We describe case J.P. who, following a left inferior frontal lesion, made frequent role confusions in comprehension and production (e.g., saying “The boy kicks the girl” for a picture showing a girl kicking a boy). J.P.'s preserved ability to judge the grammaticality of sentences rules out a syntactic deficit as the primary cause of the role confusions. Thematic role assignment is also required with spatial prepositions such as in or above, and J.P.'s thematic role assignment was also severely impaired with spatial prepositions. We capitalized on prior linguistic analyses and behavioural studies to design accurate tests of the semantics of spatial terms, spatial relations, and critical features of objects. Fine-grain semantic tests revealed that the semantics of spatial terms and objects was intact. We hypothesize that J.P.'s role confusions reflected a failure to integrate objects within semantic representations that define the thematic roles. Our data suggest that properties of objects and thematic roles are specified by distinct semantic processes, which have different brain localizations. J.P.'s lesion further suggests that left inferior frontal regions are critical in thematic role assignment, thus contributing to the understanding of the linguistic functions of these regions.

中文翻译：

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知道在哪里但不知道什么：主题角色和空间语言受损

我们描述了病例 JP，他在左下额叶病变之后，在理解和生产中经常出现角色混淆（例如，对于显示女孩踢男孩的图片，说“男孩踢女孩”）。JP 保留的判断句子语法的能力排除了语法缺陷是角色混淆的主要原因。空间介词如 in 或 above 也需要主题角色分配，而 JP 的主题角色分配也受到空间介词的严重影响。我们利用先前的语言分析和行为研究来设计空间术语语义、空间关系和对象关键特征的准确测试。细粒度语义测试表明空间术语和对象的语义是完整的。我们假设 JP' 角色混淆反映了未能将对象整合到定义主题角色的语义表示中。我们的数据表明，对象的属性和主题角色是由不同的语义过程指定的，这些过程具有不同的大脑定位。JP 的病变进一步表明左下额叶区域在主题角色分配中至关重要，从而有助于理解这些区域的语言功能。