Process in Reversible Sentences Comprehension in Aphasics

Abstract

In the previous papers we found that aphasic patients used several sentence comprehension strategies. They understand sentences either, 1) from the semantic selective restrictions of lexicon, 2) on the basis of its word order in surface structure. (Word Order Comprehension strategy), or 3) by decoding its particles (Particle Comprehension strategy) . In this paper we discussed the following : First, in the Word Order Comprehension strategy, are “semantic relations in deep structures” or “grammatical categories” given to noun phrases according to the order of words? Second, in the Particle Comprehension strategy, how does a syntactic factor (i.e. complement construction) affects this strategy. The subjects involved were twenty-one Brocas, twenty-one Wernikes, and fourteen normals. They listened to reversible sentences and were required to point to the correct pictures. The results showed the following: First, in the Word Order Comprehension strategy, the semantic relations in deep structure were given to noun phrases according to the order of words in surface strucure. In addition, some of subjects with aphasia found word order from an auditory cue of particles and applied this strategy only to standard word order sentences. Second, in the Particle Comprehension strategy, decoding of syntactic structures occured. Additionally, sentences with complement constructions were more difficult to comprehend than those without complement constructions Incidentally, there was no qualitative difference between Brocas and Wernikes using the same trategies. However, Brocas scored better than Wernikes in the sentence comprehension tasks.