Abstract

RIVIERI, Eugenia Marta. Language and Aging. Discussion of Syntax Impairment/ Preservation in Older Adults. Folios [online]. 2023, n.57, pp.51-67.  Epub June 01, 2023. ISSN 0123-4870.  https://doi.org/10.17227/folios.57-14050.

The study of syntactic processing in old age has been approached mainly from two accounts: one based on memory and the other based on structure and hierarchy. The former is linked to working memory and the latter to a syntactic ability. Some argue that the difficulty in processing sentences with syntactic complexity is due to a decrease in the storage and retention capacity of working memory, while others argue that although the process slows down, the syntactic ability is preserved. The focus of the phenomenon lies in the fact that some authors ignore structural distances - syntactic nodes - in processing and only consider in the syntactic distance the dependency of two elements (pronoun/referent). This opens a debate about the memory systems at the basis of syntactic processing. In this framework, this reflection paper aims are to discuss these two theoretical approaches and identify the advantages and limitations of each of them in explaining the phenomenon.

Keywords : ageing; syntax; working memory; procedural memory; syntax autonomy.

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