@article{AmaechiGeorgi2019, author = {Amaechi, Mary Chimaobi and Georgi, Doreen}, title = {Quirks of subject (non-)extraction in Igbo}, series = {Glossa : a journal of general linguistics}, volume = {4}, journal = {Glossa : a journal of general linguistics}, number = {1}, publisher = {Ubiquity Press}, address = {London}, issn = {2397-1835}, doi = {10.5334/gjgl.607}, pages = {36}, year = {2019}, abstract = {In this paper we present new data on a subject/non-subject extraction asymmetry in Igbo constituent questions. We provide evidence that the superficially morphological phenomenon reflects a deeper syntactic asymmetry: Unlike wh-non-subjects, wh-subjects cannot undergo local (A) over bar -movement to the left periphery (SpecFoc); rather, they have to stay in their canonical position SpecT. The same constraint also leads to the that-trace effect (absence of the complementizer) in the embedded clause of long subject wh-movement. We argue that what is responsible for the special status of wh-subjects is their high structural position. We provide an optimality-theoretic analysis of the asymmetry that is based on anti-locality: Local subject (A) over bar -movement is excluded because it is too short. Moreover, we address the nature of apparent wh-in-situ in Igbo.}, language = {en} } @article{ArslanGuerFelser2017, author = {Arslan, Se{\c{c}}kin and G{\"u}r, Eren and Felser, Claudia}, title = {Predicting the sources of impaired wh-question comprehension in non-fluent aphasia}, series = {Cognitive neuropsychology}, volume = {34}, journal = {Cognitive neuropsychology}, publisher = {Taylor \& Francis}, address = {Abingdon}, issn = {0264-3294}, doi = {10.1080/02643294.2017.1394284}, pages = {312 -- 331}, year = {2017}, abstract = {This study investigates the comprehension of wh-questions in individuals with aphasia (IWA) speaking Turkish, a non-wh-movement language, and German, a wh-movement language. We examined six German-speaking and 11 Turkish-speaking IWA using picture-pointing tasks. Findings from our experiments show that the Turkish IWA responded more accurately to both object who and object which questions than to subject questions, while the German IWA performed better for subject which questions than in all other conditions. Using random forest models, a machine learning technique used in tree-structured classification, on the individual data revealed that both the Turkish and German IWA's response accuracy is largely predicted by the presence of overt and unambiguous case marking. We discuss our results with regard to different theoretical approaches to the comprehension of wh-questions in aphasia.}, language = {en} } @article{ArslanFelser2017, author = {Arslan, Seckin and Felser, Claudia}, title = {Comprehension of wh-questions in Turkish-German bilinguals with aphasia}, series = {Clinical linguistics \& phonetics}, volume = {32}, journal = {Clinical linguistics \& phonetics}, number = {7}, publisher = {Taylor \& Francis Group}, address = {Philadelphia}, issn = {0269-9206}, doi = {10.1080/02699206.2017.1416493}, pages = {640 -- 660}, year = {2017}, abstract = {The aim of our study was to examine the extent to which linguistic approaches to sentence comprehension deficits in aphasia can account for differential impairment patterns in the comprehension of wh-questions in bilingual persons with aphasia (PWA). We investigated the comprehension of subject and object wh-questions in both Turkish, a wh-in-situ language, and German, a wh-fronting language, in two bilingual PWA using a sentence-to-picture matching task. Both PWA showed differential impairment patterns in their two languages. SK, an early bilingual PWA, had particular difficulty comprehending subject which-questions in Turkish but performed normal across all conditions in German. CT, a late bilingual PWA, performed more poorly for object which-questions in German than in all other conditions, whilst in Turkish his accuracy was at chance level across all conditions. We conclude that the observed patterns of selective cross-linguistic impairments cannot solely be attributed either to difficulty with wh-movement or to problems with the integration of discourse-level information. Instead our results suggest that differences between our PWA's individual bilingualism profiles (e.g. onset of bilingualism, premorbid language dominance) considerably affected the nature and extent of their impairments.}, language = {en} }