Limitations during processing of variable reflexive anaphors and overt/null object pronouns in Turkish aphasia revealed by eye-tracking during listening studies

Abstract

This study investigated how reflexives and object pronouns in Turkish are processed in aphasia as compared to a group of unimpaired controls. We aimed to understand (i) the moment-by-moment time course of processing reflexive forms, and (ii) and overt/null object pronouns in Turkish people with aphasia (PWA). We administered two eye-movement-monitoring during-listening experiments exploring resolution of reflexive variables (Experiment 1) and object pronouns (Experiment 2) in 6 PWA and their controls (n=26). Our findings showed that interpretation of reflexive anaphors in Turkish is variable, and PWA are employing a non-local interpretation of reflexive anaphors to tackle down referential ambiguity in the absence of an ability to integrate contextual cues. Furthermore, PWA inappropriately considered inaccessible local antecedents for object pronouns, and they encountered limitations processing discourse antecedents. We argue that anaphoric processing profiles in aphasia face strong limitations by variable interpretability of pronominal reference and PWA’s inability to integrate contextual cues to disambiguate the intended antecedents.