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In syntactic theories of word categorization the status of prepositions as belonging to either a lexical (e.g., nouns, verbs) or a functional category (e.g., determiners, complementizers) is under debate. It has also been suggested that prepositions are a hybrid between the two categories depending on their usage. We investigated this classification question empirically in an ERP study with twelve mono-syllabic German prepositions in lexical (e.g., locative prepositions as in on the table) and subcategorized (e.g., selected by the verb as in waiting for) use. Thirty adult participants listened to sentences containing prepositions either in lexical or subcategorized use. Violations to lexical prepositions elicited an N400 – a component typically associated with lexical-semantic processing. Violations to subcategorized prepositions elicited a P600 – a component typically associated with structural/syntactic processing. In addition to lexical and subcategorized prepositions, the processing of sentence-final nouns following each type of preposition was measured. In both cases P600 effects were elicited. In addition to the positive effect, nouns in the context of incongruent lexical prepositions elicited an N400 effect. These qualitatively different processing results for lexical and subcategorized prepositions (and for nouns in the context of prepositions) suggest that depending on their use prepositions are processed like lexical or like functional words. By providing empirical evidence, we conclude that in terms of syntactic categorization, prepositions should be classified as a hybrid between a lexical and functional category.

Studies of agrammatic Broca's aphasia reveal a diverging pattern of performance in the comprehension of reflexive elements: offline, performance seems unimpaired, whereas online—and in contrast to both matching controls and Wernicke's patients—no antecedent reactivation is observed at the reflexive. Here we propose that this difference characterizes the agrammatic comprehension deficit as a result of slower-than-normal syntactic structure formation. To test this characterization, the comprehension of three Dutch agrammatic patients and matching control participants was investigated utilizing the cross-modal lexical decision (CMLD) interference task. Two types of reflexive-antecedent dependencies were tested, which have already been shown to exert distinct processing demands on the comprehension system as a function of the level at which the dependency was formed. Our hypothesis predicts that if the agrammatic system has a processing limitation such that syntactic structure is built in a protracted manner, this limitation will be reflected in delayed interpretation. Confirming previous findings, the Dutch patients show an effect of distinct processing demands for the two types of reflexive-antecedent dependencies but with a temporal delay . We argue that this delayed syntactic structure formation is the result of limited processing capacity that specifically affects the syntactic system.

It has repeatedly been shown that agrammatic Broca's aphasics have serious problems with the retrieval of verbs on action naming tests (Miceli, Silveri, Villa & Caramazza, 1984; Kohn, Lorch & Pearson, 1989; Basso, Razzano, Faglioni & Zanobio, 1990; Jonkers, 1998; Kim & Thompson, 2000). Less attention has been paid to the production of verbs at the sentence level (but see Miceli, Mazzuchi, Menn & Goodglass, 1983; Thompson, Shapiro, Li & Schendel, 1995; Thompson, Lange, Schneider & Shapiro, 1997; Bastiaanse & Van Zonneveld, 1998; Bastiaanse, Rispens & Van Zonneveld, 2000; Friedmann, 2000), although it has been mentioned that in agrammatic spontaneous speech verbs are lacking (Saffran, Berndt & Schwartz, 1989; Thompson et al., 1995, but see Bastiaanse & Jonkers, 1998).In this paper, three cross-linguistic studies are discussed to show that these problems with verbs have consequences for other grammatical morphemes and structures that have been mentioned to be impaired in agrammatic speech and that these consequences are different per language, depending on linguistic characteristics. The first study focuses on finiteness and compares the production of finite verbs in matrix and embedded clauses in Dutch and English, showing that a linguistic rule in Dutch (Verb Second), which does not exist in English, can explain the different performance of Dutch and English agrammatic Broca's aphasics. The second study focuses on determiners and (finite) verbs in German and shows that poor determiner production is directly related to poor verb production. The last study demonstrates that the ability to construct negative sentences is dependent on the language specific relation between verb movement and negation: Dutch and Norwegian agrammatics perform equally well on affirmative and negative sentences, whereas English and Spanish agrammatics are more impaired on negative sentences.Overall, these studies show that the problems agrammatics encounter with verbs and their properties have a spin-off on the production of other word-classes and that the characterization 'problems with grammatical morphemes' is too general for telegraphic speech.