Tense and Agreement dissociations in German agrammatic speakers: underspecification vs. hierarchy

Brain Lang. 2005 Aug;94(2):188-99. doi: 10.1016/j.bandl.2004.12.006.

Abstract

The aim of the present paper was to investigate whether German agrammatic production data are compatible with the Tree-Pruning-Hypothesis (TPH; Friedmann & Grodzinsky, 1997). The theory predicts unidirectional patterns of dissociation in agrammatic production data with respect to Tense and Agreement. However, there was evidence of a double dissociation between Tense and Agreement in our data. The presence of a bidirectional dissociation is incompatible with any theory which assumes a hierarchical order between these categories such as the TPH or other versions thereof (such as Lee's, 2003 top--down hypothesis). It will be argued that the data can better be accounted for by relying on newer linguistic theories such as the Minimalist Program (MP,), which does not assume a hierarchical order between independent syntactic Tense and Agreement nodes but treats them as different features (semantically interpretable vs. uninterpretable) under a single node.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Acoustic Stimulation
  • Adult
  • Aphasia, Broca / physiopathology*
  • Female
  • Germany
  • Humans
  • Linguistics*
  • Male
  • Middle Aged
  • Photic Stimulation
  • Reading