Profiling agrammatic spoken language: towards a government and binding framework.

An analytical procedure for describing agrammatic spoken language based on government and binding theory is used to characterise the spoken grammar of an aphasic adult (JR) with severe agrammatism. Analysis of JR's spoken language revealed that he produced a greater number of single-word utterances (single lexical items) in comparison with lexical and/or functional projections. both morphological and syntactic evidence suggested that JR retained a differentiated set of lexical categories. No violations of word order were found. Target determiners and target inflection phrases were not always correctly realised. No 'complementiser' phrases or complex sentences were produced by JR. Analysis of the data collected suggests that JR's morphosyntactic abilities were not 'lost', but rather specific morphosyntactic representations were inaccessible. We hypothesise that his deficit is best characterised (rather loosely, in the absence of a clear and full account of language-processing impairments, and other theoretical evidence) as a deficit in performance rather than in competence. Implications of the results of the analysis for intervention are discussed as are future plans for adaptation of the profile into a clinically useful procedure.