Independently proposed linguistic analyses permit us to characterize function words and inflectional morphology as one class. These elements are hypothesized to constitute heads of functional projections. In this thesis, the Head Accessibility Hypothesis is proposed to account for the representations aphasics have of lexical and functional projections. It maintains that, as a consequence of the interactional nature of the modular grammar embodied in the principles and parameters version of Government-Binding theory (Chomsky 1982, 1986), syntactic deficits may be due to problems at the level of access to the Mental Lexicon. The implications of this hypothesis for syntactic comprehension in general and for the comprehension of causatives by aphasic patients are tested in a series of batteries administered to nine French aphasics and ten controls. The results support the proposal that the Head Accessibility Hypothesis correctly accounts for the patterns of present and absent linguistic elements in the representations computed by all types of aphasics.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.70255 |
| Date | January 1992 |
| Creators | Gendron, Jo-Ann |
| Publisher | McGill University |
| 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 |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Coverage | Doctor of Philosophy (Department of Linguistics.) |
| Rights | All items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated. |
| Relation | alephsysno: 001283654, proquestno: AAINN74471, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest. |
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