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Italian Prepositions in Aphasic Production: Evidence from Three Experimental Studies

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Italian Prepositions in Aphasic Production: Evidence from Three Experimental Studies Dottorato di ricerca in Scienze del Linguaggio Scuola di dottorato in Scienze del linguaggio, della cognizione e della formazione. Ciclo 24 (A.A. 2011 - 2012) Italian Prepositions in Aphasic Production: evidence from three experimental studies. SETTORE SCIENTIFICO DISCIPLINARE DI AFFERENZA: L-LIN/01 Tesi di dottorato di Elisa Zampieri, matricola 955588 Coordinatore del Dottorato Tutore del dottorando Prof.ssa Alessandra Giorgi Prof. Guglielmo Cinque 1 To Luca, Cristina, Fabio and Marco 2 TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION __________________________________________________________ 9 1. ARTICULATED PREPOSITIONS: A CROSS-LINGUISTIC PERSPECTIVE ____ 15 1.1 Languages with contraction bwtween prepositions and articles ________________ 16 1.1.1 French inflected prepositions ___________________________________________ 16 1.1.2 German inflected prepositions __________________________________________ 23 1.1.3 Portuguese inflected prepositions _______________________________________ 29 1.2 Languages with contraction between prepositions and other functional elements. _ 35 1.2.1 Irish contracted forms ________________________________________________ 36 2. ITALIAN PREPOSITIONS _______________________________________________ 41 2.1 Introduction ___________________________________________________________ 41 2.2 Monosyllabic Prepositions _______________________________________________ 42 2.2.1 Articulated Prepositions _______________________________________________ 46 2.2.2. Argumentations against the inflectional hypothesis _________________________ 53 2.2.3. How does contraction happen? _________________________________________ 60 2.3 Complex prepositions ___________________________________________________ 68 2.3.1 Italian Complex prepositions ___________________________________________ 75 3. PREPOSITIONAL COMPOUND WORDS __________________________________ 83 3.1 Introduction ___________________________________________________________ 83 3.2 NpN compounds _______________________________________________________ 84 3.2.1 Theoretical background _______________________________________________ 84 3.2.2 NpN Compounds in aphasia ____________________________________________ 90 3.3 PN compounds _________________________________________________________ 93 3 4. PREPOSITIONS AND APHASIA _________________________________________ 95 4.1 A review of the neuropsychological literature on prepositions __________________ 95 4.2 Conclusions __________________________________________________________ 111 5. EXPERIMENT 1 – PREPOSITIONAL CONTRACTED FORMS IN ITALIAN APHASIC PRODUCTION. ________________________________________________ 114 5.1 Introduction __________________________________________________________ 114 5.2 Participants __________________________________________________________ 114 5.3 Completion task _______________________________________________________ 115 5.3.1 Materials and Methods _______________________________________________ 115 5.3.2 Results ____________________________________________________________ 117 5.3.3 Articulated prepositions ______________________________________________ 117 5.3.4 Simple prepositions __________________________________________________ 119 5.3.5 Definite articles ____________________________________________________ 120 5.3.6 Non-articulated prepositions __________________________________________ 120 5.3.7 Further observations ________________________________________________ 121 5.4 Repetition task ________________________________________________________ 123 5.4.1 Methods and Materials _______________________________________________ 123 5.4.2 Results ____________________________________________________________ 124 5.4.3 Articulated prepositions ______________________________________________ 125 5.4.4 Simple prepositions __________________________________________________ 127 5.4.5 Non-articulated prepositions __________________________________________ 127 5.4.6 Definite Articles ____________________________________________________ 129 5.4.7 Further observations ________________________________________________ 129 5.5 Discussion ____________________________________________________________ 130 5.6 Conclusions __________________________________________________________ 132 6. EXPERIMENT 2 – COMPLEX PREPOSITIONS IN AGRAMMATIC APHASIA 133 4 6.1 Introduction __________________________________________________________ 133 6.2 The patient ___________________________________________________________ 133 6.3 Materials and Methods _________________________________________________ 134 6.3.1 Analysis ___________________________________________________________ 136 6.4 Results ______________________________________________________________ 136 6.4.1. Omission of Axial Part ______________________________________________ 137 6.4.2 Omission of Figure __________________________________________________ 138 6.4.3 Omission of Axial Part and Figure ______________________________________ 138 6.4.4 Summary of results __________________________________________________ 138 6.5 Discussion ____________________________________________________________ 139 6.6 Conclusions __________________________________________________________ 142 7. EXPERIEMENT 3 – PREPOSITIONAL COMPOUNDS IN BROCA’S APHASIA 144 7.1 Introduction __________________________________________________________ 144 7.2 Participant ___________________________________________________________ 144 7.3 Repetition and reading tasks ____________________________________________ 145 7.3.1 Materials __________________________________________________________ 145 7.3.2 Methods __________________________________________________________ 147 7.3.3 Results of the repetition task ___________________________________________ 147 7.3.4 Results of the reading task ____________________________________________ 149 7.4 Completion tasks ______________________________________________________ 153 7.4.1 Materials and Methods ______________________________________________ 153 7.4.2 Results of completion tasks ____________________________________________ 153 7.5 Repetition task with phrases ____________________________________________ 156 7.5.1 Materials and Methods _______________________________________________ 156 7.5.2 Results of the repetition task with phrases ________________________________ 157 5 7.6 Discussion ____________________________________________________________ 159 CONCLUDING REMARKS _______________________________________________ 164 REFERENCES __________________________________________________________ 168 APPENDIX A – EXPERIMENT 1 __________________________________________ 179 APPENDIX B - EXPERIMENT 2 __________________________________________ 189 APPENDIX C – EXPERIMENT 3 __________________________________________ 192 6 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First and foremost I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor prof. Guglielmo Cinque, who has supported me throughout my dissertation, for his helpful advices during my doctoral studies. I am grateful to him for his detailed comments on my work and for his contribution to the interpretation of the experimental results. His deep knowledge and helpfulness have been essential for encouraging me in finishing my project. Moreover, I would like to thank him for his patient in reviewing my thesis. I am grateful to prof. Anna Cardinaletti, who has always been present during these three years. I also thank her for her useful advices during the elaboration of the experimental batteries. I express my deep and sincere gratitude to doctor Francesca Meneghello, who has the merit of believing in the linguistic application for clinical purposes. She had an important role in the accomplishment of this work, especially helping me in the recruitment of the subjects and guiding me through the knowledge of aphasia. I also thank prof. Carlo Semenza for his help in the methodological organization of the experiments and for giving me the opportunity of participating at the 48th and 49th annual meetings of the Academy of Aphasia in Athens and Montreal. I would like to express my very great appreciation to prof. Giulia Bencini for her valuable and constructive suggestions during the planning and development of this research work and for her willingness to give her time so generously when I was preparing my poster presentations for the 49th annual meeting of the Academy of Aphasia in Montreal. I wish to express my warm and sincere thanks to prof. Annalena Venneri, for believing in the importance of linguistic and for giving me the opportunity of writing an ambitious project with my colleague Ludovico Franco. I thank the speech therapist Martina Garzon and the entire staff of the Neuropsychological Unit of IRCCS, Ospedale San Camillo, Venice (Italy) and of the Centro Medico di Foniatria, Padua, with which I collaborated during the whole period of my PhD, for help me with the data collection. 7 A special thank goes to all the patients who agreed to perform my tests with great patient and care. My primary ambition is to provide further tools for a successful rehabilitation plan. I am convinced that, with the application of generative linguistic models to the assessment of patients‟ linguistic skills, we are on the right track towards the improvement of the understanding of language diseases. I especially thank my colleague and dear friend Ludovico Franco, who has shared with me this experience. To discuss with him about linguistic was always an enriching opportunity. I thank him for his moral support, which has been encouraging me, and for reading and constructively commented
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