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Comparative Study
. 2003 Apr;46(2):288-97.
doi: 10.1044/1092-4388(2003/023).

Agrammatic comprehension of simple active sentences with moved constituents: Hebrew OSV and OVS structures

Affiliations
Comparative Study

Agrammatic comprehension of simple active sentences with moved constituents: Hebrew OSV and OVS structures

Naama Friedmann et al. J Speech Lang Hear Res. 2003 Apr.

Abstract

This study examines agrammatic comprehension of object-subject-verb (OSV) and object-verb-subject (OVS) structures in Hebrew. These structures are syntactically identical to the basic order subject-verb-object (SVO) sentence except for the movement of the object to the beginning of the sentence, and thus enable empirical examination of syntactic movement in agrammatic comprehension. Seven individuals with agrammatism, 7 individuals with conduction aphasia, and 7 individuals without language impairment, all native speakers of Hebrew, performed a sentence-picture matching task. The task compared OSV and OVS sentences to SVO sentences and to subject and object relatives. Individuals with agrammatism performed more poorly than those in either of the other groups. Their comprehension of SVO sentences was significantly above chance, but comprehension of OSV and OVS sentences was at chance and was poorer than comprehension of SVO sentences. These results show that agrammatic comprehension of structures that involve movement of a noun phrase is impaired even when the structure is a simple active sentence, in line with the Trace Deletion Hypothesis (TDH; Y. Grodzinsky, 1990, 1995a, 2000). A modification is suggested to accommodate the TDH with the VP Internal Subject Hypothesis, according to which individuals with agrammatism use an "Avoid Movement" strategy in comprehension.

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
A picture pair used in the binary sentence–picture matching task.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Agrammatic aphasia group—Comprehension of SVO, OSV, and OVS structures.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Agrammatic aphasia group—Comprehension of subject and object relative sentences.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Conduction aphasia group—Comprehension of SVO, OSV, and OVS structures and subject and object relatives.

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