Linguistic theories and the interpretation of agrammatism

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
In this paper some theoretical implications of the linguistic interpretation of agrammatism are discussed. I have made use of theories of linguistic typology, quantitative linguistics and studies of language development in seeking an explanation of the general characteristics of agrammatism in typologically different languages. Grammatical problems in the language production of aphasics are manifested in (a) the omitting of grammatical morphemes, and (b) the replacing of correct grammatical morphemes by incorrect ones. In languages with a restricted morphology it is mostly the former that occurs, while in languages with a highly developed morphology the latter case prevails. In isolating languages grammatical morphemes are usually omitted, in agglutinative languages they are both omitted and replaced, and in flective languages independent grammatical morphemes (formal words) are omitted while bound grammatical morphemes (affixes) are replaced. The analysis of the language production of 35 Czech aphasics showed that there is a clear hierarchy in the replacement of one grammatical form by another. The forms mostly replacing are masculine, singular, nominative, 3rd person singular, present, indicative and imperfective. These forms are the same as those which are the most frequent in normal speech and those which are the first to be learned by children. I propose that these forms may be taken as the basic forms of grammatical categories in Czech.