Abstract
<span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: ??; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: ZH-CN; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;" lang="EN-US"><em>The syntactic complexity of language production changes as a result of ageing. In this study, we made a comparison between Chinese-speaking older and younger adults in terms of the syntactic complexity in spoken language production. To assess the level of syntactic complexity of language production, we applied the traditional measures of syntactic complexity such as sentence length, verbal fluency and the distribution of subordinate clauses. Results indicated that older adults showed a decline in the mean number of clauses, the proportion of right-branching clauses and verbal fluency. These findings indicate that there was a decline in syntactic complexity in spoken language production among Chinese-speaking older adults.</em></span>
Highlights
Syntactic complexity is an essential property for measuring individuals’ ability to produce or comprehend languages
These findings indicate that there was a decline in syntactic complexity in spoken language production among Chinese-speaking older adults
As Chinese is different from Indo-European languages in terms of syntactic structures, the studies of language production among Chinese-speaking adults can offer a cross-linguistic perspective on language in the ageing brain
Summary
Syntactic complexity is an essential property for measuring individuals’ ability to produce or comprehend languages. The complexity of written or oral narratives is associated with the ability to combine sentence components, mostly embedded clauses. This ability can become less efficient as a sign of ageing in the brain. Many previous studies found that older adults have greater difficulty with the production and comprehension of complex syntactic structures (Emery, 1985; Kemper, 1986, 1987a, 1987b, 1989; Kynette & Kemper, 1986). The authors discovered a significant decline in syntactic complexity in older adults, which was attributable to a loss of left-branching clauses in all language samples. As Chinese is different from Indo-European languages in terms of syntactic structures, the studies of language production among Chinese-speaking adults can offer a cross-linguistic perspective on language in the ageing brain. The findings of this research can contribute to building a normative database which could potentially be utilized to assess language impairment in older adults
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