@article{JapMartinezFerreiroBastiaanse2016, author = {Jap, Bernard A. and Martinez-Ferreiro, Silvia and Bastiaanse, Roelien}, title = {The effect of syntactic frequency on sentence comprehension in standard}, series = {Aphasiology : an international, interdisciplinary journal}, volume = {30}, journal = {Aphasiology : an international, interdisciplinary journal}, publisher = {Institute of Mathematical Statistics}, address = {Abingdon}, issn = {0268-7038}, doi = {10.1080/02687038.2016.1148902}, pages = {1325 -- 1340}, year = {2016}, abstract = {Background: Comprehension of reversible sentences that have derived word order has often been reported as impaired in agrammatic aphasia. Most accounts of this phenomenon refer to the syntactic differences between derived and base word order of the arguments. However, it has been demonstrated that in agrammatic spontaneous speech in standard Indonesian (SI) passives are produced at a rate that is proportional to that of healthy speakers. The main difference between passives in SI and in other languages is the frequency with which passives are used: passives in SI are highly frequent. The high frequency can be explained by the fact that passives are used for politeness reasons, saliency of the passive morphology, earlier acquisition, and formal simplicity of the passive structure. Aims: The purpose of the current study is to investigate comprehension of the passive as a derived structure in SI and the influence of frequency. Methods \& Procedures: A sentence-to-picture matching task was developed to test four reversible sentence types (active, passive, subject cleft and object cleft). There are three variables that are of interest, that is, word order, embedding and relative frequency of structures. Eleven agrammatic speakers classified as suffering from Broca's aphasia were tested. Outcomes \& Results: The passive sentences were comprehended equally well as the active sentences. Embedding had limited effects: subject clefts were understood as well as actives and passives. Object clefts, however, were understood poorly and significantly worse than the three other sentence types. Conclusions: The sentence comprehension deficit pattern shown in SI individuals with Broca's aphasia introduces frequency of a syntactic structure as an additional factor to consider. Whether frequency or pragmatic constraints protects against erosion of the passive in Broca's aphasia in SI remains an open question.}, language = {en} } @article{LarteyTsiwahAmponsahetal.2019, author = {Lartey, Nathaniel and Tsiwah, Frank and Amponsah, Clement and Martinez-Ferreiro, Silvia and Bastiaanse, Roelien}, title = {Resumption in the production of focused constructions in Akan speakers with agrammatism}, series = {Aphasiology}, volume = {34}, journal = {Aphasiology}, number = {3}, publisher = {Routledge}, address = {London}, doi = {10.1080/02687038.2019.1686746}, pages = {343 -- 364}, year = {2019}, abstract = {Background: The distribution of pronouns varies cross-linguistically. This distribution has led to conflicting results in studies that investigated pronoun resolution in agrammatic indviduals. In the investigation of pronominal resolution, the linguistic phenomenon of "resumption" is understudied in agrammatism. The construction of pronominal resolution in Akan presents the opportunity to thoroughly examine resumption. Aims: To start, the present study examines the production of (pronominal) resumption in Akan focus constructions (who-questions and focused declaratives). Second, we explore the effect of grammatical tone on the processing of pronominal (resumption) since Akan is a tonal language. Methods \& Procedures: First, we tested the ability to distinguish linguistic and non-linguistic tone in Akan agrammatic speakers. Then, we administered an elicitation task to five Akan agrammatic individuals, controlling for the structural variations in the realization of resumption: focused who-questions and declaratives with (i) only a resumptive pronoun, (ii) only a clause determiner, (iii) a resumptive pronoun and a clause determiner co-occurring, and (iv) neither a resumptive pronoun nor a clause determiner. Outcomes \& Results: Tone discrimination .both for pitch and for lexical tone was unimpaired. The production task demonstrated that the production of resumptive pronouns and clause determiners was intact. However, the production of declarative sentences in derived word order was impaired; wh-object questions were relatively well-preserved. Conclusions: We argue that the problems with sentence production are highly selective: linguistic tones and resumption are intact but word order is impaired in non-canonical declarative sentences.}, language = {en} } @misc{LarteyTsiwahAmponsahetal.2019, author = {Lartey, Nathaniel and Tsiwah, Frank and Amponsah, Clement and Martinez-Ferreiro, Silvia and Bastiaanse, Roelien}, title = {Resumption in the production of focused constructions in Akan speakers with agrammatism}, series = {Postprints der Universit{\"a}t Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe}, journal = {Postprints der Universit{\"a}t Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe}, number = {3}, issn = {1866-8364}, doi = {10.25932/publishup-52529}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-525296}, pages = {24}, year = {2019}, abstract = {Background: The distribution of pronouns varies cross-linguistically. This distribution has led to conflicting results in studies that investigated pronoun resolution in agrammatic indviduals. In the investigation of pronominal resolution, the linguistic phenomenon of "resumption" is understudied in agrammatism. The construction of pronominal resolution in Akan presents the opportunity to thoroughly examine resumption. Aims: To start, the present study examines the production of (pronominal) resumption in Akan focus constructions (who-questions and focused declaratives). Second, we explore the effect of grammatical tone on the processing of pronominal (resumption) since Akan is a tonal language. Methods \& Procedures: First, we tested the ability to distinguish linguistic and non-linguistic tone in Akan agrammatic speakers. Then, we administered an elicitation task to five Akan agrammatic individuals, controlling for the structural variations in the realization of resumption: focused who-questions and declaratives with (i) only a resumptive pronoun, (ii) only a clause determiner, (iii) a resumptive pronoun and a clause determiner co-occurring, and (iv) neither a resumptive pronoun nor a clause determiner. Outcomes \& Results: Tone discrimination .both for pitch and for lexical tone was unimpaired. The production task demonstrated that the production of resumptive pronouns and clause determiners was intact. However, the production of declarative sentences in derived word order was impaired; wh-object questions were relatively well-preserved. Conclusions: We argue that the problems with sentence production are highly selective: linguistic tones and resumption are intact but word order is impaired in non-canonical declarative sentences.}, language = {en} } @misc{MartinezFerreirodeAguiarRofes2015, author = {Martinez-Ferreiro, Silvia and de Aguiar, Vania and Rofes, Adria}, title = {Non-fluent aphasia in Ibero-Romance: a review of morphosyntactic deficits}, series = {Aphasiology : an international, interdisciplinary journal}, volume = {29}, journal = {Aphasiology : an international, interdisciplinary journal}, number = {1}, publisher = {Routledge, Taylor \& Francis Group}, address = {Abingdon}, issn = {0268-7038}, doi = {10.1080/02687038.2014.958915}, pages = {101 -- 126}, year = {2015}, abstract = {Background: Castilian-Spanish, Catalan, Galician, and European Portuguese are the most widely spoken languages of the Ibero-Romance group. An increasing number of authors have addressed the impact of aphasia on the morphosyntax of these varieties. However, accurate linguistic characterisations are scarce and the different sources of data have not been yet compiled.Aims: To stimulate state-of-the-art research, we provided a comprehensive summary of morphosyntactic aspects of Ibero-Romance and a review of how these are affected in non-fluent aphasia. The topics we dealt with are the use of verb argument structure and morphology, sentential negation and word order, definite articles, personal and reflexive pronouns, passives, topicalised constructions, questions, and relative clauses.Methods \& Procedures: An exhaustive fieldwork and search of PubMed, Web of Science, and Medline records were performed to retrieve studies focused on morphosyntactic issues concerning the Ibero-Romance varieties. A total of 27 studies produced by 46 authors of varying background emerged. We did not review studies of category-specific deficits and aspects related to bilingual aphasia, although we assume that most speakers of Galician and Catalan are bilingual. Studies of spontaneous speech were included when no controlled experimental tasks were available.Outcomes \& Results: The morphosyntactic commonalities of Ibero-Romance have been tackled from different theoretical perspectives. There exist asymmetries in findings which we explain with the use of different tasks (and task complexity) and individual differences between participants.Conclusions: Discourse-linking factors as well as deviations from the canonical pattern are recurrent answers to these asymmetries. A comprehensive theory of impairments in non-fluent aphasia integrating relevant aspects of both structural and processing accounts seems necessary.}, language = {en} } @article{MartinezFerreiroReyesBastiaanse2017, author = {Martinez-Ferreiro, Silvia and Reyes, Andres Felipe and Bastiaanse, Roelien}, title = {Overcoming discourse-linking difficulties in aphasia}, series = {Clinical linguistics \& phonetics}, volume = {31}, journal = {Clinical linguistics \& phonetics}, number = {6}, publisher = {Taylor \& Francis Group}, address = {Philadelphia}, issn = {0269-9206}, doi = {10.1080/02699206.2017.1308015}, pages = {459 -- 477}, year = {2017}, abstract = {The present study aims to contribute to the ongoing discussion about the impact of discourse-linking deficits on the performance of individuals with aphasia by providing new data from a set of rarely investigated constructions: sentences in which a clitic pronoun coexists alongside with the full DP it agrees with. To do so, we use data of individuals with non-fluent aphasias who need to overcome the difficulties in direct object (accusative) clitic production. This results in overproduction of non-target clitic right dislocations (RDs) and clitic doubling (CD). Data from 15 individual's native speakers of Spanish and Catalan are discussed. Data complement the results of previous investigations on discourse-linking effects in these languages, allowing the interpretation of results across constructions.}, language = {en} } @article{RofesBastiaanseMartinezFerreiro2014, author = {Rofes, Adria and Bastiaanse, Roelien and Martinez-Ferreiro, Silvia}, title = {Conditional and future tense impairment in non-fluent aphasia}, series = {Aphasiology : an international, interdisciplinary journal}, volume = {28}, journal = {Aphasiology : an international, interdisciplinary journal}, number = {1}, publisher = {Routledge, Taylor \& Francis Group}, address = {Abingdon}, issn = {0268-7038}, doi = {10.1080/02687038.2013.850650}, pages = {99 -- 115}, year = {2014}, abstract = {Background: Morphological errors of tense and agreement are salient in agrammatic aphasia. The PADILIH predicts impairments in discourse linking that translate to greater difficulties in referring to a past event time than to a future or a present event time. In Catalan, the Periphrastic conditional tense (e.g., if the man had had time, he would have...) refers to the past and the Simple conditional tense refers to the future (e.g., if the man had time, he would...). These two tenses refer to an event that may happen (irrealis).Aims: We fill in the gap of the conditional tense and provide further data to study contrasts in verb inflection for time reference. We predict that verb forms that refer to an irrealis past event (Periphrastic conditional) are more impaired than forms that refer to an irrealis future event (Simple conditional and Future). We also predict that there are no differences between verb forms that refer to an irrealis future event (Simple conditional and Future). We also assessed whether problems in time reference extend to individuals with non-fluent aphasia that are not typical agrammatic Broca aphasia.Methods \& Procedures: A sentence completion task that included 60 sentences (20 per type) of equal length in a Conditional structure (if-sentences) was designed. We tested three sentence types: Periphrastic conditional, Simple conditional and Future. The task was administered to nine participants with non-fluent aphasia and nine age-matched non-brain-damaged participants.Outcomes \& Results: The Control group scored at ceiling on the three sentence types. Participants with non-fluent aphasia were most impaired in the production of the Periphrastic conditional as compared with the Simple conditional and the Future.Conclusions: When irrealis event times are compared, past events are more impaired than future events. These results can be explained by a deficit in time reference as predicted by the PADILIH. Our data reveal that the predictions of the PADILIH also hold for non-fluent speakers who have been diagnosed with Transcortical motor aphasia.}, language = {en} } @article{RofesZakariasCederetal.2018, author = {Rofes, Adria and Zakarias, Lilla and Ceder, Klaudia and Lind, Marianne and Johansson, Monica Blom and de Aguiar, Vania and Bjekic, Jovana and Fyndanis, Valantis and Gavarro, Anna and Simonsen, Hanne Gram and Hernandez Sacristan, Carlos and Kambanaros, Maria and Kraljevic, Jelena Kuva and Martinez-Ferreiro, Silvia and Mavis, Ilknur and Mendez Orellana, Carolina and Sor, Ingrid and Lukacs, Agnes and Tuncer, Muge and Vuksanovic, Jasmina and Munarriz Ibarrola, Amaia and Pourquie, Marie and Varlokosta, Spyridoula and Howard, David}, title = {Imageability ratings across languages}, series = {Behavior research methods : a journal of the Psychonomic Society}, volume = {50}, journal = {Behavior research methods : a journal of the Psychonomic Society}, number = {3}, publisher = {Springer}, address = {New York}, issn = {1554-351X}, doi = {10.3758/s13428-017-0936-0}, pages = {1187 -- 1197}, year = {2018}, abstract = {Imageability is a psycholinguistic variable that indicates how well a word gives rise to a mental image or sensory experience. Imageability ratings are used extensively in psycholinguistic, neuropsychological, and aphasiological studies. However, little formal knowledge exists about whether and how these ratings are associated between and within languages. Fifteen imageability databases were cross-correlated using nonparametric statistics. Some of these corresponded to unpublished data collected within a European research network-the Collaboration of Aphasia Trialists (COST IS1208). All but four of the correlations were significant. The average strength of the correlations (rho = .68) and the variance explained (R (2) = 46\%) were moderate. This implies that factors other than imageability may explain 54\% of the results. Imageability ratings often correlate across languages. Different possibly interacting factors may explain the moderate strength and variance explained in the correlations: (1) linguistic and cultural factors; (2) intrinsic differences between the databases; (3) range effects; (4) small numbers of words in each database, equivalent words, and participants; and (5) mean age of the participants. The results suggest that imageability ratings may be used cross-linguistically. However, further understanding of the factors explaining the variance in the correlations will be needed before research and practical recommendations can be made.}, language = {en} }