title: Preservation of passive constructions in a patient with primary progressive aphasia.
abstract: Research into agrammatic comprehension in English has described a pattern of impaired understanding of passives and retained ability on active constructions. Some accounts of this dissociation predict that patients who are unable to comprehend actives will also be impaired in the comprehension of passives. We report the case of a man with primary progressive aphasia (PPA) (WR), whose comprehension was at chance on active sentences, but at ceiling on passives. In a series of reversible sentence comprehension tests WR displayed difficulties with active transitives and truncated actives with an auxiliary. In passive sentences, he displayed sensitivity to the agent marker by, as well as the passive morphology of the verb. This pattern of dissociation challenges current theories of agrammatic comprehension. We explore explanations based on the distinction between morphological and configurational cues, as well as on the semantic and discourse related differences between active and passive constructions.
authors.affiliation: UCL Division of Psychology and Language Sciences, University College London, London, UK. Electronic address: v.zimmerer@ucl.ac.uk.
authors.forename: Vitor C
authors.initials: VC
authors.lastname: Zimmerer
authors.affiliation: School of Arts & Social Sciences, Northumbria University, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK. Electronic address: ewa.dabrowska@northumbria.ac.uk.
authors.forename: Ewa
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Dąbrowska
authors.affiliation: Department of Clinical Radiology, Royal Hallamshire Hospital, Sheffield, UK. Electronic address: charles.romanowski@sth.nhs.uk.
authors.forename: Charles A J
authors.initials: CA
authors.lastname: Romanowski
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology, Royal Hallamshire Hospital, Sheffield, UK. Electronic address: catrin.blank@sth.nhs.uk.
authors.forename: Catrin
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Blank
authors.affiliation: UCL Division of Psychology and Language Sciences, University College London, London, UK. Electronic address: rosemary.varley@ucl.ac.uk.
authors.forename: Rosemary A
authors.initials: RA
authors.lastname: Varley
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D018888:Aphasia, Primary Progressive / Q000473:pathology / Q000523:psychology*; D001921:Brain / Q000473:pathology; D003072:Cognition Disorders / Q000209:etiology / Q000523:psychology; D032882:Comprehension; D006801:Humans; D007802:Language; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D011578:Psycholinguistics; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000502:physiology; D012660:Semantics; D013067:Speech Perception
keywords: Agrammatic comprehension; Primary progressive aphasia; Reversible sentences; Syntax