Processing of time reference in agrammatic speakers of Akan: a language with grammatical tone
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Date
2020-03-10
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Aphasiology
Abstract
Background: Languages of the world have several ways of expressing
time reference. Many languages such as those in the Indo-
European group express time reference through tense. Languages
such as Chinese and Standard Indonesian express time reference
through aspectual adverbs, while Akan does so through grammatical
tone. Previous studies have found that time reference is selectively
impaired, with reference to the past being more impaired
than reference to the non-past. The PAst DIscourse LInking
Hypothesis (PADILIH) posits that pastime reference is difficult
because it requires discourse linking.
Aims: The goal of this study was first to examine whether pastime
reference is impaired also in languages that do not use grammatical
affixes but rather tone, to make time reference. Second, this study aims
to decouple the effect of tone from the effect of temporal reference on
Akan verbs.
Method and Procedures: Ten Akan agrammatic speakers and 10
non-brain-damaged speakers (NBDs) participated in this study. An
Akan adapted version of the Test for Assessing Reference of Time
(African TART), for both production and comprehension was used.
The TART focuses on the future, present (habitual) and the pastime
frames. Additionally, five of the agrammatic speakers performed two
tonal discrimination tasks: a non-linguistic and a linguistic (lexical) one.
Outcomes and Results: While the NBDs scored at ceiling, the
agrammatic speakers made errors, and these affected past more
than present and the future time references, in both comprehension
and production tasks. However, the comprehension data
showed a dissociation between the present habitual and the future.
The substitution error analysis revealed a preference for the present.
The five agrammatic speakers showed an intact performance
on non-linguistic tonal discrimination task.
Conclusion: The conclusion is that regardless of how time reference is
expressed, whether through inflectional morphology or grammatical tone, reference to the past is problematic for individuals with agrammatic
aphasia. The fact that the agrammatic speakers could perceive
the non-linguistic tonal differences demonstrates that it is not tone in
general that is disrupted, but rather time reference, particularly reference
to the past, as predicted by the PADILIH.
Description
Research Article
Keywords
Grammatical tone, agrammatic aphasia, tense, time reference, Akan
Citation
Frank Tsiwah, Nathaniel Lartey, Clement Amponsah, Silvia Martínez-Ferreiro, Srdjan Popov & Roelien Bastiaanse (2020): Processing of time reference in agrammatic speakers of Akan: a language with grammatical tone, Aphasiology, DOI: 10.1080/02687038.2020.1727835