Is Alzheimer’s Disease a Cross-Linguistic Issue? Comparing Corpora from a Role and Reference Grammar Perspective
Year: 2024
Type: article
Abstract: Taking Role and Reference Grammar (Van Valin y LaPolla, 1997; Van Valin, 2005) as theoretical framework, we aim to compare three corpora of patients with Alzheimer’s disease: two in Spanish — PerLA (Pérez Mantero, 2014) and Peraita & Grasso (2010) — and one in English — Pittsburgh (Becker et al., 1994). This grammar is part of the functionalist approaches to language and it provides a series of ordered steps that connect syntax and semantics, as well as incorporating discourse-pragmatics. Thus, we compare the results of the three corpora after applying this syntax-semantics interface to a representative sample with the aim of verifying how Alzheimer’s disease behaves in the two languages. Our results show that there are no significant differences in syntax and semantics in both languages, and that pragmatics plays a more important role than expected at first.
DOI: 10.5209/clac.87529
Author: Alejandro Suárez Rodríguez
Institution: Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria
Language: English
Subfield: Cognitive Neuroscience
Field: Neuroscience
Domain: Life Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W4402615022