This thesis examines the nature of the language deficit called agrammatism, the linguistic
syndrome usually associated with Broca's aphasia. I focus on the narratives produced by
agrammatics of five different languages, English, Dutch, German, French, and Italian, the
transcripts of which are collected in Menn & Obler (1990). My goal is to account for the
omission and substitution errors that characterize agrammatic production.
Agrammatic utterances with omissions display appropriate word order. Among these are
structures that include adverbs, negation, and verb-second matrix clauses. These structures are
derived by movement to functional projections. I argue that agrammatic clauses include
minimally three functional projections above VP. I propose that the full array of functional
projections is present in agrammatic speech. I argue that the most concise account of agrammatic
production is one in which Universal Grammar governs agrammatic speech.
Although any syntactic category may be omitted, not all categories are omitted with the
same frequency. Lexical categories are better retained than functional categories; and nominal
categories are better retained than verbal categories. I propose a Principle of Robustness whereby
the more Formal features a category is specified for, the more Robust it is. The net result is that
the more features a syntactic category is specified for, the more likely it is retrieved. This results
in the following Retrieval Hierarchy: N > V, A , D > P, T, K > C, where ">" means "better
retained than".
In addition to omissions, agrammatic speech includes substitutions: Syntactic
substitutions display two striking characteristics. First, substitutions are not cross-categorial.
Second, substitutions are subject to the Single Feature Constraint: only one optional Formal
feature from agreement (person, number and gender), Case and tense is altered. To derive these
characteristics, I argue that the structure of the Lexicon is paradigmatic.
Both omissions and substitutions lead me to a discussion of Lexical Insertion, the process
by which words are inserted into syntactic structures. I conclude that the agrammatic deficit lies
outside the phonological, syntactic and semantic components proper. Instead, omissions and
substitutions result from an impairment to the interface mechanisms between the Lexicon, the
Syntax and the Phonology.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:BVAU.2429/6621 |
| Date | 05 1900 |
| Creators | Sanchez, Monica Eszter |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Relation | UBC Retrospective Theses Digitization Project [http://www.library.ubc.ca/archives/retro_theses/] |
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