Representational level matters for tone-word recognition: Evidence from form priming.

In a form priming experiment with a lexical decision task, we investigated whether the representational structure of lexical tone in lexical memory impacts spoken-word recognition in Mandarin. Target monosyllabic words were preceded by five types of primes: (1) the same real words (/lun4/-/lun4/), (2) real words with only tone contrasts (/lun2/-/lun4/), (3) unrelated real words (/pie3/-/lun4/), (4) pseudowords with only tone contrasts (*/lun3/-/lun4/), and (5) unrelated pseudowords (*/tai3/-/lun4/). We found a facilitation effect in target words with pseudoword primes that share the segmental syllable but contrast in tones (*/lun3/-/lun4/). Moreover, no evident form priming effect was observed in target words primed by real words with only tone contrasts (/lun2/-/lun4/). These results suggest that the recognition of a tone word is influenced by the representational level of tone accessed by the prime word. The distinctive priming patterns between real-word and pseudoword primes are best explained by the connectionist models of tone-word recognition, which assume a hierarchical representation of lexical tone.

Perception of grammatical tone in Akan patients with left and right hemisphere brain damage.

It remains a matter of debate what roles the left and right hemispheres play in processing speech prosody. Brain lesion studies have demonstrated that lexical tone perception among native speakers of tonal languages is more disrupted in left hemisphere damaged (LHD) individuals than right hemisphere damaged (RHD) individuals. This has been taken to suggest that linguistically-relevant prosodic cues are predominantly left-lateralised, whereas non-linguistic stimuli are predominantly right-lateralised. However, this phenomenon has only been examined in lexical tone, leaving grammatical tone perception unexplored. The aim of this study was twofold: Firstly, to examine how individuals with LHD and RHD perceive grammatical tone, and secondly to compare grammatical tone to non-linguistic tone perception. Therefore, native Akan speakers with LHD, RHD and no-brain damage (NBD) controls were tested in two discrimination tasks that examined linguistic and non-linguistic tone perception. The results showed that while both the individuals with LHD and RHD show impairment in grammatical tone perception, there was a trend of a better performance for the RHD group. Nonetheless, for non-linguistic tone perception, individuals with LHD outperformed the RHD individuals, although both had reduced performance compared to the NBD individuals. A further analysis revealed that the reduced perceptual abilities of both the LHD and RHD groups in grammatical tone perception can be attributed to grammatical problems rather than tone per se. We conclude that there is potentially a bilateral involvement of the two hemispheres in grammatical tone processing, with the left being the dominant hemisphere.

Corrigendum: Does a walk-through video help the parser down the garden-path? A visually enhanced self-paced reading study in Dutch.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.1009265.].

Presurgical Language Mapping: What Are We Testing?

Gliomas are brain tumors infiltrating healthy cortical and subcortical areas that may host cognitive functions, such as language. If these areas are damaged during surgery, the patient might develop word retrieval or articulation problems. For this reason, many glioma patients are operated on awake, while their language functions are tested. For this practice, quite simple tests are used, for example, picture naming. This paper describes the process and timeline of picture naming (noun retrieval) and shows the timeline and localization of the distinguished stages. This is relevant information for presurgical language testing with navigated Magnetic Stimulation (nTMS). This novel technique allows us to identify cortical involved in the language production process and, thus, guides the neurosurgeon in how to approach and remove the tumor. We argue that not only nouns, but also verbs should be tested, since sentences are built around verbs, and sentences are what we use in daily life. This approach's relevance is illustrated by two case studies of glioma patients.

Dutch Diagnostic Instrument for Mild Aphasia (DIMA): standardisation and a first clinical application in two brain tumour patients.

Brain tumour patients with mild language disturbances are typically underdiagnosed due to lack of sensitive tests leading to negative effects in daily communicative and social life. We aim to develop a Dutch standardised test-battery, the Diagnostic Instrument for Mild Aphasia (DIMA) to detect characteristics of mild aphasia at the main linguistic levels phonology, semantics and (morpho-)syntax in production and comprehension. We designed 4 DIMA subtests: 1) repetition (words, non-words, compounds and sentences), 2) semantic odd-picture-out (objects and actions), 3) sentence completion and 4) sentence judgment (accuracy and reaction time). A normative study was carried out in a healthy Dutch-speaking population (N = 211) divided into groups of gender, age and education. Clinical application of DIMA was demonstrated in two brain tumour patients (glioma and meningioma). Standard language tests were also administered: object naming, verbal fluency (category and letter), and Token Test. Performance was at ceiling on all sub-tests, except semantic odd-picture-out actions, with an effect of age and education on most subtests. Clinical application DIMA: repetition was impaired in both cases. Reaction time in the sentence judgment test (phonology and syntax) was impaired (not accuracy) in one patient. Standard language tests: category fluency was impaired in both cases and object naming in one patient. The Token Test was not able to detect language disturbances in both cases. DIMA seems to be sensitive to capture mild aphasic deficits. DIMA is expected to be of great potential for standard assessment of language functions in patients with also other neurological diseases than brain tumours.

Distinct Slow-Wave Activity Patterns in Resting-State Electroencephalography and Their Relation to Language Functioning in Low-Grade Glioma and Meningioma Patients.

Introduction: Brain tumours frequently cause language impairments and are also likely to co-occur with localised abnormal slow-wave brain activity. However, it is unclear whether this applies specifically to low-grade brain tumours. We investigate slow-wave activity in resting-state electroencephalography (EEG) in low-grade glioma and meningioma patients, and its relation to pre- and postoperative language functioning. Method: Patients with a glioma (N = 15) infiltrating the language-dominant hemisphere and patients with a meningioma (N = 10) with mass effect on this hemisphere underwent extensive language testing before and 1 year after surgery. EEG was registered preoperatively, postoperatively (glioma patients only), and once in healthy individuals. Slow-wave activity in delta- and theta- frequency bands was evaluated visually and quantitatively by spectral power at three levels over the scalp: the whole brain, the affected hemisphere, and the affected region. Results: Glioma patients had increased delta activity (affected area) and increased theta activity (all levels) before and after surgery. In these patients, increased preoperative theta activity was related to the presence of language impairment, especially to poor word retrieval and grammatical performance. Preoperative slow-wave activity was also related to postoperative language outcomes. Meningioma patients showed no significant increase in EEG slow-wave activity compared to healthy individuals, but they presented with word retrieval, grammatical, and writing problems preoperatively, as well as with writing impairments postoperatively. Discussion: Although the brain-tumour pathology in low-grade gliomas and meningiomas has a different effect on resting-state brain activity, patients with low-grade gliomas and meningiomas both suffer from language impairments. Increased theta activity in glioma patients can be considered as a language-impairment marker, with prognostic value for language outcome after surgery.

Does a walk-through video help the parser down the garden-path? A visually enhanced self-paced reading study in Dutch.

The human language processing mechanism assigns a structure to the incoming materials as they unfold. There is evidence that the parser prefers some attachment types over others; however, theories of sentence processing are still in dispute over the stage at which each source of information contributes to the parsing system. The present study aims to identify the nature of initial parsing decisions during sentence processing through manipulating attachment type and verbs' argument structure. To this end, we designed a self-paced reading task using globally ambiguous constructions in Dutch. The structures included double locative prepositional phrases (PPs) where the first PP could attach both to the verb (high attachment) and the noun preceding it (low attachment). To disambiguate the structures, we presented a visual context in the form of short animation clips prior to each reading task. Furthermore, we manipulated the argument structure of the sentences using 2- and 3-argument verbs. The results showed that parsing decisions were influenced by contextual cues depending on the argument structure of the verb. That is, the visual context overcame the preference for high attachment only in the case of 2-argument verbs, while this preference persisted in structures including 3-argument verbs as represented by longer reading times for the low attachment interpretations. These findings can be taken as evidence that our language processing system actively integrates information from linguistic and non-linguistic sources from the initial stages of analysis to build up meaning. We discuss our findings in light of serial and parallel models of sentence processing.

Resting-State Electroencephalography Functional Connectivity Networks Relate to Pre- and Postoperative Language Functioning in Low-Grade Glioma and Meningioma Patients.

Introduction: Preservation of language functioning in patients undergoing brain tumor surgery is essential because language impairments negatively impact the quality of life. Brain tumor patients have alterations in functional connectivity (FC), the extent to which brain areas functionally interact. We studied FC networks in relation to language functioning in glioma and meningioma patients. Method: Patients with a low-grade glioma (N = 15) or meningioma (N = 10) infiltrating into/pressing on the language-dominant hemisphere underwent extensive language testing before and 1 year after surgery. Resting-state EEG was registered preoperatively, postoperatively (glioma patients only), and once in healthy individuals. After analyzing FC in theta and alpha frequency bands, weighted networks and Minimum Spanning Trees were quantified by various network measures. Results: Pre-operative FC network characteristics did not differ between glioma patients and healthy individuals. However, hub presence and higher local and global FC are associated with poorer language functioning before surgery in glioma patients and predict worse language performance at 1 year after surgery. For meningioma patients, a greater small worldness was related to worse language performance and hub presence; better average clustering and global integration were predictive of worse outcome on language function 1 year after surgery. The average eccentricity, diameter and tree hierarchy seem to be the network metrics with the more pronounced relation to language performance. Discussion: In this exploratory study, we demonstrated that preoperative FC networks are informative for pre- and postoperative language functioning in glioma patients and to a lesser extent in meningioma patients.

Benefit of Action Naming Over Object Naming for Visualization of Subcortical Language Pathways in Navigated Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation-Based Diffusion Tensor Imaging-Fiber Tracking.

Visualization of functionally significant subcortical white matter fibers is needed in neurosurgical procedures in order to avoid damage to the language network during resection. In an effort to achieve this, positive cortical points revealed during preoperative language mapping with navigated transcranial magnetic stimulation (nTMS) can be employed as regions of interest (ROIs) for diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) fiber tracking. However, the effect that the use of different language tasks has on nTMS mapping and subsequent DTI-fiber tracking remains unexplored. The visualization of ventral stream tracts with an assumed lexico-semantic role may especially benefit from ROIs delivered by the lexico-semantically demanding verb task, Action Naming. In a first step, bihemispheric nTMS language mapping was administered in 18 healthy participants using the standard task Object Naming and the novel task Action Naming to trigger verbs in a small sentence context. Cortical areas in which nTMS induced language errors were identified as language-positive cortical sites. In a second step, nTMS-based DTI-fiber tracking was conducted using solely these language-positive points as ROIs. The ability of the two tasks' ROIs to visualize the dorsal tracts Arcuate Fascicle and Superior Longitudinal Fascicle, the ventral tracts Inferior Longitudinal Fascicle, Uncinate Fascicle, and Inferior Fronto-Occipital Fascicle, the speech-articulatory Cortico-Nuclear Tract, and interhemispheric commissural fibers was compared in both hemispheres. In the left hemisphere, ROIs of Action Naming led to a significantly higher fraction of overall visualized tracts, specifically in the ventral stream's Inferior Fronto-Occipital and Inferior Longitudinal Fascicle. No difference was found between tracking with Action Naming vs. Object Naming seeds for dorsal stream tracts, neither for the speech-articulatory tract nor the inter-hemispheric connections. While the two tasks appeared equally demanding for phonological-articulatory processes, ROI seeding through the task Action Naming seemed to better visualize lexico-semantic tracts in the ventral stream. This distinction was not evident in the right hemisphere. However, the distribution of tracts exposed was, overall, mirrored relative to those in the left hemisphere network. In presurgical practice, mapping and tracking of language pathways may profit from these findings and should consider inclusion of the Action Naming task, particularly for lesions in ventral subcortical regions.

Mapping Verb Retrieval With nTMS: The Role of Transitivity.

Navigated Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (nTMS) is used to understand the cortical organization of language in preparation for the surgical removal of a brain tumor. Action naming with finite verbs can be employed for that purpose, providing additional information to object naming. However, little research has focused on the properties of the verbs that are used in action naming tasks, such as their status as transitive (taking an object; e.g., to read) or intransitive (not taking an object; e.g., to wink). Previous neuroimaging data show higher activation for transitive compared to intransitive verbs in posterior perisylvian regions bilaterally. In the present study, we employed nTMS and production of finite verbs to investigate the cortical underpinnings of transitivity. Twenty neurologically healthy native speakers of German participated in the study. They underwent language mapping in both hemispheres with nTMS. The action naming task with finite verbs consisted of transitive (e.g., The man reads the book) and intransitive verbs (e.g., The woman winks) and was controlled for relevant psycholinguistic variables. Errors were classified in four different error categories (i.e., non-linguistic errors, grammatical errors, lexico-semantic errors and, errors at the sound level) and were analyzed quantitatively. We found more nTMS-positive points in the left hemisphere, particularly in the left parietal lobe for the production of transitive compared to intransitive verbs. These positive points most commonly corresponded to lexico-semantic errors. Our findings are in line with previous aphasia and neuroimaging studies, suggesting that a more widespread network is used for the production of verbs with a larger number of arguments (i.e., transitives). The higher number of lexico-semantic errors with transitive compared to intransitive verbs in the left parietal lobe supports previous claims for the role of left posterior areas in the retrieval of argument structure information.

Bihemispheric Navigated Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation Mapping for Action Naming Compared to Object Naming in Sentence Context.

Preoperative language mapping with navigated transcranial magnetic stimulation (nTMS) is currently based on the disruption of performance during object naming. The resulting cortical language maps, however, lack accuracy when compared to intraoperative mapping. The question arises whether nTMS results can be improved, when another language task is considered, involving verb retrieval in sentence context. Twenty healthy German speakers were tested with object naming and a novel action naming task during nTMS language mapping. Error rates and categories in both hemispheres were compared. Action naming showed a significantly higher error rate than object naming in both hemispheres. Error category comparison revealed that this discrepancy stems from more lexico-semantic errors during action naming, indicating lexico-semantic retrieval of the verb being more affected than noun retrieval. In an area-wise comparison, higher error rates surfaced in multiple right-hemisphere areas, but only trends in the left ventral postcentral gyrus and middle superior temporal gyrus. Hesitation errors contributed significantly to the error count, but did not dull the mapping results. Inclusion of action naming coupled with a detailed error analysis may be favorable for nTMS mapping and ultimately improve accuracy in preoperative planning. Moreover, the results stress the recruitment of both left- and right-hemispheric areas during naming.

Online Processing of Temporal Agreement in a Grammatical Tone Language: An ERP Study.

Previous electrophysiological studies that have examined temporal agreement violations in (Indo-European) languages that use grammatical affixes to mark time reference, have found a Left Anterior Negativity (LAN) and/or P600 ERP components, reflecting morpho-syntactic and syntactic processing, respectively. The current study investigates the electrophysiological processing of temporal relations in an African language (Akan) that uses grammatical tone, rather than morphological inflection, for time reference. Twenty-four native speakers of Akan listened to sentences with time reference violations. Our results demonstrate that a violation of a present context by a past verb yields a P600 time-locked to the verb. There was no such effect when a past context was violated by a present verb. In conclusion, while there are similarities in both Akan and Indo-European languages, as far as the modulation of the P600 effect is concerned, the nature of this effect seems to be different for these languages.

Dual-Task nTMS Mapping to Visualize the Cortico-Subcortical Language Network and Capture Postoperative Outcome-A Patient Series in Neurosurgery.

BACKGROUND: Perioperative assessment of language function in brain tumor patients commonly relies on administration of object naming during stimulation mapping. Ample research, however, points to the benefit of adding verb tasks to the testing paradigm in order to delineate and preserve postoperative language function more comprehensively. This research uses a case series approach to explore the feasibility and added value of a dual-task protocol that includes both a noun task (object naming) and a verb task (action naming) in perioperative delineation of language functions. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Seven neurosurgical cases underwent perioperative language assessment with both object and action naming. This entailed preoperative baseline testing, preoperative stimulation mapping with navigated Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (nTMS) with subsequent white matter visualization, intraoperative mapping with Direct Electrical Stimulation (DES) in 4 cases, and postoperative imaging and examination of language change. RESULTS: We observed a divergent pattern of language organization and decline between cases who showed lesions close to the delineated language network and hence underwent DES mapping, and those that did not. The latter displayed no new impairment postoperatively consistent with an unharmed network for the neural circuits of both object and action naming. For the cases who underwent DES, on the other hand, a higher sensitivity was found for action naming over object naming. Firstly, action naming preferentially predicted the overall language state compared to aphasia batteries. Secondly, it more accurately predicted intraoperative positive language areas as revealed by DES. Thirdly, double dissociations between postoperatively unimpaired object naming and impaired action naming and vice versa indicate segregated skills and neural representation for noun versus verb processing, especially in the ventral stream. Overlaying postoperative imaging with object and action naming networks revealed that dual-task nTMS mapping can explain the drop in performance in those cases where the network appeared in proximity to the resection cavity. CONCLUSION: Using a dual-task protocol for visualization of cortical and subcortical language areas through nTMS mapping proved to be able to capture network-to-deficit relations in our case series. Ultimately, adding action naming to clinical nTMS and DES mapping may help prevent postoperative deficits of this seemingly segregated skill.

Comparing navigated transcranial magnetic stimulation mapping and "gold standard" direct cortical stimulation mapping in neurosurgery: a systematic review.

The objective of this systematic review is to create an overview of the literature on the comparison of navigated transcranial magnetic stimulation (nTMS) as a mapping tool to the current gold standard, which is (intraoperative) direct cortical stimulation (DCS) mapping. A search in the databases of PubMed, EMBASE, and Web of Science was performed. The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines and recommendations were used. Thirty-five publications were included in the review, describing a total of 552 patients. All studies concerned either mapping of motor or language function. No comparative data for nTMS and DCS for other neurological functions were found. For motor mapping, the distances between the cortical representation of the different muscle groups identified by nTMS and DCS varied between 2 and 16 mm. Regarding mapping of language function, solely an object naming task was performed in the comparative studies on nTMS and DCS. Sensitivity and specificity ranged from 10 to 100% and 13.3-98%, respectively, when nTMS language mapping was compared with DCS mapping. The positive predictive value (PPV) and negative predictive value (NPV) ranged from 17 to 75% and 57-100% respectively. The available evidence for nTMS as a mapping modality for motor and language function is discussed.

Quantifying the Uncertainty of Parameters Measured in Spontaneous Speech of Speakers With Dementia.

Purpose Corpus analyses of spontaneous language fragments of varying length provide useful insights in the language change caused by brain damage, such as caused by some forms of dementia. Sample size is an important experimental parameter to consider when designing spontaneous language analyses studies. Sample length influences the confidence levels of analyses. Machine learning approaches often favor to use as much language as available, whereas language evaluation in a clinical setting is often based on truncated samples to minimize annotation labor and to limit any discomfort for participants. This article investigates, using Bayesian estimation of machine learned models, what the ideal text length should be to minimize model uncertainty. Method We use the Stanford parser to extract linguistic variables and train a statistic model to distinguish samples by speakers with no brain damage from samples by speakers with probable Alzheimer's disease. We compare the results to previously published models that used CLAN for linguistic analysis. Results The uncertainty around six individual variables and its relation to sample length are reported. The same model with linguistic variables that is used in all three experiments can predict group membership better than a model without them. One variable (concept density) is more informative when measured using the Stanford tools than when measured using CLAN. Conclusion For our corpus of German speech, the optimal sample length is found to be around 700 words long. Longer samples do not provide more information.

The role of semantics and repair processes in article-noun gender disagreement in Italian: An ERP study.

In this sentence reading study, we used event-related potentials (ERPs) to investigate the processing mechanism of article-noun gender disagreement in two kinds of nouns in Italian. The first are nouns with syntactic gender (il trenoM 'train'; la sediaF 'chair') for which the processing and repair of gender disagreement entails only one repair option, namely for the article (morphosyntactic repair). The second kind are nouns with semantic gender (il bambinoM 'boy', la bambinaF 'girl'). Here, there are two options for processing and repairing gender mismatch: repairing the article (morphosyntactic repair) or repairing the noun (both morphosyntactic and semantic repair). Both classes of nouns elicited the LAN, indicating that gender disagreement is always registered at the morphosyntactic level. In addition, the P600 was elicited in both conditions, but was larger for semantic gender, reflecting a more complex repair for this class of nouns.

Individual Differences in Lexical Access Among Cochlear Implant Users.

Purpose The current study investigates how individual differences in cochlear implant (CI) users' sensitivity to word-nonword differences, reflecting lexical uncertainty, relate to their reliance on sentential context for lexical access in processing continuous speech. Method Fifteen CI users and 14 normal-hearing (NH) controls participated in an auditory lexical decision task (Experiment 1) and a visual-world paradigm task (Experiment 2). Experiment 1 tested participants' reliance on lexical statistics, and Experiment 2 studied how sentential context affects the time course and patterns of lexical competition leading to lexical access. Results In Experiment 1, CI users had lower accuracy scores and longer reaction times than NH listeners, particularly for nonwords. In Experiment 2, CI users' lexical competition patterns were, on average, similar to those of NH listeners, but the patterns of individual CI users varied greatly. Individual CI users' word-nonword sensitivity (Experiment 1) explained differences in the reliance on sentential context to resolve lexical competition, whereas clinical speech perception scores explained competition with phonologically related words. Conclusions The general analysis of CI users' lexical competition patterns showed merely quantitative differences with NH listeners in the time course of lexical competition, but our additional analysis revealed more qualitative differences in CI users' strategies to process speech. Individuals' word-nonword sensitivity explained different parts of individual variability than clinical speech perception scores. These results stress, particularly for heterogeneous clinical populations such as CI users, the importance of investigating individual differences in addition to group averages, as they can be informative for clinical rehabilitation. Supplemental Material https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.11368106.

The verb and noun test for peri-operative testing (VAN-POP): standardized language tests for navigated transcranial magnetic stimulation and direct electrical stimulation.

BACKGROUND: Protocols for intraoperative language mapping with direct electrical stimulation (DES) often include various language tasks triggering both nouns and verbs in sentences. Such protocols are not readily available for navigated transcranial magnetic stimulation (nTMS), where only single word object naming is generally used. Here, we present the development, norming, and standardization of the verb and noun test for peri-operative testing (VAN-POP) that measures language skills more extensively. METHODS: The VAN-POP tests noun and verb retrieval in sentence context. Items are marked and balanced for several linguistic factors known to influence word retrieval. The VAN-POP was administered in English, German, and Dutch under conditions that are used for nTMS and DES paradigms. For each language, 30 speakers were tested. RESULTS: At least 50 items per task per language were named fluently and reached a high naming agreement. CONCLUSION: The protocol proved to be suitable for pre- and intraoperative language mapping with nTMS and DES.

Identifying the Speech Production Stages in Early and Late Adulthood by Using Electroencephalography.

Structural changes in the brain take place throughout one's life. Changes related to cognitive decline may delay the stages of the speech production process in the aging brain. For example, semantic memory decline and poor inhibition may delay the retrieval of a concept from the mental lexicon. Electroencephalography (EEG) is a valuable method for identifying the timing of speech production stages. So far, studies using EEG mainly focused on a particular speech production stage in a particular group of subjects. Differences between subject groups and between methodologies have complicated identifying time windows of the speech production stages. For the current study, the speech production stages lemma retrieval, lexeme retrieval, phonological encoding, and phonetic encoding were tracked using a 64-channel EEG in 20 younger adults and 20 older adults. Picture-naming tasks were used to identify lemma retrieval, using semantic interference through previously named pictures from the same semantic category, and lexeme retrieval, using words with varying age of acquisition. Non-word reading was used to target phonological encoding (using non-words with a variable number of phonemes) and phonetic encoding (using non-words that differed in spoken syllable frequency). Stimulus-locked and response-locked cluster-based permutation analyses were used to identify the timing of these stages in the full time course of speech production from stimulus presentation until 100 ms before response onset in both subject groups. It was found that the timing of each speech production stage could be identified. Even though older adults showed longer response times for every task, only the timing of the lexeme retrieval stage was later for the older adults compared to the younger adults, while no such delay was found for the timing of the other stages. The results of a second cluster-based permutation analysis indicated that clusters that were observed in the timing of the stages for one group were absent in the other subject group, which was mainly the case in stimulus-locked time windows. A z-score mapping analysis was used to compare the scalp distributions related to the stages between the older and younger adults. No differences between both groups were observed with respect to scalp distributions, suggesting that the same groups of neurons are involved in the four stages, regardless of the adults' age, even though the timing of the individual stages is different in both groups.

Bilingual aphasia: Assessing cross-linguistic asymmetries and bilingual advantage in sentence comprehension deficits.

People with aphasia frequently have difficulties understanding semantically reversible sentences presented in derived word order. This impairment may be related to the inconsistent processing of morphological information, as well as to difficulties inhibiting the inverse interpretation of the sentence. Studies on bilingual aphasia may contribute to our understanding of these issues by shedding light on i) differences in processing of morphology across languages; ii) enhanced control mechanisms. We studied early Basque-Spanish bilingual speakers with aphasia and monolingual Spanish speakers with aphasia, as well as unimpaired individuals. Using comparable sets of materials across languages, we combined behavioural and eye-tracking methods. Results indicate that i) at the group level, bilingual speakers perform better in Spanish than in Basque, particularly in sentences with Theme-Agent argument order. Individual case analysis shows a pattern of weak dissociation across languages in several participants; ii) bilingual people with aphasia do not outperform monolingual people with aphasia in comprehension accuracy, although gaze data suggests that bilingual speakers exhibit higher inhibition and monitoring abilities.