Using Swahili and English to Test Explanations of Agrammatism
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Date
2011-05-25
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Psychology press
Abstract
Background: This study is on time reference through verbs in two Swahili-English bilingual agrammatic speakers. Recent studies in several languages have shown that time
reference through verb inflection, and more specifically through tense, is impaired in
agrammatic speakers. Consequently, several theories have been proposed to account for
this phenomenon. We explore three kinds of theories of agrammatism that are eligible
to account for these data: (1) a deficit in Tense; (2) a deficit in Discourse Linking; (3) a
Morphological-System deficit.
Aims: The study investigated the patterns and degree of severity of time reference impairments in bilingual agrammatic speakers of Swahili and English. Production of past and
future verb forms was examined in both languages to determine which of the explanations for verb inflection errors holds in bilingual agrammatic speakers.
Methods & Procedures: A sentence completion test was developed in two languages to
elicit sentence constructions that refer to the past and the future. This test was administered to two bilingual agrammatic speakers of Swahili and English and three age- and
education-matched control participants.
Outcomes & Results: The performance of the control participants on the two tests was
perfect in both languages. Similarly, the two agrammatic speakers’ performance in Swahili
as well as future tense in English was at ceiling. However, both agrammatic speakers had
selective deficits in the production of English past tense.
Conclusions: The discrepancy between the English and Swahili data cannot be explained
by a syntactic or discourse linking theory. Only a morphological deficit in terms of
number of possible candidates for a particular inflectional form fits with the data.
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Abuom, T. O., Obler, L. K., & Bastiaanse, R. (2011). Using Swahili and English to test explanations of agrammatism. Aphasiology, 25(5), 559-575.