THE MENTAL REPRESENTATION OF CHINESE COMPOUNDS: EVIDENCE FROM APHASIA

Evidence has been accumulating that nouns and verbs are quite differently represented in the brain. Core information about verbs tends to be in the frontal lobe, while that for nouns tends to be in posterior cortical locations. Much of the evidence comes from aphasic patients, whose control of verbs is impaired in cases of frontal lobe lesions, while patients with posterior lesions have impaired access to nouns. According to this principle, a Chinese compound like fei-ji 'airplane', a frequently occurring noun form, would be expected to have its representation in posterior locations and should not be affected in cases of damage to the frontal lobe. Yet a recent study of compounds in Chinese aphasics reveals that those with frontal lobe damage have impaired access to the verb component (fei) of such compounds. This paper provides an explanation of the phenomenon using a neurologically plausible network model of the linguistic information in the brain.

關鍵字

Aphasia ； Compounds ； Network ； Neurological ； Noun ； Verb

並列摘要

越來越多的證據表明名詞和動詞在人的大腦中的表現方式是不同的。和動詞相關的關鍵資訊往往儲存在位於大腦前部的額葉，而和名詞相關的資訊往往儲存在大腦皮層後邊的部位。失語症病人在這方面給我們提供很多例證：損傷了額葉的病人對動詞的運用會受到損害，相反，大腦皮層後部受傷的病人則對名詞的使用有困難。根據這個原則推理的話，常用的漢語複合名詞，例如“飛機”“airplane＂的表徵應該儲存在大腦後部，而且如果一個人的額葉受傷，他對如“飛機”這樣的複合名詞的表達和運用應該不會受到影響。然而最近對漢語失語症病人的一項研究卻發現，大腦前部額葉受傷的病人對這樣的複合名詞中的動詞組成部分“飛”的運用卻受到損害。這篇文章運用合乎神經系統工作原理的大腦語言資訊網路模型，為上述現象做出了解釋。

並列關鍵字

失語症；複合詞；網路；神經學的；名詞；動詞

國際替代計量

THE MENTAL REPRESENTATION OF CHINESE COMPOUNDS: EVIDENCE FROM APHASIA

全文下載

主題瀏覽