Brain and Language 90 (2004) 470–477

www.elsevier.com/locate/b&l

The mental representation of Verb–Noun compounds inItalian: Evidence from a multiple single-case study in aphasia

Sara Mondini,a,b,* Claudio Luzzatti,c,d Giusy Zonca,d Caterina Pistarini,d

and Carlo Semenzae

a Dipartimento di Psicologia Generale, University of Padova, Via Venezia, 8, 35133, Padova, Italyb Casa di Cura Figlie di San Camillo, Cremona, Italy

c University of Milano-Bicocca, Italyd Fondazione S. Maugeri, Montescano, Italy

e University of Trieste, Italy

Accepted 4 December 2003

Available online 8 February 2004

Abstract

This study seeks information on the mental representation of Verb–Noun (VN) nominal compounds through neuropsychological

methods. The lexical retrieval of compound nouns is tested in 30 aphasic patients using a visual confrontation naming task. The target

names are VN compounds, Noun–Noun (NN) compounds, and long morphologically simple nouns (LSN). In order to check the

ability to produce simple nouns and verbs in the same participants, a further visual confrontation naming task of objects and actions

is used. Results of the study confirm that several patients with disproportionate verb deficit are also impaired in naming VN com-

pounds. Data are in favor of a (de)compositional processing of compound words. A further group of patients is selectively more

impaired with compound nouns than with comparably long simple nouns, irrespective of their VN or NNmorphological structure. It

is suggested that this impairment is to be ascribed to a specific disorder in retrieving two different lexemes with a single lexical entry.

� 2003 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Aphasia; Compounds; Noun–Verb dissociation; Decomposition; Dual route

1. Introduction

In Germanic languages and in English the realization

of new words by means of composition is very produc-

tive and concerns mostly the Noun–Noun (NN) type

(see 1). It also applies to other lexical categories like

Noun–Adjective (NA) or Noun–Verb (NV) compounds

(see 2 and 3). The only rule this composition obeys is

simple: the grammatical and logical head of the com-

pound is the rightmost element.

(1) NN: [ [kitchen]N[maid ]N ]N(2) NA: [ [water]N[proof]A ]A(3) NV: [ [hand]N[schreiben]V ]V (to hand-write)

* Corresponding author. Fax: +39-049-827-6600.

E-mail address: sara.mondini@unipd.it (S. Mondini).

0093-934X/$ - see front matter � 2003 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

doi:10.1016/S0093-934X(03)00458-9

The regularity of the position of the head, determined

with this rule, reduces to a minimum the informationstored at representational level: ‘‘it is an XN com-

pound,’’ where X may be a Noun, an Adjective, and a

Verb, etc.

In other languages, composition is far less regular: for

instance, Italian NN compounds may be either right-

headed (NN) or left-headed (NN) (see 4 and 5).

(4) NN: [ferro]N[via]N]N, the iron-way’’ (¼ the railway)

(5) NN: [cerniera]N[lampo]N]N, the hinge-lightning’’ (¼ the zipper)

The most productive type of composition in con-

temporary Italian are, however, Verb–Noun (VN)

compounds (e.g., [[tergi]V[cristallo]N]N, �windscreen-wiper� [lit. �wipe-screen�]). These compounds have an

exocentric structure: in exocentric compounds neither ofthe two elements is the logical and grammatical head of

S. Mondini et al. / Brain and Language 90 (2004) 470–477 471

the compound. For instance, a portamonete, �purse� [lit.�carry-coins�], is neither a special type of coin, nor a

special way of carrying something: this compound is a

noun and refers to an object that is used to contain

(carry) coins. This type of composition is much less

common in English (e.g., pickpocket or passport, which

are neither a type of pocket nor a type of port). The

logical head of this type of compounds is therefore

missing, that is to say it is not phonologically specified.A further proof of VN compounds being exocentric is

their grammatical gender. All Italian nouns have either

masculine or feminine grammatical gender irrespective

of their natural gender. In NN compound nouns, gender

is also determined by the grammatical and conceptual

head of the compound. Thus, ferrovia, �railway� will takethe feminine gender of the right element, whereas

cerniera lampo, �zipper� the feminine gender of the leftelement (see 4a and 5a). But where does the gender of

the VN compound noun come from? As the first element

is a verb, it cannot be the head of a nominal compound.

The second element is also not the grammatical head,

since monete is the plural form of a feminine noun, but

the grammatical gender of the compound, like that of

almost all VN compounds, is masculine (see 6).

Furthermore, the relation between the verb and the

noun is not such that the underlying ‘‘syntax’’ is fullypredictable. For example in (7), posacenere, �ashtray� [lit:put-ash], is not ‘‘an object that puts ashes somewhere’’

but ‘‘an object where to put ashes.’’ Conversely, in (8),

corrimano, �handrail, bannister� [lit: run-hand], is not

‘‘an object that runs a hand’’ but ‘‘an object where a

hand runs on.’’

This brief description (centered on the compounding

system in Italian for reasons that will become apparent

below) shows how compound words constitute a rather

complex system: how such a system is processed is at

present poorly understood. One pivotal and yet only

partially answered question is whether compounds un-

dergo (de)composition when being processed. Severalstudies have however underscored the role of semantic

transparency (Libben, Gibson, Yoom, & Sandra, 2003;

Sandra, 1990; Zwitserlood, 1994) and frequency of

constituents (Blanken, 2000) in determining morpho-

logical decomposition (vs. non-decomposition) of NN

compounds. The present investigation exploits the

characteristics of the Italian compounding system in

order to provide empirical evidence from neuropsycho-logical patients.

The issue of (de)composition has been extensively

dealt with in the domains of inflectional and derivational

morphology (for reviews see Henderson, 1985; Levelt,

1989 and, specifically for neuropsychological studies

Allen & Badecker, 2000; Caplan, 1992, chapter 6). As

with other complex words, also in the case of compounds

three different hypotheses competed with one another.First, compounds are stored as whole words [full listing

models (e.g., Butterworth, 1983)] and retrieved as such.

Second, compounds are generated by applying lexical

morphological rules and have no single lexical entry [full

decomposition models (e.g., Taft & Forester, 1975)].

Third, compounds may be both processed as whole

words and analyzed [dual route hypotheses, (e.g., Baayen,

Dijkstra, & Schreuder, 1997b; Jackendoff, 1975)]. Thefirst hypothesis, however, is prone to the objection that

full-listing hypotheses have always raised on economical

grounds: the more productive a word formation process

is, the less likely it is to generate fully listed representa-

tions. Thus, the main argument against the full listing

hypothesis has been made on consideration of aggluti-

nated languages like Turkish, where a very complex in-

flectional and derivational system can generate endlessdifferent word forms. On the other hand, the second

hypothesis, according to which compounds are gener-

ated by rule and have no single lexical entry, is not likely

to be true either, since many compounds are idiosyn-

cratic in structure and have no transparent meaning

(i.e., they are opaque). An intermediate hypothesis, akin

to the dual route hypotheses developed in the inflectional

and derivational domains (Baayen, Burani, & Schreuder,1997a; Baayen et al., 1997b; Luzzatti, Mondini, &

Semenza, 2001), has also been suggested for the pro-

cessing of nominal compounds (Mondini, Jarema,

Luzzatti, Burani, & Semenza, 2002).

One of the few attempts to specify the structure of

compounding processes is that of Levelt, Roelofs, and

Meyer (1999). These authors, in the framework of their

two-stage (lemma-lexeme) theory of lexical access,consider most of the compounds, like blackboard or

sunshine, as processed via a single-lemma-multiple-

morpheme route. However, an opaque compound, like

hotdog or passport, may be more economically processed

as a single-lemma-single-morpheme structure. Evidence

of decomposition and/or of full listing processing must

be demonstrated.

472 S. Mondini et al. / Brain and Language 90 (2004) 470–477

The issue of (de)composition may be fruitfully ad-dressed via neuropsychological methods. A number of

studies in aphasia suggested that compounds may un-

dergo (de)composition in their processing (Semenza and

Mondini, in preparation; Badecker, 2001). In particular,

the performance of Broca�s aphasic patients is expected

to yield important results vis-�a-vis the case of VN

compounds. Broca�s aphasic patients, indeed, have beenobserved as a group (albeit single patients may not showthis effect) to be prone to omissions of verbs in com-

parison to nouns in both connected speech and con-

frontation naming. Semenza, Luzzatti, and Carabelli

(1997) found that, as a group, Broca�s aphasic patients,

unlike Wernicke�s patients, show a much higher pro-

portion of omissions of the verb component. The au-

thors could exclude a positional effect (i.e., an impaired

retrieval of the first component) because the same effectdid not hold for NN compounds. In general, though

there are individual exceptions, Broca�s aphasic patientsare said to have a relative impairment with verbs rather

than with nouns when dealing with simple words.

However, since VN compounds are nouns, Semenza

et al. have suggested that there should be no reason for

Broca�s aphasic patients to omit the verb component

unless, at some level of processing, representations ofVN compounds were decomposed into separate noun

and verb forms. Indeed, Broca�s aphasic patients omit-

ted or substituted the verb component much more fre-

quently than the Wernicke�s and anomic patients did.

However, due to the limited observations, the authors

based their claim on a group effect. Furthermore, a

predominant verb impairment has been shown not ex-

clusively in Broca�s aphasic patients, but—albeit in alesser measure—in Wernicke�s patients as well (Berndt,

Mitchum, Haendiges, & Sandson, 1997; Luzzatti et al.,

2002).

These findings make it mandatory to test the previous

claim on a new sample of patients suffering from dis-

proportionate verb impairment, irrespective of the type

of aphasia, and to follow a multiple single case experi-

mental design.

2. Experimental study

2.1. Participants

Thirty focal brain damaged aphasic patients and 76

controls of comparable age and education participatedin the study. Table 1 summarizes the individual clinical

and aphasiological information on each patient.

2.2. Naming compound nouns

Lexical retrieval of VN compounds was tested by

means of a picture naming task and compared to that of

NN nominal compounds and to that of morphologicallylong simple nouns (LSN; at least three syllables). Target

nouns were 23 VN (e.g., cavatappi, �corkscrew�), 21 NN

compound nouns (e.g., pescespada, �sword fish�), and 25

LSN (e.g., cornamusa, �bagpipe�). NN, VN, and LSN

were matched for familiarity with the underlying con-

cept [NN vs. LSN: tð44Þ ¼ :375; n.s.; VN vs. LSN:

tð46Þ ¼ �:836; n.s.]. In spite of our attempt to balance

long simple nouns and compounds for phonologicallength, simple nouns resulted to be shorter than both

NN [tð44Þ ¼ �4; 13; p < :001] and VN compound

nouns [tð44Þ ¼ �4:50; p < :001], (see Table 2).

The items were part of a more extensive naming

battery designed to analyze the naming ability with

simple, derived, and several types of compound nouns

(see Mondini et al., in preparation ). Pictures eliciting

simple and compound nouns were randomized in asingle list. Answers were accepted only within a five

second limit from the stimulus presentation. Minor

phonological alterations were ignored; lexical repairs

and longer latencies were computed as errors. Each

simple or compound noun included in the task had been

retrieved by more than 80% of 76 control participants,

that is the pictures actually elicited either the expected

simple nouns or the expected VN and NN compounds.

2.3. Naming simple nouns and verbs

In order to test the ability to retrieve simple nouns

and verbs, a further confrontation naming task of ob-

jects ðn ¼ 30Þ and actions ðn ¼ 40Þ (Luzzatti et al., 2002)was given. Pictures of actions elicited 12 unergative, 12

unaccusative, and 16 transitive morphologically simpleverbs. Pictures eliciting nouns and verbs were given in

separate runs. Each simple verb or noun included in the

naming battery had been retrieved by at least 95% of 42

control participants. Nouns and verbs did not differ with

respect to age of acquisition and familiarity with the

underlying concept (Table 3).

2.4. Data treatment

Since brain damaged patients usually show further

neuropsychological and neurolinguistic impairments

which may cause a more diffuse level of deficits, the

criterion for a disproportionate impairment of simple or

compound nouns was that of a strong dissociation

across tasks (Shallice, 1988, pp. 227–228).

The analyses were performed for each patient using amultiple single case approach. Logistic regression was

applied to the profile of each patient. The units were the

48 stimuli of the test. The dependent variable for each

stimulus was dichotomous (passed or failed). Since word

length of LSN could not be matched completely to that

of the VN and NN compounds and since this variable

might have influenced the patients� performance, word

Table 1

Individual clinical and aphasiological information on each patient

Patients Age Education (years) M/F Etiology Type of aphasia

AA 53 5 M Vascular Anomic

AE 19 12 M FTBI Anomic

AF 57 5 F Vascular Broca�sAM 28 17 F FTBI Anomic

AS 15 8 M FTBI Anomic

DS 50 5 M Vascular Broca�sEM 56 5 M Vascular Non class. F/nF

FPa 62 17 M Vascular Anomic

FPr 38 7 F Vascular Anomic

FT 32 8 M FTBI Anomic

GB 67 8 M Vascular Non class. F/nF

GF 62 5 M Vascular Anomic

GPa 49 5 M Vascular Non class. F/nF

GPe 45 11 F Vascular Non class. F/nF

GT 72 13 M Vascular Broca�s + agram.

GZ 60 8 M Vascular Wernicke�sLZ 35 15 F Vascular Broca�s + agram.

MBl 24 12 M Vascular Broca�s + agram.

MBa 51 8 M FTBI Broca�sMC 35 10 M FTBI Wernicke�sME 19 10 F Vascular Anomic

MT 16 8 M FTBI Anomic

NM 55 8 M Vascular Wernicke�sPC 17 10 M FTBI Anomic

PL 28 13 F FTBI Anomic

RB 40 13 M FTBI Wernicke�sRC 27 8 M FTBI Anomic

SD 31 11 M FTBI Anomic

SM 53 17 M Vascular Wernicke�sUB 48 8 M Vascular Wernicke�s

FTBI¼ focal traumatic brain injury; Non class. F/nF¼nonclassifiable along the classic fluency dimension, i.e., fluent vs. nonfluent;

agram.¼ agrammatism.

Table 3

Familiarity of simple nouns and simple verbs

Nouns

ðN ¼ 30ÞVerbs

ðN ¼ 40ÞComparison

M–W P

Familiarity 5.6� 0.9 5.6� 0.8 0.9 n.s.

M–W, Mann–Whitney test.

Table 2

Syllables and familiarity of 25 long simple nouns (LSN), 21 Noun–

Noun compounds (NN), and 23 Verb–Noun compounds (VN)

LSN ðN ¼ 25Þ NN ðN ¼ 21Þ VN ðN ¼ 23Þ

Syllables 3.64� 0.64 4.7� 1.10 4.52� 0.67

Familiarity 2.73� 1.68 2.6� 1.4 3.11� 1.40

S. Mondini et al. / Brain and Language 90 (2004) 470–477 473

length was included in the model as a continuous

variable.

As a single-case diagnostic procedure was used,

overall protection for the whole set of patients was not

adopted (Willmes, 1985). The significance level was set

at 0.1 for each effect under study, due to the fact that

simple nouns were supposed to be easier a priori.

Analyses always included covariance by word frequency

and item difficulty and therefore any observed dissoci-

ation is stronger than—and not simply proportional to—

the difference observed among control participants.

3. Results

3.1. Naming simple nouns and verbs

On the basis of their performance when naming

simple nouns and verbs, the patients were divided in two

groups. Thirteen had a disproportionate deficit withverbs. For the remaining 17 there was no significant

difference in the ability to name nouns and verbs (see

Table 4). None of the 30 patients suffered from a dis-

proportionate impairment of nouns.

As expected (see Luzzatti et al., 2002, for similar re-

sults), a disproportionate verb impairment appeared in

both fluent and nonfluent types of aphasia.

3.2. Naming compound nouns

The 76 control participants could name almost all the

long simple nouns (96% correct) flawlessly and

Table 4

Performance of the 30 aphasic patients when producing nouns (N) and

verbs (V) with simple lexical structure

Patients Type off aphasia N%

ðn ¼ 30ÞV%

ðn ¼ 40Þv2 P

AE Anomic 70 70 0.00 n.s.

GF Anomic 70 65 0.10 n.s.

RC Anomic 80 65 0.16 n.s.

GB Non class. F/nF 80 75 0.24 n.s.

ME Anomic 53 60 0.31 n.s.

GPe Non class. F/nF 70 62 0.40 n.s.

SM Wernicke�s 60 50 0.69 n.s.

FT Anomic 70 60 0.74 n.s.

FPa Anomic 80 77 1.06 n.s.

MT Anomic 93 85 1.17 n.s.

SD Anomic 27 40 1.30 n.s.

AM Anomic 80 67 1.35 n.s.

GT Broca�s + agram. 80 65 1.89 n.s.

NM Wernicke�s 40 47 1.97 n.s.

MBa Broca�s 70 50 2.82 n.s.

AS Anomic 90 72 3.30 n.s

GZ Wernicke�s 83 62 3.60 n.s.

AA Anomic 73 50 3.90 <.05

PL Anomic 97 78 5.14 <.05

FPr Anomic 83 58 5.30 <.05

EM Non class. F/nF 57 28 5.90 <.05

RB Wernicke 70 40 6.00 <.05

UB Wernicke�s 80 50 6.40 <.05

GPa Non class. F/nF 70 38 6.90 <.01

LZ Broca�s + agram. 73 38 7.00 <.005

PC Anomic 83 50 8.30 <.005

AF Broca�s 53 3 12.60 <.001

DS Broca�s 87 45 12.75 <.001

MBl Broca�s + agram. 83 35 14.20 <.001

MC Wernicke�s 73 8 23.40 <.0001

474 S. Mondini et al. / Brain and Language 90 (2004) 470–477

made very few circumlocutions and lexical substitutions

on the VN and NN section of the naming task (88 and

90%, respectively). Omissions of the verbal or of the

nominal component of the VN compounds were almost

exceptional.

Table 5 shows the distribution of the 30 aphasic pa-

tients according to their pattern of performance when

naming simple nouns and verbs as well as LSN andcompound nouns (VN, NN). The patients clustered in

seven of eight possible patterns of performance.

3.3. Simple nouns > simple verbs

The 13 patients with disproportionate verb deficit

clustered in four subgroups on the basis of their per-

Table 5

Distribution of the 30 aphasic patients according to their pattern of perform

(LSN) vs. Noun–Noun compounds (NN) and Verb–Noun compounds (VN)

LSN and compound nouns LSN>VN

Simple words Tot LSN�NN L

Verbs<Nouns 13 Group A: 3 G

Verbs�Nouns 17 Group E: 0 G

Patients cluster in seven of eight possible patterns of performance.

formance in naming long simple nouns, VN compounds,and NN compounds (see Table 6).

Group A: Three patients (AF, DS, MC) failed with

VN compounds more than with long simple nounsand NN compounds.

Group B: Three patients (AA, MBl, PC) also failed

with VN compounds but showed an additional deficit

with NN compounds, that is they failed with both

VN compounds and NN compounds, more than with

long simple nouns.

Group C: Five patients (EM, LZ, PL, RB, UB) failed

equally with long simple nouns, VN and NN com-pounds.

Group D: Two patients (FPr, GPa) were more

impaired with NN compounds than with VN com-

pounds and long simple nouns.

A qualitative error analysis was employed in order to

understand the nature of the underlying damage. The

responses produced by the aphasic patients when nam-

ing VN and NN compounds were analyzed in order to

test the hypothesis that a disproportionate deficit of VN

compounds may be caused by a selective damage to theretrieval of the verb component of the nominal com-

pound. In particular, omissions and substitutions of ei-

ther the first or the second element were computed.

Every patient clustering in group A or B produced a

higher rate of omissions and substitutions of the verb—

i.e., the first component—than of the noun—i.e., the

second component—of the VN compounds [tð5Þ ¼3:5; p < :05]. In NN compounds, instead, these patientsmade an equal number of errors in the first and in the

second component of the compounds [tð5Þ ¼ �1:5; n.s.].Patients from groups C and D also committed omis-

sion and substitution errors on single components.

However, they showed no position effect for either type of

compounds: VN [tð6Þ ¼ 1:2; n.s.], NN [tð6Þ ¼ 1:1; n.s.].Type of aphasia does not seem to be a predictor of the

distribution of patients into the four patterns of damage.

3.4. Simple nouns � simple verbs

The 17 patients without relative verb deficit clustered in

three of the four possible patterns with respect to the

naming performance with VN and NN compounds

(Table 7):

ance in naming simple words (verbs vs. nouns) and long simple nouns

LSN�VN

SN>NN LSN�NN LSN>NN

roup B: 3 Group C: 5 Group D: 2

roup F: 3 Group G: 10 Group H: 4

Table 6

Naming of compound nouns by the 13 patients with disproportionate verb deficit

Group Patient Aphasia % LNS % VN % NN Long simple nouns (LSN) vs Compound nouns (VN, NN)

LSN>VN LSN�NN

A AF Broca 68 39 48 3.0; p ¼ :08 .61; n.s.

A DS Broca 88 39 67 8.8; p ¼ :003 .85; n.s.

A MC Wernicke 56 4 29 7.0; p ¼ :008 1.75; n.s.

LSN>VN LSN>NN

B AA Anomic 80 30 38 9.0; p ¼ :003 3.8; p ¼ :049

B MBl Broca+ agram. 68 17 24 4.4; p ¼ :035 4.7; p ¼ :030

B PC Anomic 72 35 27 2.8; p ¼ :09 7.6; p ¼ :006

LSN�VN LSN�NN

C EM Non class. F/nF 48 9 29 2.7; n.s. .9; n.s.

C LZ Broca+ agram. 60 48 43 .1; n.s. .2; n.s.

C PL Anomic 96 96 71 .2; n.s. 2.4; n.s.

C RB Wernicke 68 35 67 .1; n.s. .7; n.s.

C UB Wernicke 84 52 57 1.1; n.s. 1.0; n.s.

LSN�VN LSN>NN

D FPr Anomic 76 82 33 .02; n.s. 4.0; p ¼ :011

D GPa Non class. F/nF 80 48 38 1.1; n.s. 3.2; p ¼ :076

S. Mondini et al. / Brain and Language 90 (2004) 470–477 475

Group E: None of the patients without disproportion-

ate verb deficit failed with VN compounds more than

with NN compounds and long simple nouns.

Group F: Three patients (FPa, GF, GT) failed both

with VN and NN compounds more than with long

simple nouns.

Table 7

Naming of compound nouns by the 17 patients with uniform rate of perfor

Group Patient Aphasia % LNS % VN

E —

F FPa Anomic 92 49

F GF Anomic 88 35

F GT Broca+ agram 96 57

G AE Anomic 44 22

G AS Anomic 80 78

G GB Non class. F/nF 88 74

G GPe Non class. F/nF 84 61

G GZ Wernicke 64 44

G MBa Broca 76 44

G ME Anomic 72 61

G MT Anomic 100 91

G SD Anomic 36 22

G SM Wernicke 36 26

H AM Anomic 84 74

H FT Anomic 84 52

H NM Wernicke 88 70

H RC Anomic 72 72

Group G: Ten patients (AE, AS, GB, GPe, GZ, MBa,

ME, MT, SD, SM) did not show any word category

effect.

Group H: The remaining four patients (AN, FT, NM,

RC) failed with NN compounds more than with VN

compounds and long simple nouns.

mance on nouns and verbs

% NN Long simple nouns (LSN) vs Compound nouns

(VN, NN)

LSN>VN LSN�NN

— —

LSN>VN LSN>NN

57 5.2; p ¼ :02 3.0; p ¼ :08

62 7.2; p ¼ :007 4.7; p ¼ :045

71 5.5; p ¼ :02 4.0; p ¼ :045

LSN�VN LSN�NN

48 2.0; n.s. <1; n.s.

57 <1; n.s. 1.3; n.s.

81 <1; n.s. <1; n.s.

71 1.0; n.s. <1; n.s.

38 1.7; n.s. <1; n.s.

52 1.1; n.s. <1; n.s.

52 <1; n.s. <1; n.s.

67 <1; n.s. <1; n.s.

10 <1; n.s. <1; n.s.

33 <1; n.s. <1; n.s.

LSN�VN LSN>NN

48 <1; n.s. 5.1; p ¼ :02

57 1.6; n.s. 2.9; p ¼ :09

62 2.0; n.s. 2.8; p ¼ :09

81 <1; n.s. 2.9; p ¼ :09

476 S. Mondini et al. / Brain and Language 90 (2004) 470–477

Patients clustering in groups F, G, and H made thesame number of omissions or substitution errors of the

verb and of the noun component of VN compounds

[tð16Þ ¼ �:6; n.s.], and made no difference between the

rate of errors on the first or on the second component of

the NN compounds [tð16Þ ¼ 0:01; n.s.].Also in the patients without a relative verb deficit the

category of aphasia was orthogonal to patients� groups.

4. Discussion

The aim of this study was to verify—using a multiple-

single-case paradigm and with a more balanced set of

items—Semenza et al.�s (1997) results in favor of a

(de)compositional processing of VN compound nouns.

In consideration of their findings the authors had pro-posed that, due to decomposition, the verbal component

of VN compounds would re-acquire its verbal status,

and thus be omitted by Broca�s aphasic patients, who

usually suffer from verb retrieval deficit. However, the

pattern of impairment emerging from the present study

is more complex than expected and opens the door to

further interpretations.

Patients belonging to groups A and B indeed con-firm the prediction that, when naming VN compounds,

a disproportionate verb deficit leads to a greater rate of

omissions/substitutions of the verb component than of

the noun component. Thus, in these patients, the lex-

ical retrieval of compounds must be rule based, and

must depend on separate processing of the two con-

stituents. A qualitative analysis of the errors brought

further support to this explanation. In fact, all sixpatients produced a higher rate of omissions and sub-

stitutions of the verb (i.e., first component) than of the

noun constituent (i.e., second component) of the VN

compounds. This effect cannot be explained as a po-

sitional effect, since in naming NN compounds the

same patients made more errors in the second than in

the first component.

According to Levelt et al.�s lexical model, the accessto compounds would match the case of a single-lemma-

multiple-morpheme structure: a compound would be

represented as a single lemma and only at the word form

level (i.e., the lexeme level) as two separate nodes.

However, the present results seem to support a single-

concept-multiple-lemma organization of VN com-

pounds. Indeed, a disproportionate deficit with the verb

component has to originate at a level where the twocomponents still bear their grammatical features (i.e., at

the lemma level and not at the lexeme level). The dem-

onstration of a verb component deficit in VN com-

pounds thus supports the existence of multiple lemmas.

The remaining patients (groups C and D) with a

relative verb deficit do not show a specific verb effect on

VN compounds even if they omit or substitute either

component. Equal damage with either the first or thesecond component does not unequivocally clarify whe-

ther VN compound production undergoes composi-

tional processes. Indeed, a verb deficit with simple words

may arise at two different levels: a conceptual level

(where the semantics of action is stored) or a lexical-

syntactic level (i.e., the lemma level, where the word

becomes categorized as a verb). The prediction, how-

ever, that a deficit specific to verbs would also affect VNcompounds in their verbal component is only valid for

patients with a deficit at the lexical syntactic level where

decomposition may take place. A deficit of action se-

mantics would not influence the production of VN

compounds since these are nouns and refer to concrete

objects. A further (not necessarily alternative) hypoth-

esis, would however be more in line with recent theories.

According to this hypothesis, the production of com-pounds, like that of other complex words, would be

performed via a dual route mechanism (Baayen et al.,

1997a, 1997b; Luzzatti et al., 2001). Within this frame-

work, a verb naming difficulty may induce some of the

patients to attempt production of VN compounds

through whole-word retrieval.

An interesting pattern of deficit, irrespective of se-

lective problems with verb retrieval, is shown by patientsin groups B and F. These patients have a specific deficit

with compounds, but not with long simple nouns. They

may omit or substitute either the first or second com-

ponent of compound items. A similar case has already

been described by Delazer and Semenza (1998) who

interpreted their finding as a difficulty in retrieving two

different lexemes with a single entry. On the basis of

Levelt et al.�s model, the deficit of these patients wouldbe located between the lemma and the lexeme levels

where the constituents of a compound are combined,

irrespective of their grammatical features. This fact may

be due to selective damage to a processing unit that is

specifically implied in lexical composition. This unit may

be either a morphosyntactic lexical processor, or a spe-

cific working memory buffer. In the former case the

damage could be in a mechanism necessary to combinedifferent word components into a single lexical repre-

sentation. In the latter the damage would rather consist

in a reduced capacity to process more than one com-

ponent at the same time.

A final finding of this study is the emergence of a

disproportionate verb impairment in fluent aphasic pa-

tients as well. This phenomenon has been already shown

by several authors (see e.g., Berndt et al., 1997; Luzzattiet al., 2002) who found that a relative verb deficit does

not emerge in Broca�s aphasic patients only, but may

also affect more posterior types of language impairment

like anomic and Wernicke�s aphasia. The present work

shows that Semenza et al.�s (1997) findings in favor of a

mental decomposition of VN compounds does not apply

only to Broca�s aphasic patients, since an impaired re-

S. Mondini et al. / Brain and Language 90 (2004) 470–477 477

trieval of the verb component in VN compounds canemerge in all classical aphasia categories.

Acknowledgments

This study was supported by grants from the Mini-

stero dell’Istruzione, dell’Universit�a e della Ricerca Scien-

tifica to Claudio Luzzatti and Carlo Semenza and by a

Major Collaborative Research Initiantive grant from the

Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of

Canada (No. 412-95-00006). A preliminary version ofthis paper was presented at the Third International

Conference on the Mental Lexicon (Banff, October

2002) and at the 21st European Workshop on Cognitive

Neuropsychology (Bressanone, January, 2003). We

thank the Editors of the Special Issue of Brain and

Language and the anonymous reviewers for their helpful

critical comments.

References

Allen, M., & Badecker, W. (2000). Morphology: The internal structure

of words. In B. Rapp (Ed.), A Handbook of cognitive neuropsy-

chology: What deficit reveal about the human mind? (pp. 211–232).

Philadelphia: Psychology Press.

Baayen, R. H., Burani, C., & Schreuder, R. (1997a). Effects of

semantic markedness in the processing of regular nominal singulars

and plurals in Italian. In G. E. Booij & J. van Marle (Eds.),

Yearbook of morphology 1996. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic

Publisher.

Baayen, R. H., Dijkstra, T., & Schreuder, R. (1997b). Singulars and

plurals in Dutch: Evidence for a parallel dual route model. Journal

of Memory and Language, 37, 94–117.

Badecker, W. (2001). Lexical composition and the production of

compounds: Evidence from errors in naming. Language and

Cognitive Processes, 16, 337–366.

Berndt, R. S., Mitchum, C. C., Haendiges, A. N., & Sandson, J.

(1997). Verb retrieval in aphasia. 1. Characterizing single word

impairments. Brain and Language, 56, 68–106.

Blanken, G. (2000). The production of nominal compounds in aphasia.

Brain and Language, 74, 84–102.

Butterworth, B. (1983). Lexical representation. In B. Butterworth (Ed.),

Language production (pp. 257–294). New York: Academic Press.

Caplan, D. (1992). Language: Structure, processing and disorders.

Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Delazer, M., & Semenza, C. (1998). The processing of compound

words. Brain and Language, 61, 54–62.

Henderson, L. (1985). Toward a psychology of morphemes. In A. W.

Ellis (Ed.), Progress in the psychology of language (pp. 15–58).

London: LEA.

Jackendoff, R. S. (1975). Morphological and semantic regularities in

the lexicon. Language, 51, 639–671.

Levelt, W. J. M. (1989). Speaking: From intention to articulation.

Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Levelt, J. M., Roelofs, A., & Meyer, A. (1999). A theory of lexical

access in speech production. Behavioral and Brain Science, 22, 1–38.

Libben, G., Gibson, M., Yoom, Y. B., & Sandra, D. (2003).

Compound fracture: The role of semantic transparency and

morphological headedness. Brain and Language, 84, 50–64.

Luzzatti, L., Mondini, S., & Semenza, C. (2001). Lexical representa-

tion of morphologically complex words: Evidence from an Italian

agrammatic patient. Brain and Language, 79, 345–359.

Luzzatti, C., Raggi, R., Zonca, G., Pistarini, C., Contardi, C., &

Pinna, G. D. (2002). Verb–Noun double dissociation in aphasic

lexical impairments: The role of word frequency and imageability.

Brain and Language, 81, 432–444.

Mondini, S., Jarema, G., Luzzatti, C., Burani, C., & Semenza, C.

(2002). Why is �Red Cross� different from �Yellow Cross�? A

neuropsychological study on noun-adjective agreement within

Italian compounds. Brain and Language, 81, 621–634.

Sandra, D. (1990). On the representation of compound words:

Automatic access to constituent morphemes does not occur. The

Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 42A, 529–567.

Semenza, C., Luzzatti, C., & Carabelli, S. (1997). Morphological

representation of compound nouns: A study on Italian aphasic

patients. Journal of Neurolinguistics, 10, 33–43.

Shallice, T. (1988). From neuropsychology to mental structure. Cam-

bridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 227–228.

Taft, M., & Forester, K. (1975). Lexical storage and retrieval in

polymorphemic and polysyllabic words. Journal of Verbal Learning

and Verbal Behaviour, 15, 607–620.

Willmes, K. (1985). An approach to analysing a single subject�s scoreobtained in a standardised test with application to the Aachen

Aphasia Test (AAT). Journal of Clinical and Experimental Neuro-

psychology, 7, 331–352.

Zwitserlood, P. (1994). The role of semantic transparency in the

processing and representation of Dutch compounds. Language of

Cognitive Processes, 9, 341–368.