The role of morphological structure in the processing of aspectual verb forms in a Bulgarian-speaking aphasic patient

Abstract

The present study investigates the on-line performance of a non-fluent Bulgarian-speaking aphasic patient and nine matched control participants in the recognition of prefixed verbs. A visual primed lexical decision experiment was employed to probe the role of aspect, semantic transparency, and root status (free vs. bound) in the recognition patterns obtained. Controls' results showed aspect and transparency effects. The patient demonstrated facilitation for verb forms featuring bound roots, while showing inhibition on transparent forms with free-standing roots, pointing to difficulties with decomposition, but not with accessing stored forms. These results suggest that the patient had a problem at the level of morphological decomposition-based mechanisms.