Maviş, İ.

Yarbay Duman, T.

English

International Migration, Integration and Social Cohesion online publications

UvA-DARE is a service provided by the library of the University of Amsterdam (https://dare.uva.nl)UvA-DARE (Digital Academic Repository)Comprehension of If-Conditionals at the Morphosyntax-Semantics Interface inTurkish Broca's AphasiaYarbay Duman, T.; Maviş, İ.Publication date2013Document VersionFinal published versionPublished inStem-, Spraak-, en TaalpathologieLicenseCC BYLink to publicationCitation for published version (APA):Yarbay Duman, T., & Maviş, İ. (2013). Comprehension of If-Conditionals at theMorphosyntax-Semantics Interface in Turkish Broca's Aphasia. Stem-, Spraak-, enTaalpathologie, 18(Supplement), 174-178. http://sstp.nl/issue/view/1644General rightsIt is not permitted to download or to forward/distribute the text or part of it without the consent of the author(s)and/or copyright holder(s), other than for strictly personal, individual use, unless the work is under an opencontent license (like Creative Commons).Disclaimer/Complaints regulationsIf you believe that digital publication of certain material infringes any of your rights or (privacy) interests, pleaselet the Library know, stating your reasons. In case of a legitimate complaint, the Library will make the materialinaccessible and/or remove it from the website. Please Ask the Library: https://uba.uva.nl/en/contact, or a letterto: Library of the University of Amsterdam, Secretariat, Singel 425, 1012 WP Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Youwill be contacted as soon as possible.Download date:06 Jan 2026Stem-, Spraak- enTaalpathologieSupplement, September 201314th International Science of AphasiaConferenceSTEM-, SPRAAK- ENTAALPATHOLOGIEVol. 18, No. S01, 2013, pp. 174-17832.8310/S01/1813-174c© Groningen University PressComprehension of if-conditionals at themorphosyntax-semantics interface in TurkishBroca’s aphasiaTuba Yarbay Duman1 & İlknur Maviş21Amsterdam Center for Language and Communication, University of Amsterdam,The Netherlands2Education, Research & Training Centre for Speech and Language Pathology,Anadolu University, TurkeyIntroductionBroca’s aphasia is diagnosed in individuals who have significant deficits inexpressive and/or receptive language skills, due to brain injury (Goodglass,1980). Hallmark features of the disorder include profound impairments in theirmorphosyntactic abilities, and specifically in their abilities to use correct tense/ time-reference marking morphology (e.g. Stavrakaki & Kouvava, 2003; YarbayDuman & Bastiaanse, 2009). However, specificity of language impairment issubject to debate. Recent studies suggest that non-linguistic deficits often co-occurwith linguistic deficits in Broca’s aphasia, implying that individuals with Broca’saphasia do not only have impaired language but also suffer from cognitive deficits,particularly in specific executive functions (e.g. inhibition: Peristeri, Tsimpli, &Tsapkini, 2011). From this point of view, the morphosyntax-semantics interfaceis a highly interesting area to look into because it allows detecting relationshipsbetween morphosyntactic abilities and cognitive abilities of individuals withBroca’s aphasia. However, although there is extensive work on morphosyntacticimpairments in Broca’s aphasia (e.g. Bastiaanse & Thompson, 2003 for Dutch andEnglish; Yarbay Duman et. al., 2011 for Turkish), hardly anything is known aboutthe morphosyntax-semantics interface in this group.For this investigation, we examined the ability of Turkish-speaking individuals withBroca’s aphasia to comprehend counterfactuals and compared the results withthose of a control group consisting of individuals with no speech and languageimpairment history. Counterfactuals are thoughts about ‘what might have been‘,that is, imagining what might have happened, but did not. For example, whena person misses an important interview, he might think ‘if I had taken the bus!’.In this scenario, the person generated a different event and an outcome thanwhat has happened in reality, by inhibiting the current state of affairs. That is,the counterfactual is the scenario in which the person took the bus and madehis interview as opposed to the factual where the person missed the interview.According to Beck, Riggs, & Gorniak (2009) three executive functions are requiredfor counterfactual thinking: (1) inhibition – to ignore what has happened; (2)working memory – to hold two different representations simultaneously in mind;COMPREHENSION OF IF-CONDITIONALS IN TURKISH BROCA’S APHASIA175(3) cognitive switching – shifting between those representations. Hence, using, butalso understanding, counterfactuals involve complex cognitive processes. We alsotested the comprehension of nonconditional clauses and factual conditionals, inwhich no such cognitive processes are involved, to manipulate morphosyntactic(the presence/absence of an if-conditional) and semantic (counterfactuality)variables separately.Table 1: Summary of the clause types with respect to their relevant characteristics to thepresent studyIf - embedding Verb morphology Factual Specific EFNonConditionalno past tense yes noGömleğ–i ütüle–di ve dolab–a as–tıThe shirt-acc iron-past/3sg-conditional the closet-dat hang-aoristHe ironed the shirt and hung it up in the closetInterpretation: the shirt was ironed and hung up in the closetFactualyes past tense + -sa yes noGömleğ–i ütüle–diy–se dolab–a as–arThe shirt–acc iron–past/3sg –conditional the closet–dat hang–aoristIf he has ironed the shirt, he will hang it up in the closetInterpretation: when the shirt is ironed, it is in the closetCounterfactualyes -sa + past tense no yesGömleğ–i ütüle–sey-di dolab–a asar–dıThe shirt–acc iron–conditional–past/3sg the closet–dat hang–past/3 sgIf he had ironed the shirt, he would have hung it up in the closetInterpretation: The shirt is certainly not ironed and not hung up in the closetIndividuals with Broca’s aphasia have morphosyntactic deficits. Thus, it wasexpected that conditional clauses would be more difficult to comprehendthan nonconditional clauses since the former are morphosyntactically morecomplex. Furthermore, in Turkish, counterfactual and factual conditionals aremorphosyntactically equivalent, which allows observing whether counterfactualityitself adds to difficulties that individuals with Broca’s aphasia experience insentence comprehension. Considering the assumption that individuals withBroca’s aphasia are impaired in executive functions such as inhibitory control,it was predicted that counterfactual conditionals would be more difficult tocomprehend than factual conditionals. That is, it was expected that individualswith Broca’s aphasia, unlike the control group, would have more difficulties withcounterfactuals not only because of morphosyntactic complexity but also due tosemantic complexity and the cognitive processes involved in counterfactuals.Table 1 presents examples of test sentences and their relevant characteristics ofthe present study. Note that conditionals in Turkish are marked by a conditionalsuffix on the main verb (-(y)sa) ‘if’, which occurs to the right of the past tensemarker – dı in factuals (temporally past) and to its left in counterfactuals. Notethat Turkish, unlike English, has a specialized conditional morpheme used forboth counterfactuals and factuals. Besides, Turkish does not make use of if –complementizer, modals, auxiliaries, and participle verbs in its formulation ofthese structures, which make them grammatically easier and semantically moretransparent than in English.176 YARBAY DUMAN & MAVIŞMethodsSubjects12 individuals with Broca’s aphasia were tested (7 male / 5 female: MA: 54.2). Thediagnoses were based on the standardized Afazi Dil Değerlendirme Testi (ADD)-The Test of Language Assessment in Aphasia (Maviş & Toğram, 2009) and theclinical judgments of a speech therapist. All the patients were at least 3 monthspost onset of left CVA (lesion data are available for each patient). Ten non-brain-damaged Turkish speakers participated (and performed at ceiling) on the test.MaterialsA spoken–sentence–to–picture–matching task was developed with three conditions(nonconditional, factual conditional, counterfactual conditional), with 15 itemseach in the test. A sentence was read aloud by the experimenter and theparticipants were asked to point to the picture that matched the spoken sentence(see Figure 1). In the factual condition, the subjects were always shown picturesin which the action of the main clause was realized (e.g. ironing was done), as aconsequence of which the action of the other clause had to be realized as well e.g.the shirt is in the closet.ResultsFactual conditionals were significantly more difficult to comprehend thannonconditionals (t=2.311; df=1;p=.041) and counterfactual conditionals (t=2.692;df=11, p=.021). However, there was no difference between factual andcounterfactual conditionals (t =1.351, df =11; p=.204). In this analysis, lexicalerrors were ignored (these were cases in which the patients interpreted the targetsentence as a factual or a counterfactual correctly-but, by choosing a semanticallyrelated item e.g. shirt vs. dress) to see the effect of counterfactuality more clearly.This was the most conservative way to analyze the data since the subjects madetwice as many lexical errors as in factuals than in counterfactuals. Exactly theopposite pattern was observed for Action Unfulfilled errors (these were the casesin which the patients interpreted a counterfactual as a factual or vice versa).Although there was no significant group difference between factuals andcounterfactuals at the group level, 4 patients (out of 12) were significantly impairedin counterfactuals compared to factuals (chi-square).DiscussionThere are two major findings. First, comprehending factual and counterfactualconditionals was more difficult than comprehending nonconditionals for Turkishindividuals with Broca’s aphasia. Second, although comprehending factuals andcounterfactuals were equally difficult for them at the group level, some of thepatients were selectively impaired in counterfactual thinking. Apparently, sentenceCOMPREHENSION OF IF-CONDITIONALS IN TURKISH BROCA’S APHASIA177Figure 1: Counterfactual Test Stimuli: Gömleği ütüleseydi dolaba asardı ‘If he had ironed theshirt, he would have hung it up in the closet’(1) Target picture; (2) Action Unfulfilled distractor (picture in which the action mentionedwas not fulfilled); (3) Lexical distractor (picture in which action was fulfilled, but the lexicalitem was incorrect); and (4) [Action Unfulfilled + Lexical] distractor (picture in which boththe action was not fulfilled and the lexical item was incorrect).comprehension in Broca’s aphasia is influenced by morphosyntactic propertiesof sentence structure: conditionals that were morphosyntactically more complexthan nonconditionals were more difficult to comprehend for them, supportingearlier data for Turkish (Yarbay Duman et. al., 2011). Furthermore, comprehendingcounterfactuals at the morphosyntax-semantics interface is particularly difficultfor some individuals with Broca’s aphasia. Thus, executive functions such asinhibition required for counterfactual thinking can also be a factor hampering theirsentence comprehension ability.178 YARBAY DUMAN & MAVIŞReferencesBastiaanse, R., & Thompson, C.K. (2003). Verb and auxiliary movement in agrammaticBroca’s aphasia. Brain and Language, 84, 286–305.Beck, S.R., Riggs, K.J., & Gorniak, S.L. (2009). Relating developments in children’scounterfactual thinking and executive functions. Thinking and Reasoning, 15, 337-354.Goodglass, H. (1980). Disorders of naming following brain injury. American Scientist, 68,647-655.Maviş, İ., & Toğram,B. (2009). Language assessment test for aphasia (ADD). Detay Yayıncılık:Ankara.Peristeri, E., Tsimpli, I.M., Tsapkini, K. (2011). Linguistic Processing and Executive Control:Evidence for Inhibition in Broca’s aphasia. Procedia Social and Behavioral Sciences,23, 213–214.Stavrakaki, S., & Kouvava, S. (2003). Functional categories in agrammatism: evidence fromGreek. Brain and Language, 89, 129–141.Yarbay Duman, T., & Bastiaanse, R. (2009). Time reference through verb inflection in Turkishagrammatic aphasia. Brain and Language, 108, 30–39.Yarbay Duman, T., Altınok, N., Özgirgin, N, & Bastiaanse, R. (2011). Sentence comprehensionin Turkish Broca’s aphasia: An integration problem. Aphasiology, 25 (8), 908–926.

Comprehension of If-Conditionals at the Morphosyntax-Semantics Interface in Turkish Broca's Aphasia

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Comprehension of If-Conditionals at the Morphosyntax-Semantics Interface in Turkish Broca's Aphasia

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