title: Decoding syntax during reading in aphasia.
abstract: Aphasic subjects' syntactic-based comprehension strategies during reading were investigated. Syntactic distinctions involving tense, word order, and relativization were tested. The results were compared to those previously obtained in the auditory modality (Pierce, 1981; in press). The results indicate that aphasics apply a strategy based on a subject-verb object present tense construction during both reading and listening. Their comprehension improves when additional surface-structure markers are available to indicate the exceptions to this strategy. This is evident for tense judgments during reading and listening but only during listening for word-order judgments.
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001037:Aphasia / Q000523:psychology*; D006801:Humans; D008037:Linguistics; D008875:Middle Aged; D011932:Reading; D013067:Speech Perception