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Case assignment by prepositions in Russian aphasiaTrofimova, Maria

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133

CHAPTER VI

SENTENCE COMPLETION EXPERIMENT

A brief review of previous findings on case-morphology in aphasia

To introduce the main topic of the study presented in this chapter, a short survey

of the relevant previous findings is provided here. A fuller review of the previous

research, which provides the background for this thesis, can be found in chapter III.

Broca’s aphasia is typically considered to be a grammatical disorder causing impairment

of the morphosyntactic component of speech. Speech production in a ‘telegraphic style’,

with omissions and substitutions of free and bound grammatical morphemes, is a typical

characteristic of Broca’s aphasia. The distribution patterns of omissions and substitutions

have been shown to be language specific; Broca’s aphasic speakers have been reported to

omit functional morphemes only if they do not form an obligatory part of a word, and

when their omissions do not result in non-words in a particular language (Avrutin, 2001;

Grodzinsky, 1984; Kehayia et al., 1990; Kertesz & Osmán-Sági, 2001; Lehečková, 1988,

Miceli et al., 1984; Miceli et al., 1989; Tsapkini et al., 2001). In Broca’s aphasia, free

grammatical morphemes are believed to be more liable to omissions, while bound

morphemes are more prone to substitutions. Case-marking morphemes in many synthetic

and inflecting languages with rich morphology are usually bound morphemes. Previous

studies have reported that the production of correct case-marking morphemes is

problematic for Broca’s aphasic speakers, and these morphemes are subject to

substitution rather than omission errors within the same grammatical category

(Lehečková, 1988, 2001; MacWhinney & Osmán-Sági, 1991; Ulatowska et al., 2001).

Production of correct case-marking morphemes and other elements with an overt

manifestation of case, such as determiners, has been found to depend to a considerable

extent on the realization of the case-assigning category of verbs (Ruigendijk et al., 1999;

Ruigendijk & Bastiaanse, 2002). Prepositions belong to the free-standing morphemes

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known to be vulnerable in aphasia, and were reported to be misused (Beyn et al., 1979;

Leikin, 1996; Lehečková, 2001; Tesak & Hummer, 1994; Tsvetkova & Glozman, 1975)

and misunderstood in Broca’s aphasia (Friederici, 1985; Friederici et al., 1982; Mack,

1981; Schwartz et al., 1980).

Wernicke’s aphasia is generally characterized by paragrammatic speech with

substitutions rather than omissions of function words and grammatical morphemes.

Previously, this type of aphasia was considered to affect the lexical-semantic domain and

cause lexical-retrieval difficulties. That is why the (morpho-)syntactic problems of

Wernicke’s aphasic speakers were neglected for so long. Indeed, the extensive lexical

difficulties of Wernicke’s aphasic speakers are more widespread and obvious than their

syntactic problems; however, they are no longer disclaimed. Wernicke’s aphasic speakers

were found to make errors in verb inflections (Butterworth & Howard, 1987), and to

produce inaccurate syntactic structures (Edwards, 2002), particularly with respect to

complex sentences (Bastiaanse et al., 1996; Bastiaanse & Edwards, 2004; Edwards, 1995;

Edwards & Bastiaanse, 1998; Edwards et al., 1994; Martin & Blossom-Stach, 1986).

Several studies describe the problems that Wernicke’s aphasic speakers have with

production of grammatical morphemes and, specifically, with case-marking morphemes

(Bates et al., 1991; Edwards, 2002; Martin & Blossom-Stach, 1986). Wernicke’s aphasic

speakers have been reported to produce pronouns incorrectly marked for case (Edwards,

2002; Martin & Blossom-Stach, 1986), to use incorrect determiners, to produce incorrect

prepositions in adverbial phrases of time and place, and to substitute prepositions in verb

argument structures (Martin & Blossom-Stach, 1986). Moreover, similar to Broca’s

aphasic speakers, Wernicke’s aphasic speakers were found to attach incorrect case-

inflections to nouns, which resulted in case-substitution errors (Bhatnagar, 1980;

Ruigendijk, 2002) and to produce incorrect case-marking morphemes of the complements

of verbs (Bates & Wulfeck, 1989; Bhatnagar, 1980). With respect to prepositions in

Wernicke’s aphasia, it has been stated that they are subject to substitution errors within

the same category (Friederici, 1981). Moreover, Russian Wernicke’s aphasic speakers

have been found to substitute prepositions and produce case morphemes appropriate for

the produced prepositions (Beyn et al., 1979).

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The main goal of the study

One of the previous studies reported here (described in chapter V) analyzed production of

case-assigning prepositions and their complement nouns in the narrative speech of fluent

and non-fluent aphasic speakers. It was found that, unlike fluent aphasic speakers, non-

fluent aphasic speakers produced fewer prepositions and complete correct prepositional

phrases in their spontaneous speech and narrative samples compared to the control group.

Both groups of aphasic speakers were found to be able to assign the correct case to

complements of prepositions when these prepositions were present in their speech.

Within Case theory (Chomsky, 1981, 1986) prepositions, on par with verbs, are regarded

as principle case assigners; therefore, this finding is in line with earlier aphasiological

cross-linguistics research which, particularly for Russian, states that realization of a

correct case-assigning verb is essential for production of nouns with correct case-marking

morphemes (Ruigendijk, 2002). However, it is known that the language deficits of

aphasic speakers can be manifested to a different degree in different tasks and

circumstances (Bastiaanse, 1995; Caplan et al., 2006; Lehečková, 2001). Thus, the main

aim of the study presented here is to describe production of prepositions and their

dependent case-marking morphemes on nouns by aphasic speakers in experimental

conditions, and to give an account for the errors observed in the performance of the

aphasic speakers and the distribution patterns of these errors. This study investigates

whether the presence of a correct case-assigning preposition, similar to case-assigning

verbs (Ruigendijk, 2002), leads to production of correct case-marking morphemes on a

complement noun of this case-assigning preposition. The experiment needs to elucidate

several issues addressed in the research questions that are formulated in the next section.

The research questions

The data acquisition for the study of narrative speech (chapter V) was administered in an

informal conversational style, which could have allowed aphasic speakers to avoid using

constructions that are problematic for them. The non-fluent aphasic speakers were found

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to produce fewer prepositions than the control group; between the fluent aphasic speakers

and the control speakers no difference emerged. Next, the performance of the aphasic

speakers on production of prepositions in experimental tasks was examined. A sentence

completion test with pictures was designed, and included two subtests to target the

questions posed in the study. In the first subtest of the sentence completion test, in order

to complete a sentence the participants were required to produce a preposition and to

case-mark its complement noun, which was provided in the nominative case. This subtest

is hereafter referred to as Subtest-1, ‘noun provided’. In the second subtest, the

participants had to produce a noun with a correct case-marking morpheme while its case-

assigning preposition was provided. This subtest is hereafter referred to as Subtest-2,

‘case assigner provided’. Both subtests, the testing procedures, requirements, and test

materials will be described in more detail below.

The first question to be addressed concerns production of prepositional phrases in

quantitative terms. Namely, this work considers whether aphasic speakers perform worse

than the control speakers when they have to produce a preposition and case-mark its

complement noun provided in the nominative case form. Subtest-1, ‘noun provided’

targets this question. It facilitates the examination not only of the ability of participants to

produce correct prepositional phrases, but also of the incorrect items, and an investigation

of which errors aphasic speakers make with respect to production of prepositions in

obligatory contexts; in other words, it enables the study of whether prepositions were

omitted or produced incorrectly.

The second question addressed in this experiment considers case-marking

morphemes produced by aphasic speakers on nouns complements of prepositions. It

investigates whether aphasic speakers are able to produce a noun with the correct case-

marking morpheme when its case-assigning preposition is provided. Subtest-2, ‘case

assigner provided’ also investigates another issue concerning case marking, namely, what

happens to case-marking morphemes when obligatory case assigners are omitted or

produced incorrectly.

Finally, it is questioned whether there is direct relationship between the presence

and absence of case-assigning prepositions in experimental sentences and the production

of correct case-marking morphemes of nouns. In other words, this experiment examines

SENTENCE COMPLETION EXPERIMENT

137

whether the presence of (correct) case-assigning prepositions assists correct case

marking. The two subtests have been designed with minimal differences, namely, the

presence (in subtest-2, ‘case assigner provided’) or absence (in subtest-1, ‘noun

provided’) of case assigners in the experimental sentences, which permits direct

comparisons between them to address the issue at hand.

Hypotheses

The control group is expected to perform well on the task; they are not expected to omit

obligatory prepositions or to produce incomplete or ungrammatical sentences. With

respect to case assignment and case marking, no errors are anticipated. With regard to

performance of aphasic speakers, prepositions in Russian are free-standing grammatical

morphemes, which are known to be vulnerable in non-fluent aphasia. This was shown in

the analysis of narrative speech described in chapter II of this thesis: the non-fluent

aphasic speakers produced fewer prepositions than the control speakers, whereas the

performance of the fluent aphasic speakers did not differ from the control group. It is

therefore expected that when required to produce prepositions in the experimental

sentences, the non-fluent aphasic speakers will omit obligatory prepositions from their

responses. However, taking into account the results of Ruigendijk’s (2002) study into

case assignment by Russian verbs, and the results of the analysis of case assignment with

respect to prepositions in the narrative speech of the non-fluent aphasic speakers

described in this thesis, the non-fluent aphasic speakers are hypothesized to be able to

produce correct case marking on nouns when they manage to produce correct case-

assigning prepositions, and especially when these case assigners are already provided in

the experimental sentences. Moreover, presence of correct case-assigning prepositions is

expected to assist case marking by the non-fluent aphasic speakers; therefore, in the

presence of case-assigning prepositions, the non-fluent aphasic speakers are expected to

be able to deal with case-morphology on nouns, although not faultlessly.

Prepositions have been reported to be substituted by fluent aphasic speakers

(Friederici, 1981); in addition, complement nouns of such prepositions have been found

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to be case-marked in accordance with these prepositions by Russian fluent aphasic

speakers (Beyn et al., 1979). A similar observation was made in the analysis of narrative

speech discussed in chapter V. In narrative speech, fluent aphasic speakers produced as

many prepositions as the neurologically intact control group. In this experiment, the

fluent aphasic speakers were not expected to omit obligatory prepositions; rather, they

might tend to substitute these prepositions and produce other incorrect prepositions that

do not match the context. Therefore, it is hypothesized that when fluent aphasic speakers

substitute prepositions they will produce the complement nouns with case-marking

morphemes suitable for these prepositions. It is not expected from either group of aphasic

speakers that they will produce noun stems deprived of case-marking morphology, which

would lead to the production of nonsensical words.

To recapitulate, there are two hypotheses for the present study:

° When non-fluent aphasic speakers manage to produce a correct case-assigning

preposition, they will also be able to produce a correct case-marking morpheme of

the complement noun of this preposition; therefore, the presence of a correct case-

assigning preposition will facilitate case assignment.

° When fluent aphasic speakers substitute case-assigning prepositions, they will

produce their complement nouns with the case-marking morphemes appropriate

for the produced prepositions.

Methods

Participants

The experiment was administered to a group of 22 Russian-native aphasic speakers and

to a control group of 22 neurologically intact speakers. In the control group all speakers

were volunteers; their age ranged in years from 28 to 54, with mean age of 41.3 years; the

group included 10 male and 12 female participants. None of the participants in the

control group had any previous history of neurological disease or any other major illness;

their vision was normal or corrected to normal. All participants were right-handed native

SENTENCE COMPLETION EXPERIMENT

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speakers of the Russian language, originating from the central part of the Russian

Federation; none of them displayed any accent. The control group of neurologically intact

speakers is, for the sake of brevity, further referred to as the control speakers. The

individual data of the control speakers are presented in Appendix III, table I; their group

data are summarized in table 6.1 below.

Table 6.1 Group data of all participants who participated in the sentence completion

experiment

Number of participants

Group mean age in years

Gender

Control speakers 22 41.3 10 male 12 females

Fluent aphasic speakers 8 43.25 3 males 5 females

Non-fluent aphasic speakers

12 38.83 7 males 5 females

All aphasic speakers were tested in rehabilitation centers in Russia,27

27 The neurological department of the Rehabilitation center “Zelenyj gorod”, Nizhnij Novgorod; Institute of the Human Brain, Russian Academy of Science, Saint-Petersburg; Federal Center of Speech Pathology and Neurorehabilitation, Moscow, Russia.

where they

participated in a course of neurological rehabilitation and a course of speech and

language therapy. They were diagnosed in the rehabilitation centers by speech therapists

on the basis of Luria’s classification (Luria, 1973). The diagnosis and speech

characteristics of the aphasic speakers were taken into account when they were judged as

being fluent or non-fluent. In the group of 8 fluent aphasic speakers, the age ranged in

years from 17 to 69, with a mean age of 43.25 years; 3 males and 5 females were in the

group. The data of aphasic speaker Fl 6 were excluded from the analysis due to failure to

complete the experiment. All fluent aphasic speakers were aphasic as a result of

cerebrovascular accidents in the left hemisphere, except speaker Fl 20, whose aphasia

etiology was traumatic as the result of a gunshot wound and consequent surgical removal

of a subdural hemorrhage in the left hemisphere. The aphasia types, established in

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accordance with Luria’s classification, differed. Aphasic speaker Fl1 was diagnosed as

having sensory aphasia with elements of acoustic-gnostic aphasia; Fl 10 was diagnosed

with amnestic aphasia; Fl19 with afferent motor aphasia with elements of acoustic-

gnostic aphasia, Fl7, Fl14, Fl17, Fl20, and Fl24 were diagnosed with afferent motor

aphasia; these are all known to be fluent aphasias. Neurological data and the linguistic

characteristics of the fluent aphasic speakers are shown in Appendix VI, table I. In the

group of 12 non-fluent aphasic speakers the age ranged in years from 22 to 58; the mean

age in the group was 38.83 years; there were 7 male and 5 female participants in the

group. Aphasia etiology in the group was diverse; aphasic speakers Nf 3, Nf 11, Nf 13,

Nf 15, Nf 21, and Nf 23 were aphasic due to cerebrovascular accidents in the left

hemisphere; aphasic speakers Nf 2, Nf 4, Nf 9, Nf 16, Nf 18, and Nf 22 suffered from

traumatic brain injury as the result of car accidents. The non-aphasic speakers were

diagnosed with efferent-motor aphasia. All aphasic speakers were at least six months

post-onset.

Materials

To assess the case-assigning abilities of the aphasic speakers a sentence completion

experiment was designed. For each item a black-and-white line drawing consisting of an

incomplete sentence with a gap marked by dots was created. The experiment consisted of

two subtests, with 98 items each. For both subtests, in 50 experimental sentences the case

assigners were prepositions, and in 48 control sentences the case assigners were verbs.

The results of all sentences later entered data analysis. All prepositions used in the

experimental sentences were non-derived primary prepositions used in their lexical

function (see chapter II). As discussed previously, Russian prepositions assign five out of

six cases (excluding the nominative), thus, five cases were tested in combination with

prepositions in this experiment (genitive, dative, accusative, instrumental, and

prepositional). Russian verbs assign five out of six cases; these are the nominative case of

subjects of sentences and another four oblique cases excluding the prepositional. In this

experiment four oblique cases were tested in combination with verbs (genitive, dative,

SENTENCE COMPLETION EXPERIMENT

141

accusative, and instrumental). Examples of case assignment by prepositions and verbs are

provided in table 6.2.

Table 6.2 Examples of case assignment by prepositions and verbs in Russian

Case assignment by prepositions Case assignment by verbs Nominative - Devochka spit

“A girl sleeps” Genitive Sasha stoit okolo stula Katja boitsja sobaki

“Sasha stand next to the chair” “Katja is afraid of the dog” Dative Korabl’ plyvet po okeanu Muzhchina zvonit synu

“A ship sails in the ocean” “A man calls his son” Accusative Sobaka prygaet cherez koshku Petja gladit rubashku

“A dog jumps over the cat” “Petja irons a shirt” Instrumental Kot lezhit pod stolom Sobaka viljaet khvostom

“A cat is lying under the table” “A dog wags its tail” Prepositional Kot sidit na divane -

“A cat sits on the sofa”

In subtest 1, ‘noun provided’, a case assigner was missing from the sentences,

while a noun was provided in the pictures in the nominative (default) case. For this

subtest, the participants were instructed to complete the sentences and were required to

use the given noun in their answers. The participants were also explicitly reminded to

change the word form of the noun if necessary. Examples of test materials used in

subtest-1, ‘noun provided’ are presented in figure 6.1.

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Sobaka prygaet … (koshka) Muzhchina … (zapiska)

The dog jumps … (cat) The man … (a note)

The answers expected from a participant:

Sobaka prygaet cherez koshku [ACC.case] Muzhchina pishet zapisku [ACC.case]

The dog jumps over the cat The man writes a note

Figure 6.1 Examples of test materials for Subtest-1, ‘noun provided’: a case assigner is

missing; a noun is provided in the nominative (default) case (left: case assignment by a

preposition; right: case-assignment by a verb)

In subtest 2, in all sentences a case assigner was provided, but a noun phrase that

had to be case-marked was missing. Participants were required to complete the sentences

with an appropriate noun correctly marked for case. This subtest addressed the issue of

whether there is a direct relationship between the presence of a preposition and correct

case marking of a noun. It allowed for the investigation of whether the presence of case-

assigning prepositions assists correct case marking. Furthermore, subtest 2 is labeled as

subtest-2, ‘case assigner provided’, referring to the element present in the sentences – a

case assigner. Examples of the test materials of subtest-2, ‘case assigner provided’ are

presented in figure 6.2.

SENTENCE COMPLETION EXPERIMENT

143

Devochka nyrjaet v … Devochka gladit …

The girl dives into … The girl strokes …

The answers expected from a participant:

Devochka nyrjaet v vodu [PREP.case] Devochka gladit koshku [ACC.case]

The girl dives into the water The girl strokes a cat

Figure 6.2 Examples of test materials for Subtest-2, ‘case assigner provided’: a case

assigner is provided, a noun is missing (left: case assignment by a preposition; right:

case assignment by a verb)

When test materials for the experiment were designed, all nouns were checked for

case-homonymous forms, and these were not used in the test in order to avoid confusion

in scoring. To denote objects shown in the pictures, nouns of feminine and masculine

genders of the first and second declension classes were used, which are typical and

representative of their class.

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Procedure

Prior to testing, the participants were instructed by the experimenter. They were asked to

look at a picture on the computer screen, to read aloud the sentence underneath it, and to

fill in the gap. To familiarize the participants with the task, a trial session of 4 items was

administered, from which feedback was provided. During the actual task the examiner

did not give participants any feedback on their performance. During testing, a participant

and the experimenter would typically sit in a quiet room facing the computer. Testing

started with a slide with instructions asking participants to complete the sentences

provided with each picture. The participants were allowed to take as much time as they

needed to complete the task. Both subtests made use of the same stimuli; that is why each

subtest was subdivided into two blocks: for subtest-1, ‘noun provided’, block a-1

included items from 1 to 49, and block a-2 included items from 50 to 98. For subtest-2,

‘case assigner provided’, block b-1 included items 1 to 49 and block b-2 included items

50 to 98, which can be represented visually as in figure 6.3. Each block was preceded by

a trial session and instructions, as described above.

Figure 6.3 Schematic representation of the subtests administered to the participants;

arrows indicate possible combinations of blocks within one testing session

Two sessions were administered on two different days with at least one day in between.

The order of the administration of testing blocks was semi-random per participant. Three

SENTENCE COMPLETION EXPERIMENT

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principles of the administration of the experimental materials were respected: (1) two

blocks of the same subtest were never presented within one session; (2) two blocks with

the same items were never presented within one session; (3) the order of block

presentation varied across participants. The order of administration of the experimental

materials is shown in Appendix VI, table II.

Scoring and data analysis

The test performance of the participants was scored on the paper score form and was

audio taped for further detailed transcription and analysis. Data scoring obtained in this

experiment went through the general scoring procedure developed in this thesis.

Therefore, three issues were taken into account during data analysis:

1) which case case assigners were produced by aphasic speakers – correct or

incorrect case assigners, or which case assigners were omitted in the responses of

the aphasic speakers;

2) how aphasic speakers dealt with case assignment when

a. they produced correct case assigners,

b. they produced incorrect case assigners and substituted them with other

elements,

c. they omitted case assigners from the responses;

3) whether patterns of performance with case-assigning prepositions were the same

as patterns with case-assigning verbs.

A complete prepositional phrase includes two elements – a preposition and its

complement noun. An error incurred in one of the elements results in an incorrect

prepositional phrase. Therefore, scoring included several levels of analysis.

At the first level, a simple correct–incorrect scoring was performed. At the second

level, the responses were further examined with respect to case assigners, and were

grouped into items where case assigners were (1) produced correctly, (2) omitted, or (3)

substituted by other members of the same category. At the third level, all responses were

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grouped according to the case-marking morphemes of their complement nouns into (1)

correct case-marking morphemes (hereafter termed correct case marking) and (2)

incorrect case-marking morphemes. At the forth level, incorrect case-marking

morphemes were examined and subdivided into (a) nominative case-marking

morphemes, which were erroneous, since case assigners cannot assign the nominative

case in the contexts provided; (b) noun stems, which did not bare case-marking

morphemes and thus resulted in non-words; (c) incorrect case-marking morphemes,

which denoted cases that could not be used in combination with particular case assigners;

(d) substituted case-marking morphemes, which were used with possible case assigners

but denoted cases other than the ones required by the context of the sentences.

Substituted case-marking morphemes mostly occurred in sentences with case-assigning

prepositions. The difference between (c) and (d) error types can be explained by the

asymmetry between Russian prepositions and case systems. One preposition in Russian

can assign several cases, all manifested with different case-marking morphemes; that is

why there are several possible combinations of a preposition and case morphemes that

occur in different contexts. The four possibilities for case marking, outlined above, are

referred to as nominative case marking, noun stems, incorrcet case marking and

substituted case marking, respectively.

As discussed earlier in the Materials section, the conditions of the two subtests

were balanced and matched as precisely as possible. However, their requirements

differed slightly, which was inevitable. To illustrate this, in subtest-2, ‘case assigner

provided’, a case assigner (a preposition or a verb) was provided, which made the phrase

frame rather transparent. The only possible completion of the sentences in subtest-2,

‘case assigner provided’ was a noun. Whereas in subtest-1, ‘noun provided’, a case

assigner was missing from the experimental stimuli, while a noun was provided in the

default nominative case. This allowed for more possible sentence completion schemes;

therefore, the participants had more freedom in this subtest to complete the sentence. This

was impossible to overcome and resulted in occasional category shifts (when participants,

in response to an experimental sentence that had to be completed, for example, with a

verb phrase, produced a prepositional phrase instead: Mal’chik ukazyvaet na vazu: “The

boy points at the vase”, instead of Mal’chik trogaet vazu: “The boy touches the vase”).

SENTENCE COMPLETION EXPERIMENT

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As mentioned above, one of the reasons for the occurrence of such responses was the

combination of the test design and the characteristics of the Russian language. To avoid

confusion in scoring and data analysis several experimental stimuli were omitted. From

subtest-1, ‘noun provided’, fourteen experimental sentences that were required to be

completed with VPs were excluded from the main analysis for all participants. From

subtest-2, ‘case assigner provided’, two similar experimental sentences were also

excluded from the data of all participants. In subtest-1, ‘noun provided’, this resulted in

50 items that required completion with PPs, and 34 items that required completion with

VPs; in subtest-2, ‘case assigner provided’, 50 items required completion with PPs and

46 with VPs.

Statistical tools

Responses obtained from all participants were counted. For a statistical analysis the raw

numbers of correct responses produced by each participant were converted to proportions

from the total number of responses of each participant. To preclude possible deviations

from the normal distribution of the data, an arcsine transformation was applied to the

square root of all proportions before any statistical analysis was run. However, during the

provisional analysis Shapiro-Wilk normality tests showed that the data of all groups of

participants remained non-normally distributed. Moreover, Levene’s test showed that the

groups had heterogeneous variances. In other words, two main assumptions of parametric

testing were violated: normality of data distribution and homogeneity of variances.

Therefore, it was decided to apply non-parametric statistical tests. For comparisons of the

three groups of participants – the control speakers, the fluent aphasic speakers and the

non-fluent aphasic speakers – a non-parametric equivalent of ANOVA, the Kruskal-

Wallis test, was used. For post-hoc comparisons between the groups of participants, an

alternative to the Mann-Whitney-U test – the Kolmogorov-Smirnov Z test – was applied.

This test is considered to have more power when the sample sizes tested have less than 25

participants per group (Field, 2005). For comparisons of the data within each group of

participants, a non-parametric alternative of the paired t-test, the Wilcoxon signed-rank

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test, was used. To reduce the possibility of Type I errors, and to decrease the risk of

overclaiming, a Holm’s sequential Bonferroni correction was applied where appropriate.

This procedure tends to be less strict than Bonferroni adjustment and, unlike Bonferroni,

does not run the risk of underclaiming. To avoid the erroneous conclusions over

significance that may occur when significance is computed for small datasets the Exact

significance test option was applied throughout, which is more suitable for smaller

sample sizes than the Monte Carlo significance estimate (Field, 2005).

Results

In this section, the results of the experiment are presented. Initially, the results of subtest-

1, ‘noun provided’ are given. In this subtest, case assigners were missing from the

experimental sentences; participants had to complete a sentence, producing an

appropriate preposition or a verb. In addition, they also had to use the noun provided in

the experimental picture, and produce this noun with correct case-marking morphemes

appropriate for the provided preposition or the verb. Description of the results starts with

a report on the overall results of the groups of aphasic speakers. It is followed by an

account of the first analysis regarding production of case assigners, irrespective of the

case-marking morphemes of their complement nouns. It was analyzed whether case

assigners were produced correctly, produced incorrectly, or omitted. Subsequently, an

account of the second analysis of case-assigned nouns, examining their case-marking

morphemes, is presented. Case-marking morphemes are examined separately for items

with correct, incorrect and omitted case assigners (prepositions and verbs). The

description of the results of subtest-1, ‘noun provided’ is rounded up with an interim

general summary. The same order of presentation is maintained in relation to the results

obtained in subtest-2, ‘case assigner provided’, where case assigners were provided in the

experimental sentences, but their complement nouns were missing. Thereafter, the results

of the two subtests are compared.

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Results: Subtest-1, ‘noun provided’

The first research question in this experiment concerned the quantitative differences

between the group of aphasic speakers and the control group in terms of the numbers of

complete correct prepositional phrases produced in the restricted tasks, which demanded

usage of particular constructions. Subtest-1, ‘noun provided’ was designed to address this

issue. The number of complete correct prepositional phrases was counted in the data

corpus acquired from each participant. These raw numbers were converted to percentages

from the total number of items to enable direct comparisons between the groups of

participants. The same was done with respect to control sentences with verb phrases. The

group of control speakers performed at ceiling on sentences with prepositional (PPs) and

verb phrases (VPs), and hereafter their data are discarded from the error analysis. Table

6.3 shows correct and incorrect responses, as percentages, produced by groups of fluent

and non-fluent aphasic speakers. Individual results for the fluent and non-fluent aphasic

speakers on items with prepositional and verb phases in subtest-1, ‘noun provided’ of the

sentence completion experiment are shown in Appendix VI, table III.

Table 6.3 Overall test results of the fluent and non-fluent aphasic speakers on subtest-1,

‘noun provided’ (a case assigner is omitted from experimental sentences; a noun is

provided in the nominative case)

Fluent aphasic speakers (N=8)

Non-fluent aphasic speakers (N=12)

Items with Items with PPs

(Nitems=400) VPs

(Nitems=272) PPs

(Nitems=600) VPs

(Nitems=408) Correct responses with assigners 83.50 84.56 72.17 81.62 Incorrect responses with assigners 14.50 3.31 25.33 4.42 Other errors 2 12.13 2.5 13.97

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The category ‘correct responses’ implies items with complete correct prepositional or

verb phrases depending on the context in which case assigners were produced correctly;

they were not omitted or substituted. Moreover, their complement nouns were case-

marked correctly in accordance with these case assigners. ‘Incorrect responses’ are items

in which errors occurred either with respect to case assigners (where they were either

omitted or produced incorrectly), or which affected case markings of their complement

nouns. These two error categories are discussed in more detail in the next sections of the

error analysis. The category ‘other errors’ comprises non-responses, un-analyzable

utterances, and responses in which aphasic speakers produced structures other than those

required; these responses will not be further analyzed.

The Kruskal-Wallis tests revealed significant differences among the groups of

participants in sentences with PPs (H(2)=31.12, p<.001) and in sentences with VPs

(H(2)=28.50, p<.001). Further paired group comparisons were administered with the

Kolmogorov-Smirnov Z test, which showed that the group of fluent aphasic speakers

produced significantly fewer correct responses with PPs (K-S Z=2.12; p<.001) and with

VPs (K-S Z=2.42; p<.001) than did the group of control speakers. The group of non-

fluent aphasic speakers also performed significantly worse than the group of control

speakers. They produced fewer correct responses with PPs (K-S Z=2.55; p<.001) and

with VPs (K-S Z=2.32; p<.001) than the control speakers. The two groups of aphasic

speakers were also compared; however, no significant differences were found between

these two groups, either in sentences with PPs (K-S Z=31.00; p<.1) or in sentences with

VPs (K-S Z=39.00; p<.253). Hereafter, comparisons within each group of aphasic

speakers were performed with the Wilcoxon signed-rank test across correct items with

prepositional and verb phrases. No significant differences were found either in the

performance of the fluent aphasic speakers in sentences with PPs and with VPs (Z=-.280;

p=.422, r=-.07), or in the performance of non-fluent aphasic speakers in sentence with

PPs and with VPs (Z=-1.412; p=.088, r=-.29).

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Error analyses: Subtest-1, ‘noun provided’

The error analysis was conducted on the total number of analyzable items only.

Analyzable items are sentences completed by aphasic speakers in accordance with the

sentence structure required by the task – which was a preposition and a noun, or a verb

and a noun, depending on the sentence context. Analyzable items are also sentences that

were intended to be completed as required; therefore, their structures are transparent, but

one or the other element necessary for the sentence completion is missing but can be

reconstructed from the context. For example, if aphasic speakers were required to

produce a sentence as shown in example (1), but instead produced a sentence as shown in

examples (2), (3), (4) or (5), these sentences were judged as analyzable and entered into

error analyses:

(1) Mal’chik idet s zontom [INSTR]

“The boy walks with an umbrella”

(2) Mal’chik idet s …

“The boy walks with …”

(3) Mal’chik idet … zontom [INSTR]

“The boy walks … an umbrella”

(4) Mal’chik idet … zont [NOM]

“The boy walks … an umbrella”

(5) Mal’chik idet … zonte [PREP]

“The boy walks … an umbrella”

Also, if aphasic speakers produced sentences in which one or the other element was

incorrect, these responses were entered into the error analysis. For example, a sentence in

(6) is complete, but the case-marking morpheme of the complement noun is incorrect; it

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represents the dative case, instead of the required instrumental case. In a sentence type as

exemplified in (7), an incorrect preposition na: “on”, in place of s: “with”, is used.

Responses similar to the ones described above were analyzed. The same is true for the

items requiring completion with a verb and a noun.

(4) Mal’chik idet s zontu [DAT]

“The boy walks with umbrella [DAT]”

(7) Mal’chik idet na zonte

“The boy walks on an umbrella”

Non-responses, un-analyzable utterances and sentences with structures other than those

required, (for example, the production of a sentence like this: A man goes home instead of

A man goes towards the house) were excluded from the error analysis.

The main objective of the error analysis was to provide an answer to the second

and third research questions of this experiment, namely, what happens to case marking on

noun phrases when case assigners are produced correctly, when they are omitted, or when

they are produced incorrectly. To answer these questions it was necessary to perform two

analyses: the first regards case assigners and the second regards case marking.

Error analysis of case assigners

After correct–incorrect scoring and analysis, the second level of scoring procedure

concerned case assigners. It was examined here whether aphasic speakers produced

correct case assigners, or whether they omitted obligatory case assigners, or produced

them incorrectly. All analyzable sentences were examined with regard to case assigners

(prepositions and verbs) produced, irrespective of the case marking that appeared on their

complement nouns. Patterns in the production of case-marking morphemes were

analyzed later, and they are discussed separately in the following sections of error

analysis. For the analysis of case assigners, omitted and incorrectly produced case

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assigners were counted in the groups of aphasic speakers. These numbers were converted

into percentages from the total number of errors made in each group. Patterns of case-

marking morphemes were analyzed thereafter and will be discussed separately in the

following sections of the error analysis. It was observed that in the group of eight fluent

aphasic speakers, three participants omitted prepositions, and seven of them substituted

prepositions. As for the non-fluent aphasic speakers, seven omitted the required

prepositions and eleven substituted prepositions. With respect to verbs, only one non-

fluent aphasic speaker omitted a verb and one fluent aphasic speaker substituted a verb.

These data are not included in table 6.4, which reviews the error patterns of the fluent and

non-fluent aphasic speakers with respect to case-assigning prepositions.

Table 6.4 Performance of the fluent and non-fluent aphasic speakers with respect to case-

assigning prepositions

No significant association was found between the category of error made and the

fluency of the aphasic speakers (χ2 =.07; df=1 p=.987). Obligatory case-assigning

prepositions were omitted in 18.53 percent of incorrect responses of the fluent aphasic

speakers, and in 21.26 percent of incorrect responses by the non-fluent aphasic speakers.

With regard to substitutions of prepositions, they occurred in 81.47 percent of incorrect

responses of the fluent aphasic speakers, and in 78.74 percent of incorrect responses of

the non-fluent aphasic speakers.

Fluent aphasic speakers Non-fluent aphasic speakers Items with Items with PPs (nitems=42) PPs (nitems=143) Case assigner omitted 18.53 21.26 Case assigner incorrect 81.47 78.74 χ2 =.07; df=1 p=.987

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Error analysis of case-assigned nouns and their case marking

The next stage of the experiment undertook an error analysis of the case-marking

morphemes of the complement nouns of prepositions and verbs. Patterns of case-marking

morphemes were looked into independently in items with two case assigners –

prepositions and verbs. Moreover, all responses were also examined separately, as

follows, (1) responses with case assigners produced correctly, (2) responses where case

assigners were omitted by aphasic speakers, (3) responses in which case assigners were

produced incorrectly and substituted by the members of the same category. All errors

made on case-marking morphemes within each category where (1) ‘case assigner is

produced correctly’, (2) ‘case assigner is omitted’, and (3) ‘case assigner is substituted’

were counted and converted to percentages from all errors within this particular category.

The main question for this error analysis was What happens to case marking of a

complement noun when its case assigner is produced correctly, when it is omitted or

when it is substituted by another case assigner?

Case-marking morphemes of complement nouns in phrases with correct case

assigners

Fr this error analysis, all items with correct case-assigning prepositions produced in each

group of aphasic speakers are considered to constitute 100 percent; errors in the

production of case-marking morphemes in sentences with correct case-assigning

prepositions are computed in percentages from this total. The same is done with respect

to items with correct case-assigning verbs produced by the fluent and non-fluent aphasic

speakers.

When both groups of aphasic speakers produced correct case-assigning

prepositions in their responses, they virtually always (except once) produced their

complement nouns with case-morphology. In the group of fluent aphasic speakers, in

responses with correct prepositions, correct case-marking morphemes were produced in

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92.40 percent of complement nouns; in responses with correct verb, correct case-marking

morphemes were produced in 95.89 percent of these responses.

Similarly, in the group of non-fluent aphasic speakers, in responses with correct

prepositions, case-marking morphemes were produced correctly in 96.51 percent of these

phrases; in responses with correct verbs, correct case-marking morphemes were produced

in 94.30 percent of complement nouns. It was obvious that only a few occasional errors

occurred in case marking of complement nouns in items with prepositions and in items

with verbs in both groups of aphasic speakers; however, no clear error pattern emerged in

either group. Patterns of case marking of complement nouns in the presence of correct

case-assigning prepositions and verbs by aphasic speakers are shown in table 6.5.

Table 6.5 Case-marking patterns of nouns in the presence of correct case-assigning

prepositions and verbs produced by aphasic speakers

Fluent aphasic speakers

Non-fluent aphasic speakers

Items with Items with PPs

(nitems=350) VPs

(nitems=238) PPs

(nitems=442) VPs

(nitems=362) Correct case marking produced

92.40

95.89

96.51

94.30

Incorrect case marking produced

1.63

1.13

2.24

3.75

Nominative case marking produced

4.63

2.98

0.19

1.95

Case marking other than required, but matching a preposition

1.34

-

0.71

-

Noun stem produced

-

-

0.35

-

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Case-marking morphemes of complement nouns in phrases with omitted case-

assigning prepositions and verbs

As was described in the previous section, omission errors were encountered in the data of

both groups of aphasic speakers. However, omissions were made only with respect to

prepositions; with respect to verbs, only one non-fluent aphasic speaker omitted a verb

and produced a correct case-marking morpheme of its complement noun; one fluent

aphasic speaker substituted a verb and produced a nominative case-marking morpheme of

its complement noun. These data are not displayed in table 6.6.

In the group of fluent aphasic speakers, only three participants omitted

prepositions. When lexical prepositions were omitted, the fluent aphasic speakers

produced correct case-marking morphemes in 66.67 percent of complement nouns, and in

33.33 percent they produced nominative case-marking morphemes. In the group of non-

fluent aphasic speakers, seven participants omitted prepositions, and in 62.34 percent of

their complement nouns produced correct case-marking morphemes; in 24.23 percent,

case-marking morphemes were incorrect, and in another 13.53 percent, case-marking

morphemes represented nominative case marking. Patters in the production of case-

marking morphemes of complement nouns of omitted prepositions are shown in table 6.6.

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Table 6.6 Error patterns in case marking when case assigners were omitted by aphasic

speakers

As shown in table 6.6, both groups always produced case-marking morphemes on

the complement nouns. Even when case assigners were omitted, their complement nouns

were never deprived of case morphemes and they were never produced as bare noun

stems. On the obtained data, no strong tendency concerning production of case-marking

morphemes of complement nouns in responses with omitted case-assigning prepositions

can be discerned. However, the general pattern is fairly clear: even when obligatory case-

assigning prepositions were omitted from the responses of both groups of aphasic

speakers, they were more likely to produce correct case-marking morphemes on the

complement nouns.

Case-marking morphemes of complement nouns in phrases with incorrect case

assigners

The last error category concerns items in which case-assigning prepositions and verbs

were produced incorrectly by aphasic speakers. As mentioned above, only one verb was

Fluent aphasic speakers

Non-fluent aphasic speakers

Items with Items with PPs (nitems=9) PPs (nitems=32) Correct case marking produced

66.67

62.34

Incorrect case marking produced

-

24.13

Nominative case marking produced

33.33

13.53

Noun stem produced

-

-

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substituted in this subtest; this was done by a fluent aphasic speaker; items with

substituted prepositions are discussed below.

In the group of fluent aphasic speakers, substitution errors of prepositions were

made by seven participants. In these responses, fluent aphasic speakers tended to produce

case-marking morphemes matching the substituted prepositions in 80 percent of

complement nouns, and they also produced correct case-marking morphemes that would

match the required prepositions in 14.29 percent of responses. In the group of non-fluent

aphasic speakers, prepositions were produced incorrectly and substituted by other

prepositions by eleven participants. When prepositions were substituted, the non-fluent

aphasic speakers in 95.75 percent of their complement nouns also substituted case-

marking morphemes of their complement noun, and produced case-marking morphemes

appropriate for the substituted prepositions. Unlike the group of fluent aphasic speakers,

correct case-marking morphemes matching the required prepositions were produced in

only 1.91 percent. Patterns of case-marking morphemes of nouns in sentences with case-

assigning prepositions produced incorrectly are shown in table 6.7.

Table 6.7 Error patterns in case marking when case assigners were substituted by the

aphasic speakers

Fluent aphasic speakers

Non-fluent aphasic speakers

Items with Items with PPs (nitems=33) PPs (nitems=111) Correct case marking produced

14.29

1.91

Incorrect case marking produced

0.71

1.44

Nominative case marking produced

4.29

0.90

Substituted case marking produced

80

95.97

Noun stem produced

0.71

-

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It was observed that both groups of aphasic speakers tended to produce case-

marking morphemes of complement nouns with substituted prepositions matching these

prepositions. For example, instead of producing preposition na: “on”, which assigns a

prepositional case in the provided context of the sentence (in 8, below), aphasic speakers

produced the preposition pod: “under”, which assigns the instrumental case. Furthermore,

they also case-marked the complement noun vetk-a: “branch nom.case” of preposition

pod for instrumental case, which is manifested with a morpheme oj/ej28

vetk-oj’ (as in 9,

below).

(8) Golub’ sidit na vetke

“A pigeon sits on a branch [PREP.]”

(9) Golub’ sidit pod vetkoj

“A pigeon sits under a branch [INSTR.]”

Summary of the results: Subtest-1, ‘noun provided’

Subtest-1, ‘noun provided’ of the sentence completion experiment targeted the

first question of the study concerning the quantitative differences between the numbers of

complete correct prepositional phrases produced by the aphasic speakers and the control

speakers. Namely, it was investigated whether aphasic speakers performed worse than the

group of control speakers when they had to produce a preposition and case-mark its

complement noun provided in the nominative case form.

The group of control speakers performed at ceiling on experimental sentences

with PPs and control sentences with VPs. They always produced correct case-assigning

prepositions and case-assigning verbs and case-marked their complement nouns

correctly.

28 Some cases can be manifested with a morpheme and its allomorphs, depending on the declension class of a noun, here, and further a morpheme of a particular case is followed by its allomorph after the slash, here; for the instrumental case the morpheme is oj and its allomorph is ej.

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Both the fluent and non-fluent aphasic speakers performed significantly worse on

sentences with PPs and VPs than did the group of control speakers. Between the groups

of aphasic speakers no differences were found either in their performance in sentences

with PPs or in sentences with VPs. Within each group of aphasic speakers, performance

in sentences with PPs and VPs did not differ either.

Examination of complete PPs and VPs showed that when both groups of aphasic

speakers produced correct case-assigning prepositions and verbs, they also produced

correct case-marking morphemes of their complement nouns more than 90 percent of the

time. With regard to production of case-assigning prepositions and verbs, it was observed

that fluent and non-fluent aphasic speakers occasionally omitted and substituted case-

assigning prepositions, but not verbs. Both groups of aphasic speakers were more likely

to substitute prepositions than omit them. When both groups omitted case-assigning

prepositions, the general tendency was the production of correct case-marking

morphemes of complement nouns. When case-assigning prepositions were substituted by

fluent and non-fluent aphasic speakers, they tended to produce case-marking morphemes

in accordance with the substituted prepositions. In addition, it was observed that both

groups of aphasic speakers hardly ever produced complement nouns deprived of case-

marking morphology, either in items with correct case assigners produced, or with

substituted case assigners, or even with omitted case assigners.

To recapitulate, then, the results of subtest-1, ‘noun provided’ of the sentence

completion experiment provided some data to support the hypotheses put forward at the

beginning of this chapter. The non-fluent aphasic speakers were indeed more likely to

produce correct case-marking morphemes of the complement nouns of prepositions when

they managed to produce correct prepositions. The fluent aphasic speakers showed a

tendency to produce case-marking morphemes of complement nouns of substituted

prepositions in accordance with these prepositions. However, so far, on the basis of the

results of subtest-1, ‘noun provided’, these two statements did not prove to be unique to

either group of aphasic speakers; it could be applied to both.

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Results: Subtest-2, ‘case assigner provided’

The second question of this experiment regarded case-marking morphemes of the

complement nouns of prepositions. Specifically, it was questioned whether aphasic

speakers are able to produce a noun with a correct case-marking morpheme when its

case-assigning preposition is provided. The results of subtest-2, ‘case assigner provided’,

which was performed to target this question, are reviewed here.

Data scoring and data analysis in the subtest was carried out along the same lines

developed for the sentence completion experiment (previously followed in subtest-1,

‘noun provided’). The number of complete correct prepositional phrases was counted for

each participant, and converted to percentages from the total number of items. The same

was done with respect to control sentences with verb phrases. The group of control

speakers performed at ceiling on sentences with prepositional (PPs) and verb phrases

(VPs); their data are not considered further. The overall results of the groups of aphasic

speakers are shown in table 6.8. Individual results of the fluent and non-fluent aphasic

speakers in items with prepositional and verb phases in subtest-2, ‘case assigner

provided’ of the sentence completion experiment are shown in Appendix VII, table I.

Table 6.8 Overall results of the fluent and non-fluent aphasic speakers in subtest-2, ‘case

assigner provided’ (a case assigner is provided in the experimental sentences; a noun is

missing).

Fluent aphasic speakers (N=8)

Non-fluent aphasic speakers (N=12)

Items with Items with PPs

(Nitems=400) VPs

(Nitems=368) PPs

(Nitems=600) VPs

(Nitems=552) Correct responses with prepositions

92

85.59

91.67

88.04

Erroneous responses 7.75 4.89 7.5 4.17 Other errors 0.25 9.52 0.85 7.79

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Similar to the error analysis done for the previous subtest, in subtest-2, ‘case assigner

provided’, all responses were subdivided into three categories: ‘correct responses’,

‘erroneous responses’, and ‘other errors’. The latter category includes non-responses, un-

analyzable utterances, and responses in which aphasic speakers produced structures other

than those required; these responses will not be analyzed further.

The Kruskal-Wallis tests revealed significant differences among the groups of

participants in sentences with prepositions (H(2)=22.31, p<.001) and in sentences with

verbs (H(2)=29.69, p<.001). Further paired group comparisons were made using the

Kolmogorov-Smirnov Z test. Although both groups of aphasic speakers performed very

well on the task, it was found that the group of fluent aphasic speakers produced

significantly fewer correct responses with PPs (K-S Z=1.51; p<.001) and with VPs (K-S

Z=2.42; p<.001) than did the control speakers. The group of non-fluent aphasic speakers

also performed significantly worse on sentences with PPs (K-S Z=2.09 p<.001) and on

sentences with VPs (K-S Z=2.32; p<.001) than the group of control speakers. The results

from the two groups of aphasic speakers were also compared. The comparisons revealed

no significant difference between the two groups of aphasic speakers, either in sentences

with VPs (K-S Z=.639; p<.611) or in sentences with PPs (K-S Z=1.00; p<.122).

Further comparisons within each group of aphasic speakers were performed with

the Wilcoxon signed-rank test across correct items with prepositional and verb phrases. A

significant difference was found in the performance of the fluent aphasic speakers in

sentences with PPs and sentences with VPs at α-level of .0125 (Z=-2.521; p=.004, r=-

.063). A trend was observed in the performance of the non-fluent aphasic speakers on

sentences with PPs and sentences with VPs (Z=-1.647; p=.055, r=-.35).

Error analyses: Subtest-2, ‘case assigner provided’

As with subtest-1, ‘noun provided’, only analyzable items were considered in this error

analysis. The same criteria described in the error analysis section of the previous subtest

were applied to determine which items were analyzable. In subtest-2, ‘case assigner

provided’, a case assigner was provided in the experimental sentences, and only a noun

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163

was missing. Hence, the sentence structure was fairly clear; the only possible completion

of the sentences in subtest-2, ‘case assigner provided’ was a noun. Nevertheless, both

case assigners and case-marking morphemes of their complement nouns were examined.

Error analysis of case assigners

After correct–incorrect scoring, the second level of scoring procedure concerned case

assigners. Because case assigners were already present in the experimental sentences the

participants had only to read them correctly and complete a sentence with a noun;

therefore, hardly any errors were expected in relation to case assigners. However, it was

still possible that aphasic speakers either would not realize these case assigners

phonetically, in other words, they would not pronounce them and would omit these case

assigners from the responses; or aphasic speakers would read case assigners incorrectly –

reading preposition pod: “under” as nad: “above”, which looks rather similar in Cyrillic

transcription: над: “under”, and под: “above”, for example.

In fact, very few errors occurred. Two non-fluent aphasic speakers did not read

five case-assigning prepositions, and omitted them from their responses. Correct case-

marking morphemes were produced on two complement nouns; incorrect case-marking

morphemes appeared on two other complement nouns; and one complement noun had a

nominative case-marking morpheme. For five non-fluent aphasic speakers, nine

prepositions were read incorrectly and were substituted by others; seven complement

nouns of these prepositions were produced with case-marking morphemes matching the

new prepositions, and case-marking morphemes of two other prepositions were incorrect.

In the group of fluent aphasic speakers, only one participant failed to read a

preposition and produced correct case-marking morphemes on its complement noun.

Also, one fluent aphasic speaker read a preposition incorrectly and produced a

nominative case-marking morpheme of its complement noun.

As for the production of case-assigning verbs by the fluent and non-fluent aphasic

speakers, fewer errors occurred in both groups. A verb was omitted by a non-fluent

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aphasic speaker, and a verb was substituted by a fluent aphasic speaker; on their

complement nouns, nominative case-marking morphemes were produced.

Error analysis of case-assigned nouns and their case marking

Subsequently, as in the previous subtest, error analysis regarding case marking on nouns

was performed. However, because hardly any errors occurred that would result in

omissions or substitutions of case-assigning prepositions and verbs, and moreover, these

errors were already described in the previous section, only a detailed error analysis of the

case-marking morphemes of complement nouns of correct case assigners is presented

here.

Case-marking morphemes of complement nouns in phrases with correct case

assigners

When both groups of aphasic speakers read case-assigning prepositions and verbs

correctly, they virtually always (except once) produced their complement nouns with

case-morphology. Only one fluent aphasic speaker produced a noun stem in the response

with a case-assigning preposition. Patterns of case-marking morphemes were looked at

separately for items with case-assigning prepositions and items with case-assigning

verbs. The group of errors with case-marking morphemes being considered was restricted

to items with correct case-assigning prepositions. Errors in case marking in sentences

with correct case-assigning prepositions were computed in percentages from this total.

The same was done with items with correct case-assigning verbs.

In the group of fluent aphasic speakers, in responses with correct prepositions,

correct case-marking morphemes were produced in 92.49 percent of these responses; and

in responses with correct verbs, correct case-marking morphemes were produced in 94.06

percent. Similarly, in the group of non-fluent aphasic speakers, in responses with correct

prepositions, case-marking morphemes were produced correctly in 94.59 percent of the

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165

time; in responses with correct verbs, correct case-marking morphemes were produced in

95.41 percent of complement nouns. Just a few occasional errors occurred in the case

marking of complement nouns in both groups of aphasic speakers; no clear error pattern

emerged in either group. Patterns of case marking of complement nouns of case-

assigning prepositions and case-assigning verbs read correctly by aphasic speakers are

shown in table 6.9.

Table 6.9 Case-marking patterns of nouns in responses with case-assigning prepositions

and verbs read correctly by aphasic speakers

Summary of the results: Subtest-2, ‘case assigner provided’

The second question of the sentence completion experiment considered case-marking

morphemes produced by aphasic speakers on the noun complements of prepositions.

Namely, it examined whether aphasic speakers are able to produce a noun with correct

case-marking morphemes when its case-assigning preposition is provided in a sentence.

Subtest-2, ‘case assigner provided’ was designed to answer this question, and also to

Fluent aphasic Speakers

Non-fluent aphasic speakers

Items with Items with PPs

(nitems=398) VPs

(nitems=335) PPs

(nitems=581) VPs

(nitems=509) Correct case marking produced

92.49

94.06

94.59

95.41

Incorrect case marking produced

1.02

2.15

4.05

2.69

Nominative case marking produced

4.17

3.79

0.86

1.90

Case marking other than required, but matching a preposition

1.54

-

0.51

-

Noun stem produced

0.78

-

-

-

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investigate patterns of case-marking morphemes with omitted and substituted case

assigners.

The performance of the group of control speakers on experimental sentences with

PPs and control sentences with VPs was found to be at ceiling. They always read

experimental sentences correctly, and did not omit case assigners or read them

incorrectly. In addition, no errors were made by the group of control speakers with

respect to the production of correct case-marking morphemes of complement nouns.

Although both groups of aphasic speakers performed very well on the task,

statistically their performance in sentences with PPs and VPs was significantly worse

than the performance of the control speakers. Between the groups of aphasic speakers no

differences were found between responses with either type of case assigner. When

performance in sentences with PPs and VPs was compared within each group of aphasic

speakers, the fluent aphasic speakers were found to produce more correct responses with

PPs than with VPs; non-fluent aphasic speakers showed a similar trend. Examination of

case assigners revealed hardly any errors since case-assigning prepositions and verbs

were already present in the sentences. Examination of complete PPs and VPs showed that

the fluent and non-fluent aphasic speakers virtually always produced nouns with case-

morphology. Furthermore, when both groups of aphasic speakers read case assigners

correctly, in more than 90 percent of the time they produced complement nouns of these

case assigners with correct case-marking morphemes.

To summarize, the results of subtest-2, ‘case assigner provided’ of the sentence

completion experiment provided additional evidence in favor of the hypotheses of this

study. The non-fluent aphasic speakers proved to be able to produce correct case-marking

morphemes of the complement nouns of prepositions when these prepositions were

provided in the sentences. They made occasional errors but these errors hardly ever

resulted in the production of bare noun stems. The fluent aphasic speakers showed a

performance very similar to the non-fluent aphasic speakers. Similar to the results of

subtest-1 ‘noun provided’, the results of subtest-2, ‘case assigner provided’ do not

provide sufficient grounds for differentiating between the two aphasic impairments.

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Comparison of the results of the two subtests

The third research question of this study investigates the relationship between the

presence and absence of case-assigning prepositions in experimental sentences and in the

production of correct case-marking morphemes of their complement nouns. It was

questioned whether the presence of (correct) case-assigning prepositions facilitates

production of correct case-marking morphemes of the complement nouns of these

prepositions. The results of subtest-1, ‘noun provided’ showed that when aphasic

speakers managed to produce correct case-assigning prepositions, both groups of aphasic

speakers were also able to produce correct case-marking morphemes of complement

nouns of these case assigners. In subtest-2, ‘case assigner provided’, fluent and non-

fluent aphasic speakers produced correct case-marking morphemes of more than 90

percent of complement nouns of the case-assigning prepositions provided in the

experimental sentences. The two subtests were designed with minimal differences – the

presence of case assigners (in subtest-2, ‘case assigner provided’) and absence of case

assigners (in subtest-1, ‘noun provided’) in the experimental sentences – which permitted

direct comparisons between the subtests to address this issue. When comparing the

subtests, the hypothesis was investigated claiming that the presence of a correct case

assigner in a sentence assists in production of correct case-marking morphemes of its

complement noun. Below, the results of this comparison are presented for each group of

aphasic speakers.

Fluent aphasic speakers: comparison of the subtests

Performance of the group of fluent aphasic speakers on items with complete correct

prepositional phrases in subtest-1, ‘noun provided’ was compared to their performance on

similar items in subtest-2, ‘case assigner provided’. A significant difference was found in

their performance in sentences with PPs in the two subtests at α-level of .017 (Z=-2.383;

p=.008, r=.59); no difference emerged in the performance on sentences with VPs (Z=-

.840 p=.230, r=.21). The group of fluent aphasic speakers produced more items with

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complete correct PPs in subtest-2, ‘case assigner provided’ (92.00%) than in subtest-1,

‘noun provided’ (83.50%). They produced equal numbers of correct responses with

complete correct VPs in the two subtests: 84.56 percent of responses in subtest-2, ‘case

assigner provided’ and 85.59 percent of responses in subtest-1, ‘noun provided’. The

performance of the fluent aphasic speakers in the two subtests is shown in figure 6.4 in

terms of percentages of correct items.

Figure 6.4 Performance of the group of fluent aphasic speakers on the two subtests; data

presented in percentage of correct items derived from the total number of analyzable

sentences produced in this group

Non-fluent aphasic speakers: comparison of the subtests

With the group of non-fluent aphasic speakers, a significant difference emerged in their

performance on sentences with PPs in the two subtests (Z=-3.059; p<.001, r=.63),

whereas no significant difference was found in the performance in sentences with VPs

(Z=-1.334; p=.102, r=.27). The group of non-fluent aphasic speakers produced more

items with complete correct PPs in subtest-2, ‘case assigner provided’ (91.67%) than in

subtest-1, ‘noun provided’ (71.17%), and they produced equal numbers of correct

responses with complete correct VPs in the two subtests: 88.04 percent of correct

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responses in subtest-2, ‘case assigner provided’ and 81.86 percent of correct responses in

subtest-1, ‘noun provided’. The performance of the non-fluent aphasic speakers in the

two subtests is shown in figure 6.5.

Figure 6.5 Performance of the group of non-fluent aphasic speakers in the two subtests

Comparisons of the results of the aphasic speakers in the two subtests were

administered within each group of aphasic speakers to confirm the hypothesis claiming

that presence of (correct) case-assigning prepositions facilitates case assignment and

leads to production of correct case-marking morphemes of the complement nouns of

these prepositions. Because the principle difference in the test designs of the two subtests

was the presence or absence of case assigners, the numbers of complete correct PPs and

VPs produced in each group of aphasic speakers were compared across the two subtests.

It was found that for both groups of aphasic speakers it was easier to produce complete

correct PPs in subtest-2, ‘case assigner provided’, where case-assigning prepositions were

provided in the experimental sentences, than in subtest-1, ‘noun provided’, where case

assigners had to be produced by aphasic speakers.

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Discussion

In the narrative speech analysis reported in chapter V, it was found that non-fluent

aphasic speakers produced fewer prepositions and complete correct prepositional phrases

in their narrative speech when compared to the neurologically intact control speakers.

The fluent aphasic speakers did not differ from the group of control speakers. With

respect to case marking, it was found that both groups of aphasic speakers were able to

assign correct case to the complement nouns of case-assigning prepositions when they

produced these prepositions in their narrative speech, and they were able to produce the

correct case-marking morphemes to denote these particular cases. From previous cross-

linguistic research, is known that language deficits of aphasic speakers can be manifested

to a different degree in different tasks (Bastiaanse, 1995; Caplan et al., 2006; Lehečková,

2001).

The main goal of the present research was to describe production of prepositions

and production of case-marking morphemes of their complement nouns by aphasic

speakers in experimental conditions. Performances of two aphasic populations were

examined in the study, namely, fluent aphasic speakers and non-fluent aphasic speakers.

Therefore, two hypotheses were put forward.

Taking into account the results of Ruigendijk’s 2002 study of case assignment by

Russian verbs, and the results of the analysis of case assignment with respect to

prepositions in the narrative speech of non-fluent aphasic speakers described in this

thesis, the non-fluent aphasic speakers were hypothesized to be able to produce a correct

case-assigning preposition; they would manage to produce a correct case-marking

morpheme of the complement noun of this preposition. Therefore, the presence of correct

case-assigning prepositions would facilitate case assignment.

With respect to the fluent aphasic speakers, taking into consideration results

(Friederici, 1981) and observations (Beyn et al., 1979) of previous studies, it was further

hypothesized that when fluent aphasic speakers substitute case-assigning prepositions,

they will produce their complement nouns with case-marking morphemes appropriate for

the produced prepositions.

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The first question of the study concerned production of prepositional phrases in

quantitative terms, namely, it was examined whether aphasic speakers perform worse

than the control speakers when they have to produce a preposition and case-mark its

complement noun provided in the nominative case form.

The second question considered case-marking morphemes of complement nouns

of prepositions produced by aphasic speakers. It was investigated whether aphasic

speakers are able to produce a noun with a correct case-marking morpheme when its

case-assigning preposition is provided.

The third research question regarded relations between presence of a correct case-

assigning preposition and production of a correct case-marking morpheme of its

complement noun. It was examined whether the presence of (correct) case-assigning

prepositions assists correct case marking.

The results of the experiment reported here are in line with the findings of the

previous studies outlined above. Both groups of aphasic speakers experienced difficulties

in the production of prepositions; they produced significantly fewer complete correct

prepositional phrases than the group of control speakers. Moreover, both groups of

aphasic speakers showed similar performance patterns; when fluent and non-fluent

aphasic speakers managed to produce correct prepositions, they also tended to manage to

produce their complement nouns with correct case-marking morphemes. The same is true

for those sentences where case-assigning prepositions were already provided: more than

90 percent of their complement nouns had correct case-marking morphemes. These

findings support the results of the previous study of Russian aphasia, which found that

when Russian non-fluent aphasic speakers produced correct case-assigning verbs, they

also produced correct case-marking morphemes of their complement nouns (Ruigendijk,

2002). Moreover, the analysis of control sentences with verb phrases in the sentence

completion experiment replicated these findings.

When required to produce prepositions, both groups of aphasic speakers made

occasional errors. The fluent aphasic speakers substituted prepositions more often than

they omitted them, which is in line with the earlier studies reporting that the difficulties

aphasic speakers experience with prepositions are reflected in their substitutions rather

than in their omissions (Butterworth & Howard, 1987; Edwards et al., 1994; Martin &

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Blossom-Stach, 1986). When the fluent aphasic speakers substituted case-assigning

prepositions, quite often they produced case-marking morphemes of complement nouns

of these prepositions in accordance with the prepositions. This performance has also been

observed before in Russian fluent aphasia (Beyn et al, 1979), and it supports the proposed

hypothesis. The non-fluent aphasic speakers are known to tend to omit prepositions

(Beyn et al., 1979; Tsvetkova & Glozman, 1975). Although this was also observed in this

study, the Russian non-fluent aphasic speakers, similarly to the fluent aphasic speakers,

were found to substitute prepositions more often than to omit them. Substitutions of

prepositions by Russian non-fluent aphasic speakers have been reported only once before

(Leikin, 2002). In the present study, when non-fluent aphasic speakers substituted

prepositions, in analogy with the fluent aphasic speakers, they also produced case-

marking morphemes in accordance with these prepositions. When non-fluent aphasic

speakers omitted case-assigning prepositions, they still tended to produce correct case-

marking morphemes of the complement nouns, whereas fluent aphasic speakers were

more likely to produce nominative case-marking morphemes. Previously, it was reported

that when Russian non-fluent aphasic speakers omitted case-assigning verbs they did not

show any preference in case-marking patterns (Ruigendijk, 2002). With regard to patterns

in production of case-marking morphemes by Russian aphasic speakers in this

experiment, it should be noted that both groups of aphasic speakers virtually always

produced nouns with case-marking morphemes and hardly produced any noun stems.

This observation is consistent with previous research, which claimed that patterns of

omissions and substitutions largely depend on the characteristics of a particular language

(Avrutin, 2001; Grodzinsky, 1984; Kehayia et al., 1990; Lehečková, 1988; MacWhinney

& Osmán-Sági, 1991; Miceli et al., 1984; Ulatowska et al., 2001, and others). If

omissions are not authorized in particular contexts (for example, omissions of case-

marking morphemes in Russian, which result in non-words), aphasic speakers are not

prone to making omissions, and tend instead to produce substitutions of these

morphemes.

To recapitulate, both groups of aphasic speakers showed that, although not

faultlessly, they were able to produce correct case-marking morphemes on nouns either

when they managed to produce correct case assigners, or when these case assigners were

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already provided in the sentences. Therefore, comparisons of their performances on

sentences with provided case assigners (subtest-2, ‘case assigner provided’), and on

sentences in which they had to produce case assigners (subtest-1, ‘noun provided’), were

performed, which allowed for exploration of whether there is a relationship between the

presence and absence of case-assigning prepositions in experimental sentences and

production of correct case-marking morphemes of their complement nouns. Both groups

of aphasic speakers were found to produce significantly more responses with correct

complete prepositional phrases when case-assigning prepositions were provided in the

experimental sentences (subtest-2, ‘case assigner provided’) than when aphasic speakers

had to produce case-assigning prepositions themselves (subtest-1, ‘noun provided’); in

relation to items with verb phrases, no differences were found. Hence, the conclusion can

indeed be drawn that the presence of correct case-assigning prepositions in experimental

items has a positive influence on the production of the correct case-marking morphemes

of the complement nouns of these prepositions. And as expected, the presence of correct

case-assigning prepositions facilitates case assignment and assists in production of

correct case-marking morphemes. This replicates the earlier findings with respect to

Russian verbs (Ruigendijk, 2002), and supports the main hypothesis proposed for non-

fluent aphasic speakers and put forward in relation to this experiment at the beginning of

this chapter.

It is worth noting that although there were two hypotheses proposed for the

performance patterns of the groups of fluent and non-fluent aphasic speakers

respectively, both hypotheses found some support in the performance of each group of

aphasic speakers. Previously, similar performances of fluent and non-fluent aphasic

speakers had been observed (Bastiaanse & Edwards, 2004; Edwards, 2002; Edwards &

Bastiaanse, 1998), which were accounted for in terms of the general difficulties aphasic

speakers have when required to integrate “lexical-semantic and grammatical processes at

sentence level” (Bastiaanse & Edwards, 2004: 101). Following this logic, in both subtests

of the sentence completion experiment, aphasic speakers had to perform two operations.

In subtest-1, ‘noun provided’, they had to produce a case assigner and modify its

complement noun provided in the nominative case and to produce it with other correct

case marking. Production of a case assigner is a lexical-semantic process, whereas case

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marking of the nominative form of its complement noun is a grammatical process. In

subtest-2, ‘case assigner provided’, the participants had to produce the complement noun

of the case assigner, which was provided, and to case-mark this complement noun in

accordance with the case assigner provided. Similar to the previous subtest, then,

production of a noun activates lexical-semantic abilities, and case marking as required by

the provided case assigner is a grammatical process.

The next chapter will investigate whether the hypotheses supported by the results

of the present study are valid for all prepositions irrespective of the function of a

preposition and the context in which a particular preposition occurs, since from previous

cross-linguistic research it is known that prepositions are liable to differential impairment

in aphasia, which is predetermined by the context and by the function of this preposition

(Bennis et al., 1983; Friederici, 1981, 1982; Friederici, 1985; Friederici et al., 1982;

Grodzinsky, 1988).