Characterization of agrammatism in Tagalog: Evidence from narrative spontaneous speech

Figures & data

Table 1. Demographic Information of non-fluent IWA (NF) and NBD Control (HC) Participants .

Participant	Age	Gender	Occupation	YOE	Handedness	TPO	Etiology	SLP Dx	MSD
NF001	42	Male	Massage therapist	13	Right	21	Left CVA – Ischemic	Broca’s	AOS & Dysarthria
NF002	34	Male	Public Accountant	14	Right	10	Left CVA – Unspecified	Broca’s	AOS
NF003	58	Male	Telecom Engineer	15	Right	36	Left CVA – Hemorrhagic	Broca’s	AOS & Dysarthria
NF004	52	Male	Company Driver	12	Right	6	Left CVA – Hemorrhagic	Broca’s	AOS & Dysarthria
NF005	40	Female	Call Center Agent	14	Right	16	Left CVA – Ischemic	Broca’s	None
NF006	49	Female	Sales Manager	14	Right	49	Left CVA – Ischemic	Broca’s	AOS
NF007	43	Male	Marine Surveyor	15	Right	44	Left CVA – Ischemic	Broca’s	AOS
NF008	58	Male	Production Manager	14	Right	16	Left CVA – Unspecified	Broca’s	AOS
NF009	52	Female	Medical Radiologist	22	Right	8	Left CVA – Ischemic	Broca’s	AOS
NF010	45	Female	Supermarket Manager	12	Right	8	Left CVA – Hemorrhagic	Broca’s	AOS
HC001	50	Male	Athletic Director	18	Right
HC002	56	Male	Real Estate Director	16	Right
HC003	51	Male	Data Collection Analyst	17	Right
HC004	42	Male	Flight Attendant	14	Right
HC005	55	Male	Sales Manager	16	Right
HC006	43	Female	Dentist	18	Right
HC007	52	Female	House Helper	11	Right
HC008	63	Male	Retired Engineer	15	Right
HC009	57	Female	Physician	20	Right
HC010	61	Female	Government Employee	16	Right
HC011	51	Female	Businesswoman	14	Right
HC012	40	Female	Housewife	12	Right

Note: YOE = Years of Education, in years; TPO = Time Post-Onset, in months; SLP Dx = SLP Diagnosis; MSD = Motor Speech Disorder; AOS = Apraxia of Speech

Table 2. Speech Fluency Parameters.

	Total Number of Words	Speech Rate (WPM)	MLU in words (MLUw)	MLU in morphemes (MLUm)	Number of utterances
NF001	74	15.89	1.61	1.72	46
NF002	146	18.04	2.81	3.08	52
NF003	170	45.64	2.70	3.05	63
NF004	121	31.40	3.46	4.57	35
NF005	159	25.60	2.21	2.49	72
NF006	255	62.68	4.40	4.71	58
NF007	131	31.80	2.26	2.72	58
NF008	137	37.14	3.19	3.81	43
NF009	159	28.14	3.12	4.20	51
NF010	233	21.18	3.76	4.73	62
Non-fluent IWA Mean	158.5	31.75	2.95	3.51	54
Std. Dev.	52.6	14.07	0.82	1.05	10.85
NBD Mean	300	90.38	9.16	12.68	34.25
NBD Range		56.66–136.96	7.50–11.77	9.73–15.73	26–42
Std. Dev.	0.00	20.46	1.46	2.11	5.43

Table 3. Sentence grammaticality and complexity parameters.

	Total Number of Sentences	Sentence Types				Percentage of Grammaticality	Number of Embeddings	Average # of Predicate Types per Utterance
		Minor	Simple	Compound	Complex			Non-Verbal Predicates	Verbal Predicates
NF001	46	38	7	0	1	30.43%	1	0.22	0.54
NF002	52	32	13	0	7	13.46%	7	0.10	0.50
NF003	62	34	26	2	0	24.19%	0	0.14	0.60
NF004	34	10	21	1	2	35.29%	2	0.00	1.00
NF005	72	50	15	0	7	34.72%	7	0.39	0.51
NF006	50	15	16	8	11	26.00%	11	0.35	0.57
NF007	58	38	15	0	5	29.31%	6	0.26	0.66
NF008	43	23	14	0	6	30.23%	7	0.33	0.74
NF009	42	18	15	5	4	38.10%	4	0.12	0.90
NF010	45	14	15	10	6	35.56%	6	0.19	0.86
Non-fluent IWA Mean	50.4	27.2	15.7	2.6	4.9	29.73%	5.1	0.21	0.69
Std. Dev.	11.08	13.10	4.97	3.75	3.28	7.23	3.35	0.12	0.18
NBD Mean	22.25	0.08	4.50	3.17	14.50	93.13%	24.25	0.27	1.43
NBD Range	11–33	1	0–14	1–8	9–19	86.21–100	15–29	0.11–0.39	1.20–1.77
Std. Dev.	6.60	0.29	4.19	2.21	3.12	4.22	3.84	0.11	0.16

Table 4. Morphological class parameters.

		Proportion of Morphological Classes
	Total Number of Morphemes	Roots	Affixes	Particles
NF001	79	79.75%	5.06%	15.19%
NF002	156	83.97%	7.69%	8.33%
NF003	189	66.67%	11.11%	22.22%
NF004	161	52.17%	23.60%	24.22%
NF005	185	66.49%	11.89%	21.62%
NF006	273	58.24%	4.76%	37%
NF007	157	72.61%	16.56%	10.83%
NF008	167	58.68%	16.77%	24.55%
NF009	215	47.91%	24.19%	27.91%
NF010	252	66.67%	23.81%	9.52%
Non-fluent IWA Mean	183.4	65.3%	14.5%	20.1%
Std. Dev.	54.65	11.47	7.61	9.13
NBD Mean	429.67	46.1%	21.6%	32.3%
NBD Range	367–544	36.64–53.13	18.8–26.57	27.62–36.67
Std. Dev.	46.47	4.36	12.66	4.78

Table 5. Verb-Related Parameters.

	Total Verb Percentage	Proportion of Verb Types		Percentage of Bare Verb Use	Finiteness Index	Verb Diversity	Noun – Verb Ratio
		Modal Verbs	Lexical Verbs
NF001	33.78%	14.86%	18.92%	71.43%	0.21	0.71	0.72
NF002	17.81%	0.68%	17.12%	56.00%	0.14	0.76	3.73
NF003	23.53%	5.29%	18.24%	54.84%	0.45	0.71	1.65
NF004	30.58%	2.48%	28.10%	20.59%	0.53	0.74	1.05
NF005	22.01%	5.66%	16.35%	69.23%	0.21	0.69	1.17
NF006	13.33%	5.10%	8.24%	66.67%	0.25	0.52	1.50
NF007	29.77%	5.34%	24.43%	50.00%	0.36	0.84	1.33
NF008	24.82%	6.57%	18.25%	24.00%	0.63	0.68	0.74
NF009	29.56%	5.66%	23.90%	21.05%	0.56	0.76	0.62
NF010	23.61%	3.86%	19.74%	26.09%	0.69	0.67	0.80
Non-fluent IWA Mean	24.88%	5.57%	19.31%	46.00%	0.40	0.71	1.33
Std. Dev.	6.28	3.72	5.41	21	0.20	0.08	0.91
NBD Mean	17.92%	2.39%	15.55%	2.30%	0.97	0.81	1.14
NBD Range	16.33–21.33	1.67–3.33	14–19	0–17.5	0.09–1.0	0.75–0.86	0.96–1.42
Std. Dev.	1.86	0.44	1.806	2.71 (4.7)	0.04	0.04	0.14

Table 6. Code-mixing parameters.

	Number of Code-Mixed Words	Total Number of Words	% Code-Mixing
NF001	10	74	13.51%
NF002	93	146	63.70%
NF003	66	170	38.82%
NF004	5	121	4.13%
NF005	25	159	15.72%
NF006	21	255	8.24%
NF007	35	131	26.72%
NF008	18	137	13.14%
NF009	11	159	6.92%
NF010	10	233	4.29%
Non-fluent IWA Mean	29.4	158.5	19.52%
Std. Dev.	28.5	52.6	18.9
NBD Mean	26.08	300	8.69%
NBD Range	4–55	300	1.33–18.33
Std. Dev.	15.76	0.00	5.25

Table A1 Summary of agrammatic narrative speech studies in agglutinative and polysynthetic languages

Study	Language (Family)	Methods	Sentence Production	Grammatical Morphology	Verbs
Slobin (1991)	Turkish (Turkic)	N = 7 with Broca’s aphasia N = 10 controls Tasks: picture description and personal narratives	Use of canonical word order	Verb suffixes were used appropriately Case system is preserved Low diversity of verb inflection Correct order of verb morphemes	Limited set of verb forms
Arslan et al. (2016)	Turkish (Turkic)	N = 10 with Broca’s aphasia N = 10 controls Tasks: personal interview and picture description	Shorter MLU Lower percentage of correct sentences Fewer embeddings with non-finite verbs Normal embeddings with finite verbs	Verb inflection relatively intact Infinitive and narrative markers are produced slightly higher than normal	Normal frequency of lexical verbs Reduced verb diversity Lesser verb per utterance
Abuom & Bastiaanse (2012)	Swahili (Atlantic-Congo)	N = 6 with non-fluent aphasia Tasks: picture description and personal interview	Shorter MLU Lower proportion of grammatical sentences Low use of complex sentences	Verb inflection for past is more impaired Verb inflection is more preserved in Swahili than in English Frequent omission of free morphemes Substitution of inflections leading to tense/agreement errors	Verb tokens and diversity is similar to healthy controls
Sang (2015)	Swahili (Atlantic-Congo)	N = 6 with non-fluent aphasia N = 6 controls Tasks: picture description and personal narratives	Shorter MLU Simple sentences	Mostly errorless in verb inflection, except one subject who used bare verb stems	Preference to verbs with one internal argument Lower verb TTR
Lartey (2017)	Akan (Atlantic Congo)	N = 5 with aphasia N = 5 controls Tasks: personal interview	More grammatical errors Fewer embedded sentences Shorter MLU	Past verb inflection is more impaired	Normal verb diversity
Niemi et al. (1990)	Finnish (Uralic)	N = 2 with Broca’s aphasia N = 2 controls Tasks: personal interview and picture description	Shorter MLU Use of simple and short phrases and sentences Reduced grammaticality of syntactic structures Reliance on canonical word order	Few morphological errors on noun case markings Verb affixation used appropriately Verb affixes were replaced by less marked ones Omission of closed-class words	Verb frequency is similar to controls Verb TTR is within normal limits
Helasvuo et al. (2001)	Finnish (Uralic)	N = 4 with Broca’s aphasia Tasks: conversation and picture description	Word order patterns are often peculiar	Appropriate use of case endings Tendency to use uninflected noun phrase on some obligatory contexts Frequent use of unmarked 3^rd person verb form – typically in less frequent and morphologically complex verbs Auxiliaries in periphrastic forms are omitted	No data available
Sasanuma (1989)	Japanese (Japonic)	N = 2 agrammatic patients N = 2 controls Tasks: personal narratives, picture description, and story-telling	Short phrase length Simplified grammar	Omission of grammatical morphemes in obligatory contexts Verb inflection forms were preserved almost perfectly	Omission of copula, auxiliary verbs, and some main verbs
Halliwell (2000)	Korean (Koreanic)	N = 2 with agrammatic aphasia N = 2 controls Tasks: personal interview, storytelling, and picture description	Shorter MLU Preference for simple syntactic constructions and word order High proportion of single element utterances	Substitution of verb inflections resulting to tense errors Omission of nominal case markers Omission of grammatical elements Verbs are minimally inflected (non-reliance to zero morpheme)	Lexical choice of verbs is at par with controls More verbs are omitted than nouns
Nedergaard et al. (2020)	WestGreenlandic (Eskimo-Aleut)	N = 5 with expressive aphasia N = 5 controls Tasks: personal narrative, picture narrative, and picture description	Shorter MLU Production of less complex syntactic forms Normal speech rate	No difference in morphemes per word and per utterance No significant morphological impairment	Lower proportion of subordinate, valence-changing, and transitive verbs
Anjarningsih et al. (2012)	Indonesian(Austronesian)	N = 6 with Broca’s aphasia N = 15 controls Tasks: semi-standardized interview	Shorter MLU Simpler sentence structures Higher proportion of ungrammatical sentences (argument or predicate omission) Normal production of passive sentences	Fewer syntactic particles Overuse of inflectional affixes over derivational Low percentage of reduplication	Normal-to-Above Normal verb production
Chiang & Razak (2005)	Malay (Austronesian)	N = 1 with agrammatic aphasia Tasks: conversation covering different settings	Short and incomplete utterances Mostly noun phrase & negative clauses	No data available	Higher proportion of nouns over verbs
Laka & Korostola (2001)	Basque (Isolate)	N = 8 Broca’s aphasia Tasks: unspecified type of interview	Ungrammatical constructions	Nominal case marking and determiner errors Substitution errors on verb inflections Verbs substituted to nominalized form which lacks inflectional morphology Agreement errors leading to use of null verbal paradigms Creation of impossible auxiliaries (combining morphemes from conflicting paradigms)	Low frequency of auxiliary verbs Low frequency of inflected verb forms Errors in selecting intransitive forms
MacWhinney & OsmÁn-SÁgi (1991)	Hungarian (Uralic)	N = 9 with Broca’s aphasia N = 15 controls Tasks: picture description	High rate of argument omission, mostly subjects and indirect objects	High level of article and case marking omission Mostly substitution errors of functional morphemes Preference for unmarked nominals No clear evidence of unmarked verb substitution	No data available

Table

Utterance 1	Tumapon ang bola sa bintana. independent clause “The ball flew to the window.”
Utterance 2	So after nangyari yun, tumayo yung may-ari ng bahay dependent clause independent clause “So after that happened, the owner of the house stood-up”
Utterance 3	at nakita niya ang bata na naglalaro ng bola. independent clause dependent clause “and he saw the child who is playing ball”

Table

Utterance 1

Pusa aso buntot “Cat dog tail”

Minor sentence

Table

Utterance 1

Pinagalitan siya ng nanay niya “He was scolded by his mother”

Simple sentence

Table

Utterance 1	Naexcite yung pusa “The cat got excited”	Compound sentence
Utterance 2	At hinabol niya yung paruparo. “and it ran after the butterfly”

Table

Utterance 1	So after nangyari yun, tumayo ang may-ari ng bahay “So after that happened, the owner of the house stood-up”	Complex sentence
Utterance 2	at nakita niya ang bata na naglalaro ng bola. “and he saw the child who is playing ball.”

Table

Utterance 1	Sabi ko sa mga kasama ko, “uwi na tayo” “I told them, ‘let’s go home’”	Complex Sentence	1 embedding
Utterance 2	Kasi hindi ako makahinga “because I can’t breathe”
Utterance 3	“Magnenebulizer ako sa bahay”, sabi kong ganyan. “‘I will use the nebulizer at home’, I said.”	Complex Sentence	1 embedding
TOTAL EMBEDDINGS			2 embeddings

Table

	Utterance	Sentence Type	Nature of Error	Grammaticality
Utterance 1	Umalis yung ibon “The bird went away”	Compound	Subject dropping in 2^nd clause but it is discourse-licensed	1
Utterance 2	Tapos lumipad. “and then it flew”
Utterance 3	Yung aso kinagat “The dog bit”	Simple	Missing argument	0
Utterance 4	Aso umalis para hanap pusa “Dog went away to seek cat”	Complex	Verb affix omission; Case marker omission; Missing argument	0
Utterance 5	At hinabol ng aso “and the dog chased”
TOTAL GRAMMATICALITY				1/3 or 33%

Table

Utterance	Root	Affix	Particles
Naramdaman ko yung pananakit ng aking katawan “I felt the aching of my body”	5	4	3
	ramdam, ko, sakit, akin, katawan	na-, -an (naramdaman) pa-, CVr (pananakit)	yung, ng, -ng (aking)
MORPHEME TOTAL: 12	5/12 or 42%	4/12 or 33%	3/12 or 25%

Table

Utterance	Verb	Inflected for Aspect?	Obligatory Context
Nagugutom na ang mga ibon “The birds are getting hungry”	nagugutom	1	1
Hanap yung nanay ng pagkain “The mother look for food”	hanap	0 (bare verb)	1 (humahanap/ naghahanap)
Uwi na tayo, sabi ng ibon “Let’s go home, the bird said”	uwi	0 (bare)	0 (Infinitive – umuwi)
	sabi	0 (bare)	1 (sinabi)
Kailangan kong maglaba “I need to do laundry”	maglaba	0 (infinitive)	0 (Infinitive)
Aakyatan ibon ng pusa “Climb on bird by cat”	aakyatan	0 (incorrectly inflected)	1 (aakyat or aakyatin)
TOTAL FINITENESS INDEX		1/4 or 0.25

Table

akyat – aakyat – naalala – maalala – inaalala – sabi – umuwi – umuuwi – nakauwi – natamaan - tinamaan
Type (Infinitive form)	Tokens
umakyat	2 = aakyat, akyat (bare)
maalala	2 = maalala, naalala
alalahanin	1 = inaalala
umuwi	2 = umuwi, umuuwi
makauwi	1 = nakauwi
sabi	1 = sabi (bare)
matamaan	1 = natamaan
tamaan	1 = tinamaan
TOTAL TTR	8 types/11 tokens or 0.727

Table C1 Raw data for sentence production parameters

Participants	# Words	WPM	MLUw	MLUm	# Utterances	# Sentences	# Minor	# Simple	# Compound	# Complex	# Embed.	# Gram.
NF001	74	15.89	1.61	1.72	46	46	38	7	0	1	1	14
NF002	146	18.04	2.81	3.08	52	52	32	13	0	7	7	7
NF003	170	45.64	2.70	3.05	63	62	34	26	2	0	0	15
NF004	121	31.40	3.46	4.57	35	34	10	21	1	2	2	12
NF005	159	25.60	2.21	2.49	72	72	50	15	0	7	7	25
NF006	255	62.68	4.40	4.71	58	50	15	16	8	11	11	13
NF007	131	31.80	2.26	2.72	58	58	38	15	0	5	6	17
NF008	137	37.14	3.19	3.81	43	43	23	14	0	6	7	13
NF009	159	28.14	3.12	4.20	51	42	18	15	5	4	4	16
NF010	233	21.18	3.76	4.73	62	45	14	15	10	6	6	16
HC001	300	81.24	11.77	15.73	26	13	0	0	1	12	21	12
HC002	300	86.73	10.97	15.38	29	11	0	1	1	9	25	10
HC003	300	93.13	8.51	11.54	35	19	1	0	4	14	27	18
HC004	300	93.83	9.48	13.17	31	19	0	2	4	13	22	17
HC005	300	97.70	8.89	13.09	35	20	0	3	5	12	25	19
HC006	300	71.31	7.92	11.69	39	29	0	6	4	19	29	25
HC007	300	71.86	7.50	9.95	42	30	0	9	5	16	27	29
HC008	300	56.66	9.24	13.76	33	24	0	4	2	18	26	23
HC009	300	96.13	9.27	12.46	33	26	0	8	1	17	28	25
HC010	300	88.98	7.42	9.73	41	33	0	14	2	17	22	31
HC011	300	110.06	11.07	15.33	27	22	0	5	1	16	24	19
HC012	300	136.96	7.88	10.38	40	21	0	2	8	11	15	21

Table C2 Raw data for functional morphology and verb-related parameters

Participants	# Preds.	# Non-verb Pred.	# Verb Pred.	# Verbs	# Modal	# Lexical	# Bare	# Finite	# Oblig Con	Verb Types	Verb Tokens	# Noun	# Root	# Affix	# Particle	# English
NF001	35	10	25	25	11	14	10	3	14	10	14	18	63	4	12	10
NF002	31	5	26	26	1	25	14	3	21	19	25	97	131	12	13	93
NF003	47	9	38	40	9	31	17	13	29	22	31	66	126	21	42	66
NF004	35	0	35	37	3	34	7	16	30	25	34	39	84	38	39	5
NF005	65	28	37	35	9	26	18	5	24	18	26	41	123	22	40	25
NF006	53	20	33	34	13	21	14	5	20	11	21	51	159	13	101	21
NF007	53	15	38	39	7	32	16	11	31	27	32	52	114	26	17	35
NF008	46	14	32	34	9	25	6	15	24	17	25	25	98	28	41	18
NF009	52	6	46	47	9	38	8	20	36	29	38	29	103	52	60	11
NF010	65	12	53	55	9	46	12	29	42	31	46	44	168	60	24	10
HC001	49	3	46	50	8	42	0	37	37	34	42	59	182	77	150	19
HC002	53	11	42	50	8	42	1	33	34	34	42	71	193	94	159	21
HC003	58	11	47	51	7	44	1	38	38	36	44	49	166	81	120	51
HC004	54	11	43	49	5	44	0	33	33	38	44	63	189	98	123	39
HC005	60	13	47	51	7	44	1	34	35	37	44	55	201	114	133	4
HC006	67	12	55	61	8	53	0	44	44	43	53	69	197	123	143	11
HC007	69	10	59	64	8	56	1	47	47	45	56	65	210	94	116	28
HC008	58	13	45	51	7	44	1	35	37	37	44	61	203	103	248	22
HC009	60	13	47	50	6	44	1	40	41	37	44	63	200	89	122	55
HC010	61	5	56	63	6	57	10	39	46	43	57	62	212	75	112	16
HC011	51	4	47	50	6	44	1	37	38	33	44	57	198	84	132	14
HC012	54	6	48	55	10	45	1	40	40	35	45	57	210	80	125	33

Chiang, C. P., & Razak, D. R. A. (2005). A Case Study: Linguistic Analysis of a Malay Agrammatic Speaker [ Bachelor Thesis]. National University of Malaysia.

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