILTAN battery for the diagnosis of dyslexias, Friedmann
and Gvion, 2003).
B3 Elaborated results and explanations about the diagnosis
of the lexical impairment source
The tests in Section 2.1.2 summarized the deficit of each of the
participants. In this Appendix we bring the more detailed
results and considerations for the ascription of a locus of
deficit to each participant’s performance. According to the
results, presented in Table 2, two participants (SN, AA) were
diagnosed with a lexical-semantic deficit. They had difficulty in
the word-picture matching test, in which they produced
mainly semantic errors e close and distant. SN performed at
chance level on the synonym judgment test. Both could not
name any picture in the naming test: SN produced semantic
and unrelated paraphasias, and AA usually could not produce
any response at all. Neither of them could retrieve even
a single item on the semantic fluency task. In the picture
association test SN’s performance was good (he had only one
error), and AA’s performance was slightly below the threshold
of preserved performance, with 3 errors (still considerably
above chance level). AA’s slightly low performance in the
pictures associations test and the existence of unrelated paraphasias in SN’s naming might indicate an involvement of
a mild conceptual deficit for these two participants.
Three participants (AO, SM, BP) were diagnosed with
a lexical-phonological deficit. They performed flawlessly in the
associations test, in the word-picture matching test and in the
synonym judgment test. AO and BP, who were tested on the
fluency tasks, could retrieve more words on the semantic
fluency task than on the phonological fluency task. The three
of them produced semantic paraphasias in addition to
phonological paraphasias (SM produced more semantic than
phonological paraphasias) (see Caramazza and Hillis, 1990
and Howard and Gatehouse, 2006 regarding the existence of
semantic paraphasias in a lexical-phonological deficit).
Finally, the three participants showed a frequency effect in
naming, an effect ascribed to the phonological output lexicon,
but not a length effect or a syllable frequency effect, which are
related to the phonological output buffer. Their performance
in the word and nonword repetition tests was good. Their
good nonword repetition indicates, in line with the effect
analyses, that their deficit resides in the phonological output
lexicon rather than in the phonological output buffer.
Five participants (YD, ND, MK, AG, BT) were diagnosed with
a phonological buffer deficit. They performed flawlessly in the
associations test, in the word-picture matching test and in the
synonym judgment test. YD and ND, who were tested on the
fluency tasks retrieved more words on the semantic fluency
task than on the phonological fluency task. In the naming test
and in spontaneous speech, they produced mainly phonological errors e many of them approximations: conduit
d’approche and metatheses e and only few semantic errors.
They were the only participants who produced only faithful
approximations. A length effect was found for 3 participants
(YD, MK, AG) and a syllable frequency effect was found for 4
them (YD, MK, AG, BT). ND had many hesitation responses
and did not produce enough phonological errors to allow for
a reliable assessment of syllable frequency effect and length
effect on his errors. A lexical frequency effect, which is related
to the phonological lexicon, was not found for 4 of the
participants (ND, MK, AG, BT). The performance of these 5
participants in the nonword reading and nonword repetition
tests was very poor. Two of the participants with a phonological buffer deficit (ND, MK) were tested with phonological
working memory tests (FriGvi Battery for the Assessment of
Working Memory; Friedmann and Gvion, 2002) by Friedmann
and Gvion (2007) and Gvion and Friedmann (2008) and were
found to have significantly shorter phonological working
memory spans compared with healthy controls, a finding that
supports the conclusion that they have a phonological buffer
deficit. In addition, BT had a morphological deficit in production. This deficit was demonstrated in tasks of prepositions
completion, reading of prepositions and determiners, reading
and repetition of morphologically complex words, and in the
production of inflected verbs. The existence of a morphological deficit in production also supports a deficit at the level of
the phonological output buffer (Dotan and Friedmann, 2007).
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