Edgar Zurif - Academia.edu (original) (raw)
Papers by Edgar Zurif
Neurobehavior of Language and Cognition
Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 2006
We examine the time-course of semantic structure formation during real-time sentence comprehensio... more We examine the time-course of semantic structure formation during real-time sentence comprehension. We do this through the lens of aspectual coercion, a semantic combinatorial operation that lacks morpho-syntactic reflections, yet is indispensable for sentence interpretation. We describe two experiments. Experiment 1 replicates the results of a previously published study (Piñango, Zurif, & Jackendoff, Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 28(4), 395-414 1999) showing that the cost of implementing aspectual coercion is detectable as late as 250 ms after the operation is licensed. Experiment 2 expands the window of observation by revealing that the implementation of aspectual coercion is not detectable immediately upon its being licensed, that is, at the point at which the syntactic representation is assumed to be fully formed. These findings suggest a dissociation in the integration of information, in which semantic composition-even mandatory and automatic semantic composition-takes time to develop after it is syntactically licensed to do so.
Brain and Language, 2001
We provide data on the neurological basis of two semantic operations at the sentence level: aspec... more We provide data on the neurological basis of two semantic operations at the sentence level: aspectual coercion and complement coercion. These operations are characterized by being purely semantic in nature; that is, they lack morphosyntactic reflections. Yet, the operations are mandatory (i.e., they are indispensable for the semantic well formedness of a sentence). Results indicate that, whereas Broca's patients have little or no trouble understanding sentences requiring these operations (performance was above chance for all conditions), Wernicke's patients performed at normal-like levels only for sentences that did not require these operations. These findings suggest that sentence-level semantic operations rely very specifically on the integrity of the cortical area associated with Wernicke's aphasia, but not on the region corresponding to Broca's aphasia. In the context of other findings from lesion and imaging studies, this evidence allows a view of the cortical distribution of language capacity that is drawn along a linguistic line, one which distinguishes syntactic from semantic operations.
Neuropsychologia, 1972
Effortful, agrammatic speech and relatively intact comprehension often appear to coexist in Broca... more Effortful, agrammatic speech and relatively intact comprehension often appear to coexist in Broca's aphasia. The present study focusses on this discrepancy, and tests the claim that the agrammatic patient has more information about syntactic structure than is indicated in his speech. Agrammatic aphasics and non-neurological patients sorted words from a variety of sentences on the basis of how closely related they felt the words to be in each of those sentences. These word groupings served as input matrices for a hierarchical clustering analysis. The resultant subjective phrase structure trees show that while normal subjects are often constrained by surface syntactic properties, agrammatic patients operate on a hierarchical scheme that excludes anything nonessential to the intrinsic meaning of a sentence. These findings suggest that expressive agrammatism is only one aspect of an impairment involving all language modalities.
Studies of agrammatic Broca's aphasics' comprehension of sentences containing articles have demon... more Studies of agrammatic Broca's aphasics' comprehension of sentences containing articles have demonstrated profound deficits. It has not been clear whether the i mpairments are due to an inability to isolate the article in the stream of speech, or to difficulty in the construction and/or interpretation of various syntactic, semantic, or pragmatic levels of representation. This paper reports three experiments on Broca's aphasics' ability to distinguish between common nouns (e.g., "a rose") and proper nouns (e.g., "Rose"). This grammatical form class decision is signaled by the presence or absence of an article, and is represented at the MURRAY GROSSMAN
Neuropsychologia, 1977
... and category boundaries has been called categorical perception [8, 9]. A subsidiary question ... more ... and category boundaries has been called categorical perception [8, 9]. A subsidiary question of concern to us was the extent to which speech perception abilities relate to speech production abilities. Specifically, do patients who manifest deficits in the perception of voiceonset ...
Neuropsychology, 2002
This study tests the hypothesis that sentence comprehension difficulty in Parkinson&a... more This study tests the hypothesis that sentence comprehension difficulty in Parkinson's disease (PD) is related in part to altered information processing speed that plays a crucial role in grammatical processing. The authors measured information processing speed in 32 PD patients without dementia using a lexical list-priming paradigm in which the interstimulus interval (ISI) between the prime and the target varied. Sentence comprehension accuracy was also assessed in 22 of these patients. Sentence comprehension accuracy for object-relative center-embedded sentences was impaired in a subgroup of PD patients. This subgroup of PD patients primed at an abnormally long ISI. Similarly, only PD patients who primed at a long ISI had greater difficulty understanding sentences with an object-relative clause than a subject-relative clause. Findings suggest that slowed information processing speed contributes to sentence comprehension difficulty in PD.
Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 1994
This report describes some recent examinations of the ability of aphasic patients to construct sy... more This report describes some recent examinations of the ability of aphasic patients to construct syntactically governed dependency relations in real time. The data show that Wernicke's patients can link the elements of dependency relations in the same way as neurologically intact subjects, even for sentences that they do not understand. Broca's patients, by contrast, are shown to be unable to create such links, even for sentences that they do understand. These data underline the isolability of this stage of syntactic analysis and they suggest that comprehension limitations statable in syntactic terms can be traced to changes in cortically localizable processing resources.
Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 1995
Two experime#~t.v were carried out to examine the abilita' o/'elderly sul?jects to e.vtablish .s'... more Two experime#~t.v were carried out to examine the abilita' o/'elderly sul?jects to e.vtablish .s'l,ntactieallv governed depe#tde#lcl" relattons during the colir3"e of'sentence comp#'e/wnsion. The findings reveal the manner itz whic'l~ memorl' c'o#lslvai#lt,s' operate during ,s3'ntactic l~roees,s'ing.
Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 1991
We argue that the lesion localizing value of disruptions to modular information processing system... more We argue that the lesion localizing value of disruptions to modular information processing systems emerges most clearly from on-line analyses of processing. In this respect we seek to show that left anterior (but not left posterior) damage causes slowed information access and we discuss the manner in which this slowing might yield some of the specific syntactic limitations charted in Broca "s aphasia. The general possibility we raise is that the cortical area implicated in Broca "s aphasia is not necessarily the locus of syntactic representations, but rather sustains particular time-based operating characteristics that in turn sustain normal real-time parsing.
Human Brain Mapping, 2002
We monitored regional cerebral activity with BOLD fMRI while subjects were presented written sent... more We monitored regional cerebral activity with BOLD fMRI while subjects were presented written sentences differing in their grammatical structure (subject-relative or object-relative center-embedded clauses) and their short-term memory demands (short or long antecedent-gap linkages). A core region of left posterior superior temporal cortex was recruited during all sentence conditions in comparison to a pseudofont baseline, suggesting that this area plays a central role in sustaining comprehension that is common to all sentences. Right posterior superior temporal cortex was recruited during sentences with long compared to short antecedent-gap linkages regardless of grammatical structure, suggesting that this brain region supports passive short-term memory during sentence comprehension. Recruitment of left inferior frontal cortex was most clearly associated with sentences that featured both an object-relative clause and a long antecedent-gap linkage, suggesting that this region supports the cognitive resources required to maintain long-distance syntactic dependencies during the comprehension of grammatically complex sentences. Hum. Brain Mapping 15:80 -94, 2001.
Journal of …, 1992
In th& paper we report our finding Zhat the parsing routine responsible for locating the deep-str... more In th& paper we report our finding Zhat the parsing routine responsible for locating the deep-structure position of a wh-phrase operates independently of semantic~pragmatic knowledge, suggesting a modular organization of the human sentence processo1: Specifically, wh-phrases that were semantically implausible as a direct object of the matrix verb were nonetheless reactivated in that position. Further, reactivation of the wh-phrase was observed despite the fact that the matrix verbs were three-place predicates (e.g., remind)--a class of verbs which, some experiments suggest, allow interactive effects (e.g., Tanenhaus, Boland, Garnsey, & Carlson, 1989). We argue that this disparity in findings is due to the difference between the cross-modal lexical priming (CMLP) task used in the present study, and the tasks used by Tanenhaus et aL L We gratefully acknowledge Penny Prather, Catherine Stern, and David Swinney for their technical assistance, and also Brian Hickok. This work has also benefitted from helpful discussions with Michael Tanenhaus and Stephen Crain, as well as from the comments of two anonymous reviewers.
Biological studies of …, 1980
Cognition, 1987
This study examines verb processing during sentence comprehension. We describe two experiments th... more This study examines verb processing during sentence comprehension. We describe two experiments that assess whether or not a verb's representational complexity affects real-time sentence processing in normal listeners. Complexity is defined in terms of the kinds of structural information ...
Brain and Language, 1990
This study examines verb processing during on-line sentence comprehension in aphasia. We describe... more This study examines verb processing during on-line sentence comprehension in aphasia. We describe two experiments that explore whether a group of Broca's aphasics, who were agrammatic in comprehension as well as speech, a group of fluent aphasics, and a group of normal controls are sensitive to the argument structure arrangements of verbs. Subjects had to perform a complex secondary task both in the immediate vicinity of the verb and also at a point well past the verb while listening to sentences for meaning. Reaction times to this secondary task show that both normal controls and agrammatic Broca's aphasic subjects activate multiple argument structure possibilities for a verb in the vicinity of the verb, yet at a point downstream from the verb such effects disappear. These data suggest that the problems agrammatic subjects show with verbs in sentence comprehension, and the general lexical access deficit also recently claimed to be part of the agrammatics' problem, may not extend to the real-time processing of verbs and their arguments. Fluent aphasic subjects, on the other hand, do not show sensitivity to the argument structure properties of verbs, suggesting that these patients may have a semantic-like sentence processing deficit.
Brain and Language, 1986
Studies of agrammatic Broca's aphasics' comprehension of sentences containing articles have demon... more Studies of agrammatic Broca's aphasics' comprehension of sentences containing articles have demonstrated profound deficits. It has not been clear whether the i mpairments are due to an inability to isolate the article in the stream of speech, or to difficulty in the construction and/or interpretation of various syntactic, semantic, or pragmatic levels of representation. This paper reports three experiments on Broca's aphasics' ability to distinguish between common nouns (e.g., "a rose") and proper nouns (e.g., "Rose"). This grammatical form class decision is signaled by the presence or absence of an article, and is represented at the MURRAY GROSSMAN
Brain and Language, 1993
This paper is about syntactic processing in aphasia. Specifically, we present data concerning the... more This paper is about syntactic processing in aphasia. Specifically, we present data concerning the ability of Broca's and Wernicke's aphasic patients to link moved constituents and empty elements in real time. We show that Wernicke's aphasic patients carry out this syntactic analysis in a normal fashion, but that Broca's aphasic patients do not. We discuss these data in the context of some current grammar-based theories of comprehension limitations in aphasia and in terms of the different functional commitments of the brain regions implicated in Broca's and Wernicke's aphasia, respectively.
Neurobehavior of Language and Cognition
Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 2006
We examine the time-course of semantic structure formation during real-time sentence comprehensio... more We examine the time-course of semantic structure formation during real-time sentence comprehension. We do this through the lens of aspectual coercion, a semantic combinatorial operation that lacks morpho-syntactic reflections, yet is indispensable for sentence interpretation. We describe two experiments. Experiment 1 replicates the results of a previously published study (Piñango, Zurif, & Jackendoff, Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 28(4), 395-414 1999) showing that the cost of implementing aspectual coercion is detectable as late as 250 ms after the operation is licensed. Experiment 2 expands the window of observation by revealing that the implementation of aspectual coercion is not detectable immediately upon its being licensed, that is, at the point at which the syntactic representation is assumed to be fully formed. These findings suggest a dissociation in the integration of information, in which semantic composition-even mandatory and automatic semantic composition-takes time to develop after it is syntactically licensed to do so.
Brain and Language, 2001
We provide data on the neurological basis of two semantic operations at the sentence level: aspec... more We provide data on the neurological basis of two semantic operations at the sentence level: aspectual coercion and complement coercion. These operations are characterized by being purely semantic in nature; that is, they lack morphosyntactic reflections. Yet, the operations are mandatory (i.e., they are indispensable for the semantic well formedness of a sentence). Results indicate that, whereas Broca's patients have little or no trouble understanding sentences requiring these operations (performance was above chance for all conditions), Wernicke's patients performed at normal-like levels only for sentences that did not require these operations. These findings suggest that sentence-level semantic operations rely very specifically on the integrity of the cortical area associated with Wernicke's aphasia, but not on the region corresponding to Broca's aphasia. In the context of other findings from lesion and imaging studies, this evidence allows a view of the cortical distribution of language capacity that is drawn along a linguistic line, one which distinguishes syntactic from semantic operations.
Neuropsychologia, 1972
Effortful, agrammatic speech and relatively intact comprehension often appear to coexist in Broca... more Effortful, agrammatic speech and relatively intact comprehension often appear to coexist in Broca's aphasia. The present study focusses on this discrepancy, and tests the claim that the agrammatic patient has more information about syntactic structure than is indicated in his speech. Agrammatic aphasics and non-neurological patients sorted words from a variety of sentences on the basis of how closely related they felt the words to be in each of those sentences. These word groupings served as input matrices for a hierarchical clustering analysis. The resultant subjective phrase structure trees show that while normal subjects are often constrained by surface syntactic properties, agrammatic patients operate on a hierarchical scheme that excludes anything nonessential to the intrinsic meaning of a sentence. These findings suggest that expressive agrammatism is only one aspect of an impairment involving all language modalities.
Studies of agrammatic Broca's aphasics' comprehension of sentences containing articles have demon... more Studies of agrammatic Broca's aphasics' comprehension of sentences containing articles have demonstrated profound deficits. It has not been clear whether the i mpairments are due to an inability to isolate the article in the stream of speech, or to difficulty in the construction and/or interpretation of various syntactic, semantic, or pragmatic levels of representation. This paper reports three experiments on Broca's aphasics' ability to distinguish between common nouns (e.g., "a rose") and proper nouns (e.g., "Rose"). This grammatical form class decision is signaled by the presence or absence of an article, and is represented at the MURRAY GROSSMAN
Neuropsychologia, 1977
... and category boundaries has been called categorical perception [8, 9]. A subsidiary question ... more ... and category boundaries has been called categorical perception [8, 9]. A subsidiary question of concern to us was the extent to which speech perception abilities relate to speech production abilities. Specifically, do patients who manifest deficits in the perception of voiceonset ...
Neuropsychology, 2002
This study tests the hypothesis that sentence comprehension difficulty in Parkinson&a... more This study tests the hypothesis that sentence comprehension difficulty in Parkinson's disease (PD) is related in part to altered information processing speed that plays a crucial role in grammatical processing. The authors measured information processing speed in 32 PD patients without dementia using a lexical list-priming paradigm in which the interstimulus interval (ISI) between the prime and the target varied. Sentence comprehension accuracy was also assessed in 22 of these patients. Sentence comprehension accuracy for object-relative center-embedded sentences was impaired in a subgroup of PD patients. This subgroup of PD patients primed at an abnormally long ISI. Similarly, only PD patients who primed at a long ISI had greater difficulty understanding sentences with an object-relative clause than a subject-relative clause. Findings suggest that slowed information processing speed contributes to sentence comprehension difficulty in PD.
Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 1994
This report describes some recent examinations of the ability of aphasic patients to construct sy... more This report describes some recent examinations of the ability of aphasic patients to construct syntactically governed dependency relations in real time. The data show that Wernicke's patients can link the elements of dependency relations in the same way as neurologically intact subjects, even for sentences that they do not understand. Broca's patients, by contrast, are shown to be unable to create such links, even for sentences that they do understand. These data underline the isolability of this stage of syntactic analysis and they suggest that comprehension limitations statable in syntactic terms can be traced to changes in cortically localizable processing resources.
Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 1995
Two experime#~t.v were carried out to examine the abilita' o/'elderly sul?jects to e.vtablish .s'... more Two experime#~t.v were carried out to examine the abilita' o/'elderly sul?jects to e.vtablish .s'l,ntactieallv governed depe#tde#lcl" relattons during the colir3"e of'sentence comp#'e/wnsion. The findings reveal the manner itz whic'l~ memorl' c'o#lslvai#lt,s' operate during ,s3'ntactic l~roees,s'ing.
Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 1991
We argue that the lesion localizing value of disruptions to modular information processing system... more We argue that the lesion localizing value of disruptions to modular information processing systems emerges most clearly from on-line analyses of processing. In this respect we seek to show that left anterior (but not left posterior) damage causes slowed information access and we discuss the manner in which this slowing might yield some of the specific syntactic limitations charted in Broca "s aphasia. The general possibility we raise is that the cortical area implicated in Broca "s aphasia is not necessarily the locus of syntactic representations, but rather sustains particular time-based operating characteristics that in turn sustain normal real-time parsing.
Human Brain Mapping, 2002
We monitored regional cerebral activity with BOLD fMRI while subjects were presented written sent... more We monitored regional cerebral activity with BOLD fMRI while subjects were presented written sentences differing in their grammatical structure (subject-relative or object-relative center-embedded clauses) and their short-term memory demands (short or long antecedent-gap linkages). A core region of left posterior superior temporal cortex was recruited during all sentence conditions in comparison to a pseudofont baseline, suggesting that this area plays a central role in sustaining comprehension that is common to all sentences. Right posterior superior temporal cortex was recruited during sentences with long compared to short antecedent-gap linkages regardless of grammatical structure, suggesting that this brain region supports passive short-term memory during sentence comprehension. Recruitment of left inferior frontal cortex was most clearly associated with sentences that featured both an object-relative clause and a long antecedent-gap linkage, suggesting that this region supports the cognitive resources required to maintain long-distance syntactic dependencies during the comprehension of grammatically complex sentences. Hum. Brain Mapping 15:80 -94, 2001.
Journal of …, 1992
In th& paper we report our finding Zhat the parsing routine responsible for locating the deep-str... more In th& paper we report our finding Zhat the parsing routine responsible for locating the deep-structure position of a wh-phrase operates independently of semantic~pragmatic knowledge, suggesting a modular organization of the human sentence processo1: Specifically, wh-phrases that were semantically implausible as a direct object of the matrix verb were nonetheless reactivated in that position. Further, reactivation of the wh-phrase was observed despite the fact that the matrix verbs were three-place predicates (e.g., remind)--a class of verbs which, some experiments suggest, allow interactive effects (e.g., Tanenhaus, Boland, Garnsey, & Carlson, 1989). We argue that this disparity in findings is due to the difference between the cross-modal lexical priming (CMLP) task used in the present study, and the tasks used by Tanenhaus et aL L We gratefully acknowledge Penny Prather, Catherine Stern, and David Swinney for their technical assistance, and also Brian Hickok. This work has also benefitted from helpful discussions with Michael Tanenhaus and Stephen Crain, as well as from the comments of two anonymous reviewers.
Biological studies of …, 1980
Cognition, 1987
This study examines verb processing during sentence comprehension. We describe two experiments th... more This study examines verb processing during sentence comprehension. We describe two experiments that assess whether or not a verb's representational complexity affects real-time sentence processing in normal listeners. Complexity is defined in terms of the kinds of structural information ...
Brain and Language, 1990
This study examines verb processing during on-line sentence comprehension in aphasia. We describe... more This study examines verb processing during on-line sentence comprehension in aphasia. We describe two experiments that explore whether a group of Broca's aphasics, who were agrammatic in comprehension as well as speech, a group of fluent aphasics, and a group of normal controls are sensitive to the argument structure arrangements of verbs. Subjects had to perform a complex secondary task both in the immediate vicinity of the verb and also at a point well past the verb while listening to sentences for meaning. Reaction times to this secondary task show that both normal controls and agrammatic Broca's aphasic subjects activate multiple argument structure possibilities for a verb in the vicinity of the verb, yet at a point downstream from the verb such effects disappear. These data suggest that the problems agrammatic subjects show with verbs in sentence comprehension, and the general lexical access deficit also recently claimed to be part of the agrammatics' problem, may not extend to the real-time processing of verbs and their arguments. Fluent aphasic subjects, on the other hand, do not show sensitivity to the argument structure properties of verbs, suggesting that these patients may have a semantic-like sentence processing deficit.
Brain and Language, 1986
Studies of agrammatic Broca's aphasics' comprehension of sentences containing articles have demon... more Studies of agrammatic Broca's aphasics' comprehension of sentences containing articles have demonstrated profound deficits. It has not been clear whether the i mpairments are due to an inability to isolate the article in the stream of speech, or to difficulty in the construction and/or interpretation of various syntactic, semantic, or pragmatic levels of representation. This paper reports three experiments on Broca's aphasics' ability to distinguish between common nouns (e.g., "a rose") and proper nouns (e.g., "Rose"). This grammatical form class decision is signaled by the presence or absence of an article, and is represented at the MURRAY GROSSMAN
Brain and Language, 1993
This paper is about syntactic processing in aphasia. Specifically, we present data concerning the... more This paper is about syntactic processing in aphasia. Specifically, we present data concerning the ability of Broca's and Wernicke's aphasic patients to link moved constituents and empty elements in real time. We show that Wernicke's aphasic patients carry out this syntactic analysis in a normal fashion, but that Broca's aphasic patients do not. We discuss these data in the context of some current grammar-based theories of comprehension limitations in aphasia and in terms of the different functional commitments of the brain regions implicated in Broca's and Wernicke's aphasia, respectively.