Alan Beretta

An ER-fMRI investigation of morphological inflection in German reveals that the brain makes a distinction between regular and irregular forms

The hypothesis that morphological processing is supported by a mental dictionary of stored entries plus a set of mental computations based on rules is examined using event-related fMRI. If a rules-plus-memory model () reflects the actual organization of the language faculty, two distinct patterns of brain activation should be observed for production of German irregular and regular noun and verb inflections. If a connectionist alternative to the rules-and-memory model (, and many others since), which seeks to explain the production of both irregular and regular forms within a single associative memory mechanism, is correct, there should be no neural differentiation between German regular and irregular inflection. The results we report support the existence of substantially differing patterns of activation for regulars vs. irregulars, an outcome that is consistent with the two-component rules-plus-memory account.

Theory Construction in SLA

There are indications that a determined effort toward theory construction is currently being mounted in SLA (Gregg, 1989, 1990; Long, 1990; Spolsky, 1989). This raises a number of epistemological issues, one of which is the question of multiple theories and lack of convergence (and the related question of distinguishing science from nonscience–and from nonsense). In a field where there are many different therorise, is the relationship between them one of complementarity or of opposition? Are there criteria for appraisal and choice? Issues relating to theory construction have received considerable attention in the literature (e.g., Lightbown, 1984; McLaughlin, 1987). This article aims to build on such initiative asking: (a) Are there multiple theories of SLA? (b) Is it a problem? and (c) what criteria have SLA researchers used to appraise and choose between theories, and how compelling are they? Following this, consideration is given to top-down and bottom-up approaches to SLA theory construction. I conclude by advancing the modest claim that rationality in SLA therory construction is possible, in spite of insistent problems.

The effects of scrambling on Spanish and Korean agrammatic interpretation: Why linear models fail and structural models survive

Several models of comprehension deficits in agrammatic aphasia rely heavily on linear considerations in the assignment of thematic roles to structural positions (e.g., the Trace-Deletion Hypothesis, the Mapping Hypothesis, and the Argument-Linking Hypothesis). These accounts predict that constructions in languages with rules that affect syntactic structure but preserve relative linear order should be unimpaired. Other models [e.g., the Double-Dependency Hypothesis, (DDH)] do not resort to linearity but are purely structural in conception and therefore should be immune to word-order effects. We tested linear and nonlinear accounts with scrambling structures in Korean and topicalization structures in Spanish. The results are very clear. The (nonlinear) DDH is entirely compatible with the evidence, but the linear accounts are not.

Recruiting Comparative Crosslinguistic Evidence to Address Competing Accounts of Agrammatic Aphasia

Several hypotheses have been advanced whose aim has been to provide a descriptive generalization of comprehension patterns in agrammatic aphasia in terms of current linguistic theory, most notably, the Trace-Deletion Hypothesis. The basic insight of these syntactic accounts of aphasia is that chains are disrupted. In this paper, we seek to confront the Trace-Deletion Hypothesis (TDH) and one of its variants, the Double-Dependency Hypothesis (DDH), with discriminating, crosslinguistic data. We adduce evidence that on raising constructions both hypotheses are able to derive Spanish agrammatic data correctly. However, neither the TDH nor the DDH are able to account for above-chance performance on SV or VS truncated passives. Finally, only the DDH explains the observed data on passive constructions in which a postverbal subject follows the by phrase (V-by phrase-S). The VS word order data are the critical cases because focusing simply on English would not allow these structures to be tested and, in the case of the V-by phrase-S passive, both hypotheses make different predictions. While the data on raising constructions extend the range of both the TDH and the DDH, the VS data suggest that modifications are required.

The derivation of postverbal subjects: Evidence from agrammatic aphasia

The study reported in this paper appeals to data from agrammatic aphasia to confront two competing analyses of the derivation of postverbal subjects in languages which permit free inversion. In one of the analyses, postverbal subjects are derived by movement, while in the other, they are base-generated in situ.According to a prominent hypothesis which attempts to explain the pattern of sparing and loss in agrammatism in terms of current linguistic theory, the only syntactic deficit is the loss of trace. This movement-derived ‘trace-deletion’ hypothesis has been successful in predicting what agrammatics can and cannot comprehend. In the present study, these predictions are first of all confirmed for Spanish-speaking agrammatics on a range of structures for which predictions are identical under both movement and non-movement analyses. These structures serve as a control, establishing that the claims of the trace-deletion hypothesis are valid. They pave the way for the critical test of the VS passive, the only structure for which the competing analyses yield different predictions. Agrammatic data on the VS passive are used to adjudicate between the competing analyses. Since agrammatic subjects perform randomly on VS passives, it is concluded that the postverbal subject is derived by movement.

Double-Agents and Trace-Deletion in Agrammatism

The Trace-Deletion Hypothesis (henceforth TDH; Grodzinsky 1986, 1995) states that syntactic traces are deleted in agrammatism and that whenever a trace is deleted, a default strategy is activated. The default strategy assigns the role of Agent to the first NP. In structures where a second NP receives the Agent role syntactically, the consequence is that the agrammatic representation contains two conflicting Agents for the same action. This is the mechanism that induces guessing and the random performance on comprehension tests that has often been observed for passives and certain other structures. In this paper, we isolate the default strategy of the TDH, using a sentence-picture matching task in which one of the pictures matches the meaning arrived at by the default strategy. Our results show that an agrammatic representation does not involve double-Agents, and thus the default strategy (and therefore the TDH) is refuted.

Attention to Form or Meaning? Error Treatment in the Bangalore Project.

This article reports an evaluation study of the Bangalore project, a content-based approach to language learning. It examines the question, Do teachers attend to, meaning or to form, and is such a distinction observable in classroom practice? The study investigated the way that error treatment in Bangalore classrooms was realized in practice in a sample of 21 lesson transcripts. It was found that the treatment of linguistic error was largely consonant with the projects statements about the kinds of attention that are appropriate to a focus on meaning and that this could be distinguished from the ways of treating linguistic error that are attributable to a focus on form. However, the most likely explanation for this finding is that as the project developed, task types were selected that would curtail learner production and, thereby, the risk of making linguistic error. This finding has implications for teachers interested in content-based curricula.

Program-Fair Language Teaching Evaluation

A basic, but inadequately fulfilled, requirement of evaluation studies comparing the effects of teaching programs is that the tests used should be program-fair. In this article, attention is first of all drawn to the potential for misinterpretation of experiments lacking program-fair criteria. Second, the strategies adopted by various researchers to come to terms with the issue are considered from the perspectives of (a) standardized tests, (b) specific tests for each program, (c) program-specific plus program-neutral measures, (d) common/unique objectives, and (e) appeal to consensus. Finally, it is concluded that while the issue remains largely unresolved, there are some general principles which can be gleaned from past experience.

Psychological verbs and the double-dependency hypothesis

The double-dependency hypothesis (DDH, Mauner et al., 1993) holds that where two dependencies of a certain kind are present, comprehension in Brocas aphasia will be random, but that where there is only one dependency, comprehension will be intact. We tested this hypothesis by examining the performance of Brocas aphasics on sentences with psychological verbs of two different classes. One class has an argument structure in which the Experiencer role is assigned to the subject. In the other class, the Experiencer role is assigned to the object. Subject-Experiencer verbs can form verbal passives which have two relevant dependencies, whereas object-Experiencer verbs can form adjectival passives and have only one relevant dependency. Thus these sentence types make contrasting predictions relevant to the DDH. Our results clearly demonstrate that patients understand the adjectival passive psychological verbs, as predicted by the DDH. On the verbal passive psychological verbs, patients perform at chance, again consistent with DDH predictions. These results firmly buttress the DDH account. They also contradict the results of an earlier study (of verbal passive psychological verbs only), a study which we argue is plagued with problems (namely, Grodzinsky, 1995b).

Mind and Brain: Toward an Understanding of Dualism

A post-Newtonian understanding of matter includes immaterial forces; thus, the concept of ‘physical’ has lost what usefulness it previously had and consequently Cartesian dualism has ceased to support a divide between the mental and the physical. A scientific understanding of mind that goes back at least as far as Priestley (eighteenth century) not only includes immaterial components but identifies brain parts in which these components correlate with neural activity. What are we left with? The challenge is not so much to figure out how a physical brain interacts with a nonphysical mind, but to try to unify theories of mind and theories of brain that to date do not share a single property. The challenge is enormous, but at least we can be quite clear about its nature, as there is no reason to be distracted by the idea of two distinct substances. In the present volume, several historical perspectives on the mind-body problem are discussed; we follow major currents of thought regarding the mind-body problem so that it can be seen how we arrived at our conception that it makes sense only to talk about theory unification.