Comprehension of wh-dependencies in Broca's aphasia

This study investigated comprehension of wh-dependencies in eight Croatian aphasics. Seven of them were Broca's aphasics to some extent: three were 'pure' Broca's aphasics, while the remaining four had mixed aphasia with either predominant (three patients) or less pronounced Broca's aphasic component (one case). One patient had residual anomia, after recovering from transcortical-sensory aphasia.; The main goal of the study was to determine whether Croatian aphasics, especially those diagnosed with Broca's aphasia, comprehend wh-dependencies, i.e. structures formed with who and which NP. Four experiments were designed, containing syntactic structures of graded degrees of complexity: direct, embedded, long-distance and passivized questions. Each type of structures was tested for subjects and objects, for both who and which NP. The same material administered to three control subjects. In addition to the experiments, the patients were administered evaluative tests: the Digit Span Backwards, the RPCM, and some BDAE subtests.; The main finding of the study is that, unlike English-speaking Broca's aphasics, Croatian speaking Broca's aphasics do not exhibit asymmetric comprehension of wh-dependencies. This was found in all patients, including the 'mixed' cases and the patient diagnosed with anomia.; The lack of asymmetry in the Croatian data was then explained by means of a structural and processing approach: Croatian uses information conveyed by inflectional endings of a moved wh-phrase, which facilitates comprehension processes by enabling the parser to immediately establish grammatical functions and preliminary thematic roles. Since these morphological tools are not available in English, processing of wh-dependencies differs in the two languages.; Some asymmetry, although inconsistent across the conditions, was found in one patient with mixed aphasia of the predominant Broca's type. It is possible that it resulted from an individual strategy. Alternatively, the two types of stroke, intracerebral hemorrhage (found in this patient) and ischemia (found in the remaining seven patients) produce types of lesions that differently affect language.; Another finding of the study is that the lesion site is not critical in comprehension of wh-dependencies, because patients with different lesions followed the same pattern of comprehension of wh-dependencies. This indicates the importance of clinical data in the study of aphasia.