ABSTRACT

Background

There has been a debate over how a word’s syntactic class is represented in the mind. One model claims that information is represented solely at the semantic level while another account holds that syntactic class information could be represented both at a semantic and an independent lexical level.

Methods

Two aphasic participants with a significant advantage for naming verbs in comparison to nouns took part in the investigation. They were assessed with several picture naming tests, two comprehension tests as well as an object naming test comparing animate and inanimate objects.

Results

In one participant, the pronounced deficit for nouns resulted from a semantic impairment: there was a comparable dissociation in comprehension of words, a nonverbal semantic deficit, and performance was mainly affected by semantic variables (imageability; animacy). In the other participant, the difference between nouns and verbs arose from a lexical impairment since no comparable comprehension deficit was observed. In addition, performance was affected, mainly, by lexical variables (word frequency).

Discussion

Results from one participant suggest a semantic locus of noun–verb differences and provide empirical support for a specific model of objects’ and actions’ semantic representations. In contrast, the other participant’s performance strongly suggests the word class effect to arise from a lexical impairment. Thus, the study provides support for two independent loci of noun–verb differences thereby contradicting one account’s strong claim that noun–verb differences arise solely from semantic impairments. The results also speak against recent cognitive accounts rejecting the idea of independent lexical representations.

中文翻译：

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关于词类的信息在语义和词汇上都有表示：来自两个失语症说话者动词优势的证据

摘要

背景

关于单词的句法类别如何在大脑中表示存在争议。一个模型声称信息仅在语义级别表示，而另一种说法认为句法类信息可以在语义和独立词汇级别表示。

方法

与名词相比，在命名动词方面具有显着优势的两名失语参与者参与了调查。他们通过几个图片命名测试、两个理解测试以及一个比较有生命和无生命物体的物体命名测试进行了评估。

结果

在一名参与者中，名词的明显缺陷是由语义障碍引起的：对单词的理解存在类似的分离，非语言语义缺陷，表现主要受语义变量（形象性；活力）的影响。在另一位参与者中，名词和动词之间的差异源于词汇障碍，因为没有观察到可比的理解缺陷。此外，性能主要受到词汇变量（词频）的影响。

讨论

一位参与者的结果表明了名词-动词差异的语义轨迹，并为对象和动作的语义表示的特定模型提供了经验支持。相反，其他参与者的表现强烈表明词类效应是由词汇障碍引起的。因此，该研究为名词-动词差异的两个独立位点提供了支持，从而与一个帐户的强烈主张相矛盾，即名词-动词差异仅源于语义障碍。结果也反对最近拒绝独立词汇表示的想法的认知账户。