26.262, Diss: Dutch, English, German, Russian; Neurolinguistics: Bos 'The Brain, Verbs, and the Past: Neurolinguistic Studies on Time Reference'

Fri Jan 16 00:44:04 UTC 2015

LINGUIST List: Vol-26-262. Thu Jan 15 2015. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 26.262, Diss: Dutch, English, German, Russian; Neurolinguistics: Bos 'The Brain, Verbs, and the Past: Neurolinguistic Studies on Time Reference'

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Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2015 19:41:37
From: Laura Bos [l.s.bos at rug.nl]
Subject: The Brain, Verbs, and the Past: Neurolinguistic Studies on Time Reference

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Institution: Rijksuniversiteit Groningen 
Program: International Doctorate for Experimental Approaches to Language and Brain (IDEALAB), Universities of Groningen (NL), Newcastle (UK), Potsdam (GE), Trento (IT) & Macquarie University, Sydney (AU) 
Dissertation Status: Completed 
Degree Date: 2014 

Author: Laura S. Bos

Dissertation Title: The Brain, Verbs, and the Past: Neurolinguistic Studies on
Time Reference 

Linguistic Field(s): Neurolinguistics

Subject Language(s): Dutch (nld)
                     English (eng)
                     German (deu)
                     Russian (rus)

Dissertation Director(s):
Isabell Wartenburger
Roelien Bastiaanse

Dissertation Abstract:

The sentence ‘de man biked’ is more difficult than ‘the man is biking’ for
people with agrammatic aphasia. Agrammatic aphasia is a grammatical disorder
caused by brain damage such as stroke. In Dutch/English, one can paradoxically
refer to the past by means of a verb form in present (perfect) tense, for
example ‘has biked’. Laura Bos shows that it is not the past tense per se that
is difficult, but reference to the past irrespective of the verb form
employed: For Dutch people with aphasia, it was more difficult to complete
sentences with the simple past or present perfect than with the simple
present. According to Bastiaanse and colleagues (2011), this is because for
reference to the past, one refers to an event before the moment of speech.
This event should be recalled from discourse, which requires additional brain
capacity. This discourse-explanation is supported by another study of this PhD
research: Russian people with aphasia had a simultaneous impairment in
comprehension of discourse-processes, including time reference. Also healthy
people made this discourse-related distinction in time reference, as shown in
a third study involving brain activity measurements using
electroencephalography. In a fourth study, Laura Bos has analyzed eye
movements. These showed that German agrammatic aphasic participants were
equally fast as healthy participants in processing verb forms referring to the
future, but slower in processing verb forms referring to the past. The
outcomes of the research contribute to the knowledge on the influence of
discourse linking on past time reference assignment, compared to non-past time
reference. This dissertation sheds light on how these types of time reference
are represented in the brain, how they are processed and how they can be
affected by brain damage. Individuals with agrammatic aphasia often omit or
substitute (past) tense inflection. The knowledge on time reference acquired
within this project adds to the understanding of the underlying deficits in
aphasia, which is of importance for the development of assessment and
treatment methods for individuals with aphasia.

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