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In this article, we analyze five reduced structures in Italian that display morphological agreement between their past participle and their internal argument. Three of the five structures have full illocutionary force despite lacking the middle field and the left periphery. We explain this fact (and the differences with the two remaining participial structures) by extending to object agreement cases Chomsky’s (2019) hypothesis that clauses are exocentric but can be labeled by a mechanism of feature sharing. This goes against the hypothesis that all reduced structures interpreted as clauses must be elliptical.

La comprensione di frasi è un processo complesso che coinvolge sia competenze linguistiche sia extra-linguistiche. Fare chiarezza sulle cause che sottostanno ai deficit nella comprensione del linguaggio avrebbe implicazioni teoriche e cliniche, in particolare dal punto di vista diagnostico e riabilitativo. Il presente lavoro ha l’obiettivo di approfondire il ruolo della complessità sintattica e della memoria a breve termine, in particolare la memoria a breve termine uditivo-verbale e la memoria di lavoro, nella comprensione di frasi. Gli studi ad oggi condotti hanno come principale oggetto di studio la popolazione di soggetti con afasia non fluente, variante agrammatica, a seguito di evento cerebrovascolare. Tale popolazione clinica mostra infatti frequentemente difficoltà di comprensione sintattica, in associazione a deficit di memoria a breve termine uditivo-verbale. Nel contesto del presente lavoro è stato condotto uno studio osservazionale finalizzato ad approfondire il profilo della comprensione delle persone con agrammatismo e i rispettivi ruoli della complessità sintattica e della memoria a breve termine uditivo-verbale. A tale scopo è stata impiegata la Batteria Comprendo quale principale misura di outcome (Capitolo 1). In risposta ad alcune limitazioni rilevate nei contesti clinici e di ricerca a seguito dell’uso della Batteria Comprendo, è stata sviluppata negli anni successivi una versione revisionata denominata Ri-Comprendo, della quale sono stati raccolti dati normativi su un campione della popolazione italiana (Capitolo 2). La batteria Ri-Comprendo è stata successivamente impiegata in uno studio clinico randomizzato in doppio cieco volto ad esplorare i potenziali effetti della stimolazione transcranica a corrente continua anodica (AtDCS) associata al trattamento linguistico standard sulla comprensione delle frasi in persone affette da afasia cronica non fluente (Capitolo 3). La relazione tra memoria a breve termine e comprensione sintattica è, Sentence comprehension is a complex process involving both linguistic and extra-linguistic skills. Shedding light on the underlying causes of language comprehension deficits would have theoretical and clinical implications, particularly from both diagnostic and rehabilita-tive standpoints. The present work aims to gain a deeper understanding of the role of syntactic complexity and short-term memory, specifically, phonological short-term memory (pSTM) and working memory (WM) in sentence comprehension. The conducted studies mainly focused on people with non-fluent agrammatic aphasia due to cerebrovascular disease, who frequently show pSTM deficits and impaired sentence comprehension. A prospective observational study was conducted to delve into the comprehension profile of people with agrammatism and the respective contributions of syntactic complexity and pSTM, using the Comprendo battery as the primary outcome measure (Chapter 1). In response to some limitations observed in clinical and research settings after using the Comprendo battery, a revised version named Ri-Comprendo was developed and normative data were collected in an Italian population sample (Chapter 2). Ri-Comprendo was adopted in a double-blind randomized crossover trial aimed at exploring potential effects of anodal transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (AtDCS) associated with standard language treatment (STL), on sentence comprehension in non-fluent chronic apha-sia (Chapter 3). The relationship between pSTM, WM, and syntactic comprehension was finally investigated through a systematic literature review and meta-analysis in individuals with Alzheimer's disease (Chapter 4). Overall, our findings within the aphasia population confirm that pSTM is involved in the comprehension of complex structures with an important computational load, in particular coordinated sentences, and long-distance filler gap dependencies. Consistent results emerge in AD population, with a stronger correlation for WM than pSTM

Relative clauses are subordinate clauses acting as nominal modifiers. They can be finite or nonfinite in Romance languages, with finite relative clauses largely more productive and widespread across varieties. Relative clauses contain a position interpreted anaphorically to the modified noun phrase (NP) that can correspond to a gap (as in most standard varieties) or to a resumptive pronoun, as in Romanian and in many substandard varieties. In most Romance languages, relative clauses are introduced either by the invariant element che/que or by some relative pronoun (il quale/lequel/el cual . . .) depending on the grammatical function of the variable it refers to.

Background: The comprehension profile of people with agrammatism is a debated topic. Syntactic complexity and cognitive resources, in particular phonological short-term memory (pSTM), are considered as crucial components by different interpretative accounts. Aim: To investigate the interaction of syntactic complexity and of pSTM in sentence comprehension in a group of persons with aphasia with and without agrammatism. Methods & Procedures: A cohort of 30 participants presenting with aphasia was assessed for syntactic comprehension and for pSTM. A total of 15 presented with agrammatism and 15 had fluent aphasia. Outcomes & Results: Linear nested mixed-model analyses revealed a significant interaction between sentence type and pSTM. In particular, participants with lower pSTM scores showed a reduced comprehension of centre-embedded object relatives and long coordinated sentences. Moreover, a significant interaction was found between sentence type and agrammatism, with a lower performance for passives within the agrammatic group. Conclusions & Implications: These results confirm that pSTM is involved in the comprehension of complex structures with an important computational load, in particular coordinated sentences, and long-distance filler gap dependencies. On the contrary, the specific deficit of the agrammatic group with passives is a pure syntactic deficit, with no involvement of pSTM.

Object relatives are more difficult to process than subject relatives. Several sentence processing models have been proposed to explain this difference. As double-center embedding relatives contain several long-distance dependencies, they are an ideal configuration to compare sentence processing models. The main aim of the present study was to compare the predictions of the featural Relativized Minimality approach with the ones of other relevant sentence processing models. 57 Italian-speaking healthy adults answered comprehension questions concerning the first, second, or third verb to appear in both double-center embedding and control sentences. Results show that questions concerning the matrix verb of double-center embedding structures were significantly easier and were associated with faster response times than questions concerning the embedded verbs. Furthermore, in object double-center embedding relatives the questions concerning the verb of the most embedded clause were easier than the ones concerning the verb of the intermediate embedded clause. This pattern of results is consistent with featural Relativized Minimality but cannot be fully explained by other sentence processing models.

In this paper, we analyze five reduced structures in Italian that display morphological agreement between the past particle and the internal argument. Three out of the five structures have full illocutionary force despite lacking the middle field and the left periphery. We explain this fact (and the differences with the two remaining participial structures) by extending to object agreement cases Chomsky’s (2019) hypothesis that clause are exocentric but can be labeled by a mechanism of feature sharing. This goes against the hypothesis that all reduced structures interpreted as clauses must be elliptical.

Previous research has hypothesized that human sequential processing may be dependent upon hearing experience (the “auditory scaffolding hypothesis”), predicting that sequential rule learning abilities should be hindered by congenital deafness. To test this hypothesis, we compared deaf signer and hearing individuals’ ability to acquire rules of different computational complexity in a visual artificial grammar learning task using sequential stimuli. As a group, deaf participants succeeded at all levels of the task; Bayesian analysis indicates that they successfully acquired each of several target grammars at ascending levels of the formal language hierarchy. Overall, these results do not support the auditory scaffolding hypothesis. However, age- and education-matched hearing participants did outperform deaf participants in two out of three tested grammars. We suggest that this difference may be related to verbal recoding strategies in the two groups. Any verbal recoding strategies used by the deaf signers would be less effective because they would have to use the same visual channel required for the experimental task.

Who is a native signer? Since around 95% of deaf infants are born into a hearing family, deaf signers are exposed to a sign language at various moments of their life, and not only from birth. Moreover, the linguistic input they are exposed to is not always a fully fledged natural sign language. In this situation, is the notion of native signer as someone exposed to language from birth of any use? We review the results of the first large-scale cross-linguistic investigation on the effects of age of exposure to sign language. This research involved about 45 Deaf adult signers in each of three sign languages (Catalan Sign Language, French Sign Language, and Italian Sign Language). Across the three languages, participants were divided into three groups – those exposed from birth, those between 1 and 5 years of age, and those exposed between 6 and 15 years of age – and received a battery of tests designed for each language targeting various aspects of morphosyntactic competence. In particular, the tests focused on both those morphosyntactic phenomena that are known from the spoken language literature to be good detectors of language impairment or delay (i.e., wh-interrogatives and relative clauses) and on morphosyntactic phenomena that are sign language specific (i.e., role shift and directional verbs). The results showed a clear effect of being native, with significant differences across languages and tests between signers exposed to sign language from birth and those exposed in the 1st years of life. This confirms the life-long importance of language exposure from birth and the reliability of the notion of “nativeness”, at least for syntax. On the other hand, while in most domains the differences observed between populations might be differences in performance, for some specific constructions, signers belonging to the three groups may have different grammars. This latter finding challenges the generalized use of native signers’ grammar as the baseline for language desc