Unit:
Department of PhilologyLibrary of the School of Philosophy
Author:
Fragkopoulou Katerina (Aikaterini)
Dissertation committee:
1. Βαρλοκώστα Σπυριδούλα, Kαθηγήτρια, Τμήμα Φιλολογίας, ΕΚΠΑ,
2. Μανουηλίδου Χριστίνα, Αναπληρώτρια Καθηγήτρια, Τμήμα Συγκριτικής και Γενικής Γλωσσολογίας, Σχολή Τεχνών, Πανεπιστήμιο της Λιουμπλιάνας,
3. Μαρκόπουλος Γεώργιος, Αναπληρωτής Καθηγητής, Τμήμα Φιλολογίας, ΕΚΠΑ
4. Σπυρόπουλος Βασίλειος, Αναπληρωτής Καθηγητής, Τμήμα Φιλολογίας, ΕΚΠΑ
5. Μικρός Γεώργιος, Καθηγητής, College of Humanities and Social Sciences, Hamad Bin Halifa University
6. Τερζή Αρχόντω, Καθηγήτρια, Τμήμα Λογοθεραπείας, Πανεπιστήμιο Πατρών,
7. Σταυρακάκη Σταυρούλα, Τμήμα Ιταλικής Γλώσσας και Φιλολογίας, Καθηγήτρια, Α.Π.Θ.
Original Title:
Pronoun Reference in Greek speakers with Alzheimer's Disease
Translated title:
Pronoun reference in Greek speakers with Alzheimer's Disease
Summary:
The PhD thesis entitled “Pronoun reference in Greek speakers with Alzheimer’s Disease” investigates pronoun reference in Greek speakers with Alzheimer’s Disease (hence AD). In particular, the thesis examines pronoun production with the use of spontaneous and semi-spontaneous speech in order to investigate whether Greek speakers with AD overuse pronouns with unbound, ambiguous, and ungoverned antecedents. The thesis also investigates two aspects of pronoun comprehension: (a) whether there is a breakdown of the binding relations in object strong personal pronouns, clitic and reflexive pronoun contexts; (b) whether Greek speakers with AD comprehend number (and secondarily) gender agreement in object strong personal pronoun and clitic contexts and if the distance between pronouns and their antecedents contributes to this comprehension. Finally, the thesis investigates if there are correlations between executive functions (working memory, and inhibitory control) and other linguistic performances (semantic fluency, naming) with pronoun production and comprehension in AD. The results of the pronoun production and comprehension studies have shown that there is a problem in both modalities. More specifically, Greek speakers with AD overused pronouns –compared to words in total– in their modern Cookie-Theft picture descriptions and displayed a higher pronoun-to-noun ratio which correlated to a naming deficit. Regarding pronoun comprehension, Greek speakers with AD faced difficulties with the binding relations of reflexive pronouns, and clitics which correlated to a working memory deficit and a naming problem, respectively. Moreover, pronoun number agreement was found to be impaired regardless of the pronoun type (strong personal pronouns, clitics) with the lowest performance in singular number and long condition, which correlated firstly with a working memory deficit and secondarily, with naming and semantic fluency deficits. Hence, based on the findings in both pronoun production and comprehension, we can conclude that it seems that the underlying deficit in AD is not one and it is not related to only one cognitive function or one linguistic parameter, but to an ensemble of cognitive and linguistic functions that interact with one another.
Main subject category:
Language – Literature
Keywords:
pronoun reference, Greek-speaking individuals with Alzheimer's Disease
Number of references:
338
