Dependency Grammar Approach to the Syntactic Complexity in the Discourse of Alzheimer Patients

This study aims to investigate the syntactic complexity in individuals with Alzheimer’s disease (AD) by conducting a comprehensive analysis that incorporates mean dependency distance (MDD), fine-grained grammatical metrics, and dependency network structures. A total of 150 adults with AD and 150 hea...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Behavioral sciences Vol. 15; no. 10; p. 1334
Main Authors: Lian, Zhangjun, Wang, Zeyu
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: Switzerland MDPI AG 29.09.2025
Subjects:
Advertising executives
Alzheimer's disease
Analysis
Architecture
Cognitive load
Computational linguistics
Criminal investigations
Dementia
dependency grammar
dependency network
fine-grained grammatical indices
Grammar
Language processing
Linguistics
Memory
Natural language interfaces
Semantics
syntactic complexity
Syntax
dependency grammar
Alzheimer’s disease
fine-grained grammatical indices
dependency network
syntactic complexity
ISSN:2076-328X, 2076-328X
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:This study aims to investigate the syntactic complexity in individuals with Alzheimer’s disease (AD) by conducting a comprehensive analysis that incorporates mean dependency distance (MDD), fine-grained grammatical metrics, and dependency network structures. A total of 150 adults with AD and 150 healthy controls (HC) responded in English to interview prompts based on the Cookie Theft picture description task, and the results were compared. The key findings are as follows: (1) The primary syntactic change is a strategic shift from hierarchical, clause-based constructions to linear, phrase-based ones, a direct consequence of working memory deficits designed to minimize cognitive load. (2) This shift is executed via a resource reallocation, where costly, long-distance clausal dependencies are systematically avoided in favor of a compensatory reliance on local dependencies, such as intra-phrasal modification and simple predicate structures. (3) This strategic reallocation leads to a systemic reorganization of the syntactic network, transforming it from a flexible, distributed system into a rigid, centralized one that becomes critically dependent on the over-leveraged structural role of function words to maintain basic connectivity. (4) The overall syntactic profile is the result of a functional balance governed by the principle of cognitive economy, where expressive richness and grammatical depth are sacrificed to preserve core communicative functions. These findings suggest that the syntactic signature of AD is not a random degradation of linguistic competence but a profound and systematic grammatical adaptation, where the entire linguistic system restructures itself to function under the severe constraints of diminished cognitive resources.
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ISSN:2076-328X
2076-328X
DOI:10.3390/bs15101334