Paragrammatism

The(deviant)substitution(oromission)ofgrammaticalmorphemesinspontaneousspeech

•  (substitutionmakesitdifferenttoagrammatism)

Abnormal‘grammatical’sequences

Paragrammatism

Aroundasatermsince1914!

Originallyseenasaproblemofwordorder

ButalwaysseenasdifferenttoAgrammatism

Paragrammatism

ItisnormallyassociatedwithfluentaphasiassuchasWernicke’saphasia

Andisseeninlanguageproduction

Paragrammatism

Difficultiesincomprehensionarealsoafeatureoffluentaphasia

Paragrammatism

IfaWernicke’saphasicpatienthasgoodcommunicationalandinteractionalskillstheycansometimesdisguisethecomprehensiondeficit

Paragrammatism

Wernicke’saphasicpatientsmaybeunawareofthecomprehensiondifficultyespeciallyinthe

earlydaysafteronset

Paragrammatism

Fluentaphasicpatientsfindmeaningdependentonsyntaxmoredifficulttounderstand,andfind

understandingcomplexsentencesmoredifficultthensimplesentences

Paragrammatism

Production:

Subjectsmaymakemistakes;attemptingtosayonethingbutsayinganother.

Target:whattheywant(orareinstructed)tosay

Response:whattheyactuallysay

Paragrammatism

Testing

SeeEdwards(2005:98‐104)

ParagrammatismTesting

Apatientisaskedtolookatapictureanddescribethatpictureinonesentence.

20picturesinall.

Thepatient’sspontaneousspeechisfluentandhedisplaysbothwellandillformedsentences.

Thelanguageproducedbythepatientcanbecomparedtothelanguageofnon‐aphasicsusersperformingthesametask

Paragrammatism

Target Response

Themanisrunning ThemanrunningThemaniswalking WalkingdownthestreetThemanispaintingthewoman PaintingthepictureTheboyishittingthegirl Theladybox

Paragrammatism

Outoffoursentences,threeofthefourlexicalverbs,running,walking,painting,areproducedwhiletheverbhittinginsentence(4)issubstitutedforasemanticallyrelatedverbbox,whichislikehitinmeaning.TherewerealsosubstitutionsandomissionsmadewithsubjectNP’se.g.themaninsentence(2,3)isomitted,andtheNPinobjectpositioninsentence(4)issubstitutede.g.girlreplacedbylady.

Paragrammatism

Althoughtenseinflectionisnotseenintheseexampleswecannotassumeitismissingaltogetherastheaspectualinflection‘‐ing’ispresent.

Thepreservationof‘–ing’hasbeendocumentedasafeatureofnon‐fluentaphasiaandhasnotbeengenerallyrecognisedasafeatureoffluentaphasia.

Paragrammatism

AllfoursentencesaremissingtheconstituentunderT(Tensenode).Threeofthesentenceshavethecorrectverbwhilethefourthdoesnot.

Substitutionssuggesttheunderlyingnodeisintactomissionssuggesttheunderlyingnodeisunavailableormissing.

Thesentencesproducedbythepatientshowedthatthepatientunderstoodthepicturesandthetask.

Paragrammatism

Fluentaphasicspeakersproducefewersubordinateclausesthanthenormalcontrols.

Howevertheyalsoproducedmorecanonicalsentencestructuresthannormalcontrols.

Paragrammatism

Fluentaphasicspeakersproducefewersubordinateclausesthanthenormalcontrols.Howevertheyalsoproducedmorecanonicalsentencestructuresthannormalcontrols.

So,avoidingcomplexstructures.

Paragrammatism

Thisgreaterprevalenceofcanonicalstructuresinfluentaphasicsspeechwasshowntobethecase

acrossawiderangeoflanguages.

Theoverallfindingofareductioninsentencecomplexityinfluentaphasicspeakersofdifferentlanguagestellsusthatthisisafeatureoffluentaphasiaandisnotalanguagespecificfeature.

Paragrammatism

EdwardsandBastiaanse(1998)showedthatfluentaphasicspeakersalthoughabletoproducemainandsubordinateclausesusedsignificantlyfewer

thanthecontrolgroup.

Paragrammatism

Sosomethingismakingitdifficultforthemtodealwithcomplexstructures

Paragrammatism

Testingcantakeplaceusingelicitedspeech

Orusingspontaneousspeech

Paragrammatism

Connectedfluentaphasicspeechsamplesareassumedtobemorenaturalistic.

Thereforemorerepresentativeofaphasiclanguageabilities.

Paragrammatism

Patientsarerecordedinavarietyofsituations;

Speakingwithrelatives,carers,speechandlanguagetherapists,andotherresearchers.

Thesamplesvaryinlength,andmanner.Theaphasicpatientsknowtheyarebeingrecorded.

Thesamplesgatheredarecomparedtonormalnon‐aphasicindividuals.

Speechsamplesareusuallyabouttwominuteslongorthreehundredwords.

Paragrammatism

Thetaskcanfairlystraightforwardsuchasre‐tellingthecinderellastory!

Paragrammatism

Hagoortandcolleagues(1999),suggestthatsyntactic,semantic,andpragmaticinformationallplayaroleindeterminingthemeaningofasentence.

Thereforesentencesgiveninatestsituationwithnoadditionalcontextualinformationmaybeunderstoodlessthanthesamesentencewithinacommunicativeprocesswhereextrasyntactic,semantic,andpragmaticinformationisavailable(Edwards,2005:157).

Paragrammatism

Wernicke’saphasicswereawareofthesyntacticandpragmaticinformationbutwereunableto

integrateit.

Wernicke’saphasicshavedeficitswithsemanticcombinatorialoperations,andalsodifficultiesin

lexical‐semanticintegrationprocessing.

Paragrammatism

Broca’s aphasics are said to have reduced lexicalactivationwhileWernicke’saphasicsaresaidtohaveincreasedlexicalactivation.

Bothunder‐activationandover‐activationcanresultinadeficitforcombininglexical,syntactic,andpragmaticinformationinthematicstructures.

Paragrammatism

Broca’saphasicsaresaidtohavereducedlexicalactivationwhileWernicke’saphasicsaresaidtohaveincreasedlexicalactivation.

Bothunder‐activationandover‐activationcanresult in adeficit for combining lexical, syntactic, and pragmaticinformationinthematicstructures.

The former because lexical entries would only map onweaklytothethematicroles, andthelatterbecausetheoverly activated system would be unable to select theappropriatethematicstructuresfromallofthoseactivated.

Paragrammatism

A Lexically driven account suggests thatword finding difficulties, or failure toactivate the appropriate word wouldtherefore impair syntax and sentenceformulation.

Thesyntactic‘frame’requiredbyaverbforinstancewouldnotbecompletelyavailablesotheparagrammatic wouldbeunable toproperlyconstructthesentence.

Paragrammatism

InthestudybyFaroqi‐Shah,andThompson(2002)therelationbetweenlexicalretrievalandsentenceformulationwasexamined.

SevenWernicke’saphasicspeakersandsevenBroca’saphasicspeakersparticipated,andnarrativespeechsamplesoftheCinderellastorywereobtainedfromeachparticipantusingdifferentpicturesdepictingactionsaccompaniedbyvaryinglexicalinformationi.e.nounsandverbs,toelicitthespeechsamples.

Paragrammatism

Thestudyexaminedtheproductionofreversibleandnon‐reversibleactivesandpassivesinBroca’sandWernicke’saphasia.

Wernicke’saphasicsubjectsshoweddifficultywithproducingandcomprehendingpassivesentences,inparticularpassivesentenceswithreversiblerolese.g.‘themanwashuggedbythewoman’,justlikeagrammaticaphasics.

Soitlooksasifparagrammatismandagrammatismaren’tasdifferentaswasoncethought!

Paragrammatism

Broca’saphasicsubjectsproducedmoremorphologicalerrorsthanWernicke’saphasicswhoweremoreimpairedinobject‐naming.

Paragrammatism

Theybothshowedsomesimilaritiesacrossthetasksi.e.grammaticalmorphemeerrors,rolereversalerrors,prepositionerrors,unrelatedsentences,andnon‐sentences.Themostcommonerrornotedwasthedifficultywithreversiblepassives.

Paragrammatism

InconclusiontheauthorsfailedtofindadirecteffectoflexicalcuesonthesuccessofsentenceproductionbothinBroca’sandWernicke’saphasia,suggestingtherelationshipbetweenlexicalandsyntacticmechanismsisfarmorecomplexthanalexicallydrivenaccountimplies.

Paragrammatism

TheyalsonotetheunderlyingsentenceproductiondeficitsseemtobedifferentforbothBroca’sandWernicke’saphasicsubjects.InWernicke’saphasia,theysuggestthedifficultyisanaccessingandself‐monitoringfailure.InBroca’saphasia,theysuggestthedifficultyisinretrievinggrammaticalmorphemes.

(Faroqi‐ShahandThompson,2002:412‐426)