Quantifier Spreading Errors during Pronoun Processing in Aphasia

Year 2024, Volume: 44 Issue: 1, 125 - 142, 30.04.2024

Seçkin Arslan , Gamze Yeşilli Puzella , Semra Selvi Balo , Özgür Aydın , İlknur Maviş

https://doi.org/10.26650/SP2023-1241698

Abstract

Aphasia is an acquired language disorder that impacts all language abilities, rendering normal communication extremely difficult. Grammatical processing is often impaired in aphasia. Pronouns are often found to be effortful, with difficulty interpreting to whom a pronoun might refer. This study aimed to investigate whether interpreting pronouns and reflexives with and without potential quantified antecedents (i.e., “Every rabbit / Rabbit is pointing at itself/it/monkey”) are impaired in aphasia in Turkish, and whether quantifier spreading errors occur during pronoun/reflexive processing. A total of 12 people with aphasia (PWA) (two females, Mage= 59.7, SD = 14.55) and 15 age-matched healthy controls were recruited and asked to listen to 24 sentences in conditions of non-quantified and quantified subjects in which different referential and pronominal variables were controlled for (pronoun, reflexive, and R-expression). These participants were admitted to a picture-sentence matching paradigm with an end-of-trial truth-value judgment task. They were presented with a picture which either matched or mismatched the sentence contexts, and they were asked to respond. Their accuracy and response times were recorded and analyzed using mixed-effects regression models. The findings showed that the PWA performed more poorly and slowly than the control group and that both the groups performed more slowly responding to the quantified subjects than non-quantified ones. The PWA made interpretation errors in mismatch conditions, particularly for quantified subjects, evoking longer response times compared to non-quantified subjects. In conclusion, this study showed that quantifier spreading errors are observed in Turkish aphasia, which does not necessarily depend on pronominal/anaphoric resolution. It is suggested that the PWA’s sentence interpretation difficulty was underlined in two forms of separate impairments: interpreting quantifier scope and impairments in resolving pronominal/anaphoric elements.

Keywords

Aphasia, quantifier, pronoun, quantifier spreading, binding

Project Number

838602

Afazide Adılların İşlemlenmesi Sırasında Gözlenen Niceleyici Yayma Hataları

Abstract

Afazi, tüm dil yetilerini etkileyerek bireyin güçlükle iletişim kurmasına neden olan edinilmiş bir dil bozukluğudur. Dilbilgisel yapıları işlemleme, afazide çoğunlukla güçtür. Adıllar, afazide sıklıkla etkilenen bir dilbilgisi yapısıdır ve afazili bireyler adılların kimi işaret edebileceğini yorumlamada güçlük yaşamaktadır. Bu çalışma, (i) Türkçe afazide niceleyicisi olan ve olmayan öznelerin bulunduğu tümcelerde adıl/adılsılları işlemlemenin (örneğin, “Her tavşan/Tavşan kendini/onu/maymunu gösteriyor.”) etkilenip etkilenmediğini ve (ii) adıl/adılsıl işlemleme sırasında oluşan niceleyici yayma hatalarını incelemeyi hedeflemektedir. Çalışmaya 12 afazili birey (iki kadın, Ort.Yaş= 59.7, SS = 14.55) ve benzer yaşlardaki 15 sağlıklı yetişkin katılmıştır. Katılımcılardan, farklı göndergesel ve adılsıl değişkenlerin kontrol edildiği (adıl, dönüşlü adıl ve G-anlatım) niceleyicili ve niceleyicisiz özne koşullarında 24 tümce dinlemeleri istenmiştir. Mevcut araştırma kapsamında, tümce sonu doğruluk-değer yargısı göreviyle birlikte bir resim-tümce eşleştirme paradigması kullanılmıştır. Bu doğrultuda, katılımcılara tümce bağlamlarıyla eşleşen ya da eşleşmeyen bir resim sunulmuş ve kendilerinden yanıt vermeleri istenmiştir. Katılımcıların doğruluk oranlarının ve yanıt sürelerinin kaydedilmesiyle elde edilen veriler, karmaşık etkili regresyon modelleri kullanılarak analiz edilmiştir. Analizler sonucunda elde edilen bulgular, afazili bireylerin kontrol grubuna göre daha zayıf ve yavaş performans gösterdiğini ve her iki grubun da niceleyicili koşulda niceleyicisiz olanlara göre daha yavaş yanıt verdiğini ortaya koymuştur. Afazili bireyler, özellikle niceleyicili tümcelerin bulunduğu uyumsuz koşulunda yorumlama hataları yapmış ve bu durum niceleyicisiz cümlelere kıyasla daha uzun yanıt sürelerine neden olmuştur. Sonuç olarak, bu çalışma Türkçe konuşan afazili bireylerde adılsıl/göndergesel çözünürlüğe bağlı olmayan niceleyici yayma hatalarının gözlemlendiğini göstermiştir. Mevcut araştırmada kullanılan tümcelerin işlemlenmesinde, afazili bireylerin niceleyici kapsamını yorumlama ve adılsıl/göndergesel öğeleri çözme şeklinde iki farklı bozukluk biçimi gösterdiği sonucuna varmak mümkündür.

Keywords

Afazi, niceleyici, adıl, niceleyici yayma, bağlama

Supporting Institution

Avrupa Komisyonu

Project Number

838602

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