The classifier problem in Chinese aphasia

doi:10.1016/0093-934X(91)90152-Q

Brain and Language

Volume 41, Issue 2, August 1991, Pages 184-202

https://doi.org/10.1016/0093-934X(91)90152-Q Get rights and content

Abstract

In recent years, research on the relationship between brain organization and language processing has benefited tremendously from cross-linguistic comparisons of language disorders among different types of aphasic patients. Results from these cross-linguistic studies have shown that the same aphasic syndromes often look very different from one language to another, suggesting that language-specific knowledge is largely preserved in Broca's and Wernicke's aphasics. In this paper, Chinese aphasic patients were examined with respect to their (in) ability to use classifiers in a noun phrase. The Chinese language, in addition to its lack of verb conjugation and an absence of noun declension, is exceptional in yet another respect: articles, numerals, and other such modifiers cannot directly precede their associated nouns, there has to be an intervening morpheme called a classifier. The appropriate usage of nominal classifiers is considered to be one of the most difficult aspects of Chinese grammar. Our examination of Chinese aphasic patients revealed two essential points. First, Chinese aphasic patients experience difficulty in the production of nominal classifiers, committing a significant number of errors of omission and/or substitution. Second, two different kinds of substitution errors are observed in Broca's and Wernicke's patients, and the detailed analysis of the difference demands a rethinking of the distinction between agrammatism and paragrammatism. The result adds to a growing body of evidence suggesting that grammar is impaired in fluent as well as nonfluent aphasia.

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Classifiers in Mandarin Chinese: Behavioral and electrophysiological evidence regarding their representation and processing
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The choice of classifiers therefore has a lexico-syntactic nature defined by ambiguous patterns that are flexible to cater for various factors. The major influence of semantic category on classifier assignment has already been attested, with implications that classifiers and nouns undergo similar semantic constraints (Bi et al., 2010; Chen & Wang, 2003), even though the relationship is in many cases opaque (Tzeng, Chen, & Hung, 1991). Nevertheless, even though the use of a classifier preceding a noun depends to a great extent on semantic properties, it is the noun itself in the context that has a dominant effect on the choice of classifiers (Shao, 1993).
In Chinese, when objects are named with their quantity, a numeral classifier must be inserted between the quantifier and the noun to produce a grammatically correct quantifier + classifier + noun phrase. In this study, we adopted the picture-word interference paradigm to examine participants’ naming latencies for multiple objects and their electroencephalogram in four conditions by manipulating two factors, i.e. semantic relatedness and classifier congruency. Results show that in noun phrase production, naming latencies are significantly longer in classifier-incongruent and semantically related conditions than in classifier-congruent and semantically unrelated conditions. Also, an N400-like effect was observed and found to be stronger in classifier-incongruent and semantically unrelated conditions. Together, the behavioral data and event-related potential analyses suggest that the use of classifiers as lexico-syntactic features in Mandarin Chinese takes place via a competitive selection process in noun phrase production.
Classifiers in non-European languages and semantic impairments in western neurological patients have a common cognitive structure
2020, Lingua
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Another limitation we face is that all of the neuropsychological studies have taken place within the academic and medical systems of Western societies (Europe and North America), while neuropsychological data from classifier language speaking populations that could have provided complementary information on the distribution of categories in semantic deficits are still lacking. Nevertheless, a few studies on language impairments like aphasia (Thai: Gandour et al., 1984, 1985; Chinese: Tzeng et al., 1991) constitute an exception from the general situation that studies on neuropsychological data from linguistic societies where the target classifiers are present (e.g., for animate things) is lacking. We are aware of but did not include these aphasia studies since they followed testing procedures different from the main stock of category-specific impaired patients.
We compared two non-overlapping data sets: (a) the semantic categories in representative samples of nominal classification languages (N = 334); and in a non-overlapping population (b) semantic category-specific impairments of European neurological patients (N = 121). Each of these appears to organize world objects in natural kinds (e.g., animal, body part, plant, fruit and vegetable, liquid) or manmade kinds (e.g., food, clothing, tool, vehicle, furniture). We show that whenever a specific semantic category is found as a cognitive impairment, this category also exists in some language as a semantic classifier. Since all of the existing semantic impairments reports are with speakers whose languages lack semantic nominal classification systems, the present regularities between grammar and cognitive deficit suggests the idea that cognitive universals may constrain how the neural substrate of knowledge is organized and can break apart but also how they can become expressed in different grammars.
Lesion-aphasia discordance in acute stroke among Bengali-speaking patients: Frequency, pattern, and effect on aphasia recovery
2019, Journal of Neurolinguistics
Citation Excerpt :
The study of possible lesion localization for a given aphasic phenotype may also provide clues about the cerebral language representation in the study population. It has already been established that language representation in the brain may be variable across different languages (e.g., Tzeng, Chen, & Hung, 1991). In a recent article by Bohra et al. (2015), it was observed that the majority (65%) of the patients did not show any conformity between the location of the brain lesion and the type of aphasia according to ‘traditional localizationist model’.
Contemporary research papers have highlighted the issue of lesion-aphasia discordance in reference to the classic ‘associationist’ model provided by Wernicke-Lichtheim. The objective of the present study is to explore frequency, pattern and evolution of lesion-discordant aphasia following first ever acute stroke in Bengali-speaking subjects.
Bengali version of Western Aphasia Battery, a validated scale, was used for language assessment in our study subjects. Lesion localization was done by using Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) (3T) for ischemic stroke (if not contraindicated) and computed tomography (CT) for hemorrhagic stroke. Among 515 screened cases of first-ever acute stroke, 208 presented aphasia. Language assessment was done between 7 and 14 days in all study subjects and was repeated between 90 and 100 days in patients available for follow-up. Ischemic stroke cases with contraindication for MRI underwent CT imaging. Discordance between lesion and aphasic phenotype was determined only for right-handed subjects with cortical involvement (isolated or in combination with sub-cortical white matter) in the left hemisphere. Appropriate statistical tests were used to analyze the collected data.
Lesion-aphasia discordance was found in 20 out of 134 patients with aphasia who were dextral and had cortical involvement in the left hemisphere (14.92%). The pattern of discordance observed were- posterior lesion with Broca's aphasia (4; 20%); posterior lesion with global aphasia (8; 40%); anterior lesion with global aphasia (4; 20%), and posterior lesion with mixed transcortical aphasia (4; 20%). On univariate analysis, the factors significantly associated with lesion-aphasia discordance were hemorrhagic stroke (p = 0.000); posterior perisylvian location (p = 0.002), and higher education (p = 0.048). After adjusting for all other variables, hemorrhagic stroke was found to have strong association with lesion-aphasia discordance (p = 0.001, OR = 11.764, 95% CI, 2.83–50.0). Discordant cases were more likely to recover or change to a milder type compared to concordant cases (p = 0.007, OR = 11.393, 95% CI, 1.960–66.231), after adjusting for all other variables including initial severity of aphasia (p = 0.006, OR = 8.388, 95% CI, 1.816–38.749).
Lesion-aphasia discordance following acute stroke is not uncommon among Bengali-speaking subjects. In the discordant group, preponderance towards non-fluent aphasia was observed. Discordance occurred more frequently after hemorrhagic stroke. Subjects with lesion-discordant aphasia presented better recovery during early post-stroke phase.
An elephant needs a head but a horse does not: An ERP study of classifier-noun agreement in Mandarin
2019, Journal of Neurolinguistics
Citation Excerpt :
Thus, the purpose of the current study was to examine whether Mandarin classifiers can play a grammatical role in relation to their accompanying nouns. To this end, our study took a different approach in designing classifier-noun pairing: instead of adopting apparent semantic clash, we used two frequently found mistakes in young children and aphasic patients (e.g. Tzeng, Chen, & Hung, 1991; Uchida & Imai, 1999): the omission of classifiers and the inappropriate use of the general classifier “GE” (個). The omission mistake ignores the required presence of a classifier and thus is a clear grammatical violation, while the incongruity in the inappropriate use of GE is not as apparent.
Classifiers are essential elements between numerals and nouns in Mandarin (e.g. “one-tou_CL-elephant”), but whether they serve a semantic or functional/morphosyntactic role in relation to the accompanying noun has been heatedly debated in linguistics. Previous ERP research consistently supported the semantic view with findings of N400; however, the apparent meaning clash in mismatched classifier-noun pairing in these studies might render morphosyntactic processing undetected. We created two violation conditions to explore classifier-noun agreement: incongruent GE-noun combinations (replacing a specific classifier with the meaning-devoid general classifier, GE) and outright grammatical mistakes (missing a required classifier). With congruent combinations as the baseline, GE-noun combinations elicited a negativity effect strikingly similar to that induced by the grammatical violation condition in phrases (Experiment 1) and sentences (Experiment 2), indicating the involvement of morphosyntactic processing in classifier-noun agreement. The finding suggests that there is a middle ground for the linguistic debate over the nature of classifier selection in relation to nouns.
Lexico-syntactic features are activated but not selected in bare noun production: Electrophysiological evidence from overt picture naming
2019, Cortex
To produce a word, speakers need to retrieve the lexico-syntactic representation of the word and encode the phonological form for articulation. It is not precisely known yet if a word's syntactic features (e.g., number, gender, etc.) are automatically activated and selected in bare noun production. Cubelli, Lotto, Paolieri, Girelli, and Job (2005) proposed that only in languages that have a complex morphological structure (e.g., Italian), the selection of grammatical gender is required. In languages with a relatively simpler morphological structure, the selection of grammatical gender is by-passed. Here, we investigated this issue further by employing a language with an extremely simple morphological structure, i.e., Mandarin Chinese. Using the picture-word interference paradigm, we manipulated the congruency of the lexico-syntactic classifier feature (comparable to grammatical gender) between the target picture and the superimposed distractor word. We measured participants' naming latencies and their electroencephalogram (EEG). As a result, relative to the classifier-congruent condition, classifier incongruency elicited a stronger N400 effect in the ERP analyses, suggesting the automatic activation of lexico-syntactic features in bare noun production. However, classifier congruency did not affect naming latencies, suggesting that the lexico-syntactic feature is not selected in bare noun naming when it is irrelevant for production.
The role of visual form in lexical access: Evidence from Chinese classifier production
2010, Cognition
The interface between the conceptual and lexical systems was investigated in a word production setting. We tested the effects of two conceptual dimensions – semantic category and visual shape – on the selection of Chinese nouns and classifiers. Participants named pictures with nouns (“rope”) or classifier–noun phrases (“one-classifier–rope”) in three blocked picture naming experiments. In Experiment 1, we observed larger semantic category interference with phrases than with nouns, suggesting comparable semantic categorical effects on classifier and noun selection. In Experiments 2 and 3, items with similar shapes produced an interference effect when they were named with classifier–noun phrases, but not with bare nouns. This indicates that object shape modulates classifier (but not noun) selection. We conclude that object shape properties can by themselves influence word selection processes just as semantic relationships (captured by semantic category) do. The factors operating during word selection may be more diverse than has been previously thought.

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^☆: This research was supported in part by a grant to Daisy L. Hung and Ovid Tzeng from the CCK Cultural Foundation and the National Science Council of the Republic of China and in part by a grant from PHS-NIDCD No. R01-DC00216-07 to Elizabeth Bates.

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Regular articleThe classifier problem in Chinese aphasia☆

Abstract

Brain and Language

Brain and Language

Cortex

Cortex

Brain & Language

Aphasiology

Crosslinguistic studies of aphasia

Comparative aphasiology: A cross-linguistic approach to language breakdown

Aphasiology

Comparative aphasiology: A cross-linguistic approach to language breakdown

Aphasiology

Semantic processing in aphasia: Evidence from an auditory lexical decision task

Brain and Language

Dissociation of algorithmic and heuristic processes in language comprehension: Evidence from aphasia

Brain and Language

The acquisition of numeral classifiers in Thai

Linguistics

Narrative strategies of aphasic and normal speaking subjects

Journal of Speech and Hearing Research

Studies on the grammar of aphasics

Agrammatism

Boston Diagnostic Aphasia Examination

Regular article
The classifier problem in Chinese aphasia☆