Aphasic evidence for the syntactic determination of unaccusativity

In this paper I introduce some data from an aphasic patient who demonstrates a robust effect of grammatical class; he is unable to read any function words, and makes characteristic ‘within-category’ substitution errors. These errors extend to the class of unaccusative verbs, and this leads to a consideration of the functional nature of unaccusativity. Existing accounts of unaccusativit y as a syntactic reflex of some semantic property are discussed, and a proposal for a syntactic account of unaccusativity is outlined. The aphasic deficit as we understand it seems to provide evidence in favour of a purely syntactic determination of unaccusativity.

[1]  Jamal Ouhalla.  Functional categories, agrammatism and language acquisition , 1993 .

[2]  Noam Chomsky.  A minimalist program for linguistic theory , 1992 .

[3]  K. E. Patterson,et al.  The relation between reading and phonological coding: further neuropsychological observations , 1995 .

[4]  Noam Chomsky,et al.  The Minimalist Program , 1992 .

[5]  John C. Marshall,et al.  When passives are easier than actives: two case studies of aphasic comprehension , 1995, Cognition.

[6]  B. Levin.  Unaccusativity: At the Syntax-Lexical Semantics Interface , 1994 .

[7]  A. Parkin.  Redefining the regularity effect , 1984, Memory & cognition.

[8]  David Caplan,et al.  Disorders of Syntactic Comprehension , 1988 .

[9]  Antonella Sorace,et al.  Acquiring linking rules and argument structures in a second language: The unaccusative/unergative distinction , 1995 .

[10]  M. Beauvois,et al.  Phonological alexia: three dissociations. , 1979, Journal of neurology, neurosurgery, and psychiatry.

[11]  David M. Perlmutter.  Impersonal Passives and the Unaccusative Hypothesis , 1978 .

[12]  S. J. Keyser,et al.  The View from Building 20: Essays in Linguistics in Honor of Sylvain Bromberger , 1993 .

[13]  Y. Grodzinsky,et al.  The Neurology of Empty Categories: Aphasics' Failure to Detect Ungrammaticality , 1998, Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience.

[14]  D. Lightfoot.  The View from Building 20: Essays in Linguistics in Honor of Sylvain Bromberger , 1995 .

[15]  R. Nass,et al.  The assessment of aphasia and related disorders By Harold Goodglass and edith kaplan philadelphia, lea & febiger, 1983 illustrated, $27.50 (package) , 1984 .

[16]  Rhonda B. Friedman,et al.  Two Types of Phonological Alexia , 1995, Cortex.

[17]  E. Funnell.  Phonological processes in reading: new evidence from acquired dyslexia. , 1983 .

[18]  Y. Grodzinsky.  Theoretical perspectives on language deficits , 1990 .

[19]  E. Kaplan,et al.  The assessment of aphasia and related disorders , 1972 .

[20]  Derek Besner,et al.  Phonological Encoding in the Lexical Decision Task , 1979 .

[21]  Ken Hale,et al.  On Argument Structure and the Lexical Expression of Syntactic Relations , 1993 .

[22]  David Howard,et al.  Letter-by-letter readers: evidence for parallel processing , 1991 .

[23]  益子 真由美.  Argument Structure , 1993, The Lexicon.

[24]  David Pesetsky,et al.  Zero Syntax: Experiencers and Cascades , 1994 .

[25]  R. Glushko.  The Organization and Activation of Orthographic Knowledge in Reading Aloud. , 1979 .

[26]  Tanya Reinhart,et al.  Syntactic effects of lexical operations: Reflexives and Unaccusatives , 1996 .

[27]  Van Valin,et al.  Semantic Parameters of Split Intransitivity , 1990 .

[28]  Mark C. Baker,et al.  Incorporation: A Theory of Grammatical Function Changing , 1988 .