Carlo Cecchetto

Doubling structures and reconstruction

In Italian CLLD constructions, a left dislocated direct object DP is reconstmcted at LF into a position which is c-commanded by a preverbal subject but not by a postverbal one. This reconstruction pattern illuminates the derivation ofa CLLD sentence: a DP moves to the left peripheral position from the thematic one via an intermediate position the trace in which is activated at LF. Since this kind ofaccount takes CLLD to be transformationally related to clitic doubling, a unified analysis ofthese two constructions is proposed and a problem raised by the more limited distribution of the latter construction over the former one is addressed. The failure of PG licensing and the absence of WCO effects (unexpectedproperties under a movement analysis for CLLD) are attributed to the particular kind of trace left by a left dislocated DP.

How grammar can cope with limited short-term memory: simultaneity and seriality in sign languages.

It is known that in American Sign Language (ASL) span is shorter than in English, but this discrepancy has never been systematically investigated using other pairs of signed and spoken languages. This finding is at odds with results showing that short-term memory (STM) for signs has an internal organization similar to STM for words. Moreover, some methodological questions remain open. Thus, we measured span of deaf and matched hearing participants for Italian Sign Language (LIS) and Italian, respectively, controlling for all the possible variables that might be responsible for the discrepancy: yet, a difference in span between deaf signers and hearing speakers was found. However, the advantage of hearing subjects was removed in a visuo-spatial STM task. We attribute the source of the lower span to the internal structure of signs: indeed, unlike English (or Italian) words, signs contain both simultaneous and sequential components. Nonetheless, sign languages are fully-fledged grammatical systems, probably because the overall architecture of the grammar of signed languages reduces the STM load. Our hypothesis is that the faculty of language is dependent on STM, being however flexible enough to develop even in a relatively hostile environment.

Relabeling Heads: A Unified Account for Relativization Structures

A tenet of any version of phrase structure theory is that a lexical item can transmit its label when merged with another category. We assume that if it is internally merged, a lexical item can turn a clause into a nominal phrase. If the relabeling lexical item is a wh-word, a free relative results; if it is an N, a full relative results; if it is a non-wh D, a pseudorelative results. It follows that the head of a relative construction cannot be more complex than a lexical item. We show massive evidence that when it is otherwise (e.g., the book about Obama that you bought), the modifier is late-merged after the noun has moved and relabeled the structure.

A Challenge to Null Case Theory

This squib presents a challenge to the theory according to which PRO would receive null case. We will mainly discuss evidence involving Case agreement in control complements in morphologically rich languages like Latin, but we will also show that Italian retains the Latin pattern in one area of the grammar in which case morphology has been preserved

Processing of syntactically complex sentences relies on verbal short-term memory: Evidence from a short-term memory patient

The role of the phonological loop in auditory sentence comprehension was examined in a 35-year-old woman with a selective deficit of verbal short-term memory (STM). More specifically, the objective of the experiment was to test whether sentence comprehension is limited by number of propositions, as suggested by Rochon, Waters, and Caplan (2000), or whether it depends on syntactic complexity. In an offline task, severe impairment was present on cleft objects and centre-embedded structures; the deficit on object relatives in right peripheral position was less relevant, and the patient was able to handle sentential coordination easily. In an online task, her processing of centre-embedded structures and object relatives in right peripheral position was significantly slower than that in controls. She was also significantly slower in processing the verb of the object relative in centre-embedded structures. The results obtained do not support the claim that the difficulties encountered by patients with limited working-memory resources are due to the number of propositions in the sentence; they do, however, suggest a direct involvement of the phonological loop in processing syntactically complex sentences.

Hearing shapes our perception of time: Temporal discrimination of tactile stimuli in deaf people

Confronted with the loss of one type of sensory input, we compensate using information conveyed by other senses. However, losing one type of sensory information at specific developmental times may lead to deficits across all sensory modalities. We addressed the effect of auditory deprivation on the development of tactile abilities, taking into account changes occurring at the behavioral and cortical level. Congenitally deaf and hearing individuals performed two tactile tasks, the first requiring the discrimination of the temporal duration of touches and the second requiring the discrimination of their spatial length. Compared with hearing individuals, deaf individuals were impaired only in tactile temporal processing. To explore the neural substrate of this difference, we ran a TMS experiment. In deaf individuals, the auditory association cortex was involved in temporal and spatial tactile processing, with the same chronometry as the primary somatosensory cortex. In hearing participants, the involvement of auditory association cortex occurred at a later stage and selectively for temporal discrimination. The different chronometry in the recruitment of the auditory cortex in deaf individuals correlated with the tactile temporal impairment. Thus, early hearing experience seems to be crucial to develop an efficient temporal processing across modalities, suggesting that plasticity does not necessarily result in behavioral compensation.

A case for the involvement of phonological loop in sentence comprehension

The specific role of the phonological loop in sentence comprehension is still a matter of debate. We tested the behavioural consequences of activity disruption in left BA40 and BA44, key regions of the phonological loop, on language comprehension using 1Hz rTMS. Comprehension was assessed by means of two tasks: a sentence-to-picture matching task, with sentences varying in length and syntactic complexity (Experiment 1), and a sentence verification task (Experiment 2). rTMS over left BA40 significantly reduced accuracy for syntactically complex sentences and long, but syntactically simpler sentences, while rTMS over left BA44 significantly reduced accuracy only for syntactically complex sentences. rTMS applied over left BA40 also impaired performance on sentences in which word order was crucial. We suggest that the neural correlates of the phonological loop, left BA40 and BA44, are both involved in the comprehension of syntactically complex sentences, while only left BA40, corresponding to the short-term store, is recruited for the comprehension of long but syntactically simple sentences. Therefore, in contrast with the dominant view, we showed that sentence comprehension is a function of the phonological loop.

Auditory deprivation affects biases of visuospatial attention as measured by line bisection

In this study, we investigated whether early deafness affects the typical pattern of hemispheric lateralization [i.e., right hemisphere (RH) dominance] in the control of spatial attention. To this aim, deaf signers, deaf non-signers, hearing signers, and hearing non-signers were required to bisect a series of centrally presented visual lines. The directional bisection bias was found to be significantly different between hearing and deaf participants, irrespective of sign language use. Hearing participants (both signers and non-signers) showed a consistent leftward bias, reflecting RH dominance. Conversely, we observed no evidence of a clear directional bias in deaf signers or non-signers (deaf participants overall showing a non-significant tendency to deviate rightward), suggesting that deafness may be associated to a more bilateral hemispheric engagement in visuospatial tasks.

Looking for an Explanation for the Low Sign Span. Is Order Involved

Although signed and speech-based languages have a similar internal organization of verbal short-term memory, sign span is lower than word span. We investigated whether this is due to the fact that signs are not suited for serial recall, as proposed by Bavelier, Newport, Hall, Supalla, and Boutla (2008. Ordered short-term memory differs in signers and speakers: Implications for models of short-term memory. Cognition, 107, 433-459). We administered a serial recall task with stimuli in Italian Sign Language to 12 deaf people, and we compared their performance with that of twelve age-, gender-, and education-matched hearing participants who performed the task in Italian. The results do not offer evidence for the hypothesis that serial order per se is a detrimental factor for deaf participants. An alternative explanation for the lower sign span based on signs being phonologically heavier than words is considered.

Phonology without semantics? Good enough for verbal short-term memory. Evidence from a patient with semantic dementia

INTRODUCTION There is considerable evidence that long-term knowledge has an influence on short-term memory (STM) performance. This reflects the activation of long-term representations involved in perceiving and comprehending spoken language. Still, this type of long-term knowledge might be of two different kinds. STM performance might be facilitated by information about the meaning of the word, or, alternatively, by familiarity with its phonological form. METHODS We investigated these two alternatives by assessing word span in MC, a patient with semantic dementia. Four different lists of words were used: known words, words whose phonological form was known by the patient although she could not report its meaning, words that the patient did not recognize as words and judged as nonwords, nonwords. The patients performance was compared to that of six matched controls. RESULTS MC did not differ from controls in the first two types of lists and performed at the same level with both, while for words whose phonological form was unknown (and therefore not recognized as words) her performance was comparable to that with nonwords; also, with this type of item, she produced significantly more phonemic substitutions than controls. CONCLUSIONS The results show that long-term knowledge facilitates immediate serial recall. However, this facilitation is due to familiarity with phonological representations rather than to knowledge of meaning.