We found that persons with aphasia have a tendency to use more “light” (or general) verbs if their grammatical abilities are relatively preserved. Persons whose grammatical abilities are more impaired tend to use fewer light verbs. Conversely, persons with aphasia who have more empty speech (as measured by idea density) and poorer verb retrieval, use more light verbs. Examples of light verbs are go, do, and make (we examined a total of 9 light verbs). This study was the Masters Thesis of Julia Thorne. Read more here: Frontiers Event Abstract
In a study comparing 2nd language speakers of English (high proficiency bilingual speakers) and native speakers of English, we found that 2nd language speakers perform comparably to first language speakers on tests of verb retrieval. This is a novel finding, not reported before. We also confirmed what has been reported before by many authors, that bilingual speakers are worse than monolinguals in retrieving nouns. Read more here: Frontiers Event Abstract
