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A Spanish grammaticality judgment task for neurodegenerative diseases: inflectional, transitivity, and word order comprehension in PPA and Alzheimer's Disease
Mancini, S.; Biondo, N.; Calabria, M.; Martin, C.; Garcia Hernandez, E.; Filella Merce, J.; Selma, J.; Garcia Castro et al.. medRxiv (preprint), 2026-08-28
Topic: Amyloid, tau and blood-test diagnosis
Impairment in the comprehension of morphosyntactic and transitivity information does not feature in current diagnostic guidelines for primary progressive aphasia (PPA) or Alzheimers Diseases (AD), despite research reporting delayed sensitivity or insensitivity of these clinical populations to these linguistic domains. Moreover, studies rarely compare all three PPA variants and AD within a single design, and the literature is heavily weighted toward English, whose reduced morphology may not capture the full range of comprehension difficulties these populations experience. We developed a computer-based acceptability judgment task covering comprehension of the nominal and verbal inflection paradigm in Spanish, transitivity and word order. We recruited Spanish-speaking patients diagnosed with non-fluent/agrammatic, logopenic and semantic variants of PPA and typical AD. Psychometric evaluation confirmed good sensitivity, internal consistency and moderate correlation of task accuracy with language and neuropsychological measures. The four clinical groups retained the ability to endorse grammatical sentences but showed selective difficulty rejecting unacceptable ones. AD and the three PPA variants showed impaired comprehension of inflectional and transitivity information, whereas sensitivity to word order was comparatively preserved. Exploratory analyses revealed that short-term memory, working memory, and verbal semantics were differentially associated with sentence evaluation performance within and across groups. VBM analyses identified the left posterior temporal cortex as the main neuroanatomical correlate of grammaticality judgment performance. These findings extend prior English-language research to Spanish, demonstrating that morphosyntactic and transitivity deficits are a robust and cross-linguistically consistent feature of neurodegenerative language decline, and highlighting the importance of developing language-sensitive assessment tools for underrepresented linguistic populations.
Key findings
- Exploratory analyses revealed that short-term memory, working memory, and verbal semantics were differentially associated with sentence evaluation performance within and across groups.
- These findings extend prior English-language research to Spanish, demonstrating that morphosyntactic and transitivity deficits are a robust and cross-linguistically consistent feature of neurodegenerative language decline, and highlighting the importance of developing language-sensitive assessment tools for underrepresented linguistic populations.
Why it matters
This study developed a Spanish grammaticality judgment task and found that Alzheimer's disease and all three primary progressive aphasia variants had impaired comprehension of inflectional and transitivity information, while word order sensitivity was relatively preserved. It concerns language assessment, not treatment, cure or prevention.
Study details
- Evidence strengthLow
How this study scored 16/100
Preprint — not yet peer-reviewed. It scored 22 on the same rubric, but non-peer-reviewed sources are capped at 16, so it shows as 16. Scored zero for study design, sample size, effect reported, studied in people and randomised / blinded because the record does not state it. We have no data on impact for its field and year, so that was left out: it earned 21 of the 94 points we could judge it on, which is 22 out of 100.
| Component | Points | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Journal tier | 2 / 10 | Tier 4 — not a peer-reviewed journal (medRxiv (preprint)) |
| Journal's citation record | 0 / 4 | Not a journal article, so the journal's record does not count |
| Study design | 0 / 12 | No study design recorded — scores zero, not guessed (not stated in the record — scored 0) |
| Strength of evidence | 1 / 5 | Rated “low” in our summary |
| Peer-review validation | 4 / 10 | Preprint — not yet peer-reviewed. Hosted on a preprint server. |
| How recent | 5 / 5 | 2026 — within 1 year(s) of the newest study here |
| Sample size | 0 / 4 | Participant count not stated — scores zero (not stated in the record — scored 0) |
| Effect reported | 0 / 3 | No effect size reported — scores zero (not stated in the record — scored 0) |
| Studied in people | 0 / 3 | Not stated whether this was studied in people — scores zero (not stated in the record — scored 0) |
| Randomised / blinded | 0 / 2 | No randomisation or blinding stated — scores zero (not stated in the record — scored 0) |
| Times cited | 0 / 7 | Cited 0 times (OpenAlex, 2026-10-10) |
| Citations per year | 0 / 5 | 0.0 citations a year over 2 year(s) since 2026 |
| Impact for its field and year | — / 6 | No field-weighted citation impact (OpenAlex has none yet) — left out of this score |
| Cited by studies here | 0 / 6 | No other study in this library cites it |
| Still being cited | 0 / 4 | Cited 0 times in 2024–2026 (2026 still in progress; OpenAlex) |
| Senior author's track record | 2 / 4 | Last-listed author Miguel Santos‐Santos: h-index 28 (OpenAlex, whole career) |
| Institution's track record | 2 / 3 | University of California, San Francisco: institution h-index 1,915 (OpenAlex) |
| Multi-centre collaboration | 2 / 3 | OpenAlex lists 9 institution(s) in 2 countries |
| Indexed in PubMed | 1 / 2 | Not in PubMed, but has a DOI |
| Free to read | 2 / 2 | Free to read |
| Points | 21 / 94 | Scored on 19 of 20 parts. We have no data for the rest, so they are left out: 21 of the 94 points we could judge it on is 22 out of 100. |
| Total | 22 / 100 | Capped to 16 because this is not a peer-reviewed article. |
What each of these 20 components measures, and what this score is not →
Read the original
Full text: free to read — OpenAlex lists this copy as free to read: the link above (checked 6 Feb 1020).
Cite this study APA, Vancouver, BibTeX · download .bib or .ris
Built from the record alzhub holds for this paper, not looked up. Volume, issue and page numbers are not held in the record. The record's author list ends in “et al.”, so not every author is named. Check the citation against the original before you use it.
APA 7th
Mancini, S., Biondo, N., Calabria, M., Martin, C., Garcia Hernandez, E., Filella Merce, J., et al. (2026). A Spanish grammaticality judgment task for neurodegenerative diseases: inflectional, transitivity, and word order comprehension in PPA and Alzheimer's Disease. medRxiv (preprint). https://doi.org/10.64898/2026.08.25.26360651
Vancouver
Mancini S, Biondo N, Calabria M, Martin C, Garcia Hernandez E, Filella Merce J, et al. A Spanish grammaticality judgment task for neurodegenerative diseases: inflectional, transitivity, and word order comprehension in PPA and Alzheimer's Disease. medRxiv (preprint). 2026. doi:10.64898/2026.08.25.26360651.
BibTeX
@article{mancini2026-011b1ac6,
author = {Mancini, S. and Biondo, N. and Calabria, M. and Martin, C. and Garcia Hernandez, E. and Filella Merce, J. and Selma, J. and Castro, Garcia and others},
title = {{A Spanish grammaticality judgment task for neurodegenerative diseases: inflectional, transitivity, and word order comprehension in PPA and Alzheimer's Disease}},
journal = {medRxiv (preprint)},
year = {2026},
doi = {10.64898/2026.08.25.26360651},
url = {https://doi.org/10.64898/2026.08.25.26360651}
}
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