Symmetrical Voice and Word Order Preferences of Cognitively Healthy Adults During Tagalog Syntax Comprehension
Eduardo Europa, Ivan P. Bondoc, Eugenie Mamuyac, Emma Li, Jessica A. de LeonPurpose:
This study investigated comprehension patterns of various syntactic constructions in Tagalog-proficient, cognitively healthy adults to inform the development of culturally and linguistically appropriate assessments for individuals with acquired language impairments.
Method:
Using an auditory sentence–picture matching task, cognitively healthy adults proficient in Tagalog from the Philippines (Experiment 1) and from the United States (Experiment 2) completed an auditory sentence–picture matching task. Participants heard declarative sentences that varied by voice (agent, patient) and word order (agent-initial, patient-initial) and sentences with relative clauses that varied by voice (agent, patient) and word order (i.e., head position: head-initial, head-final, headless). Accuracy data were analyzed using mixed-effects logistic regression models.
Results:
Agent-initial sentences in patient voice were comprehended most accurately among declarative sentences. Sentences with head-final relative clauses yielded the lowest accuracy, especially in agent voice. Sentences with head-initial and headless relative clauses were comprehended more accurately than those with head-final relative clauses.
Conclusions:
Findings support prevailing psycholinguistic findings on Tagalog syntax comprehension. Our results validated the task design and sentence stimuli, providing a foundation for extending this work to syntax production and individuals with sudden-onset or progressive aphasia.
Supplemental Material: