Processing of gender information of German possessives in aphasia

Previous research has shown that people with aphasia often exhibit impairments in pronoun

processing (e.g., Choy & Thompson, 2010; Grodzinsky et al., 1993). As pronouns are an

essential part of languages and, therefore, of daily communication, identifying the

underlying nature of processing impairments of pronominal forms is essential.

A recent meta-analysis (Arslan et al., 2021) has demonstrated that the majority of studies on

pronoun processing in aphasia investigate only some of the many different pronoun types

(i.e., personal pronouns, interrogatives and reflexives) while studies on other pronoun types

such as demonstratives or possessives are mostly lacking. To tackle this research gap, this

study focuses on processing of possessives, an understudied pronoun type, in German

speakers with aphasia. Studies on English have shown that, in people with aphasia, the

ability to comprehend possessives tends to be preserved, while the production of

possessives can be impaired (Caplan et al., 2007; Goodglass et al., 1993). However, this may

not hold for comprehension of German possessives, which are morphologically more

complex than English possessives.

Possessives can be used both as determiners (PossDet; e.g., ‘That is her car’) and as

pronouns (PossPro; e.g., ‘That is hers’). In German, both possessive forms are

morphologically complex: They are marked for features of the possessor (i.e., the person

possessing something) as well as features of the possessee (i.e., the object being possessed).

For third person singular forms, possessor marking requires marking of number and gender

on the stem (sein- ‘his’ and ihr- ‘her’). Number, case, and gender (masculine, feminine and

neuter) are marked on the suffix for possessee agreement.