Symposium JLN : Résumé Diouny

Samir Diouny
Université Chouaib Doukkali, El Jadida (Maroc)

“Agrammatismin Semitic languages: the Case ofMoroccan Arabic”
 

Individuals with agrammatism show selective impairments in functional categories. On the one hand, some researchers (Friedmann & Grodzinsky, 1997) have attributed many linguistic difficulties experienced by agrammatic aphasics to a deficit in the hierarchy of functional projections. Other theories (Kolk, Kok, Zevenbergen, & Haverkort, 2007), however, suggest that agrammatic production results from limitations in processing capacities (Kolk, 1995). The purpose of this study was to investigate the use of functional categories by twoMoroccan-speaking agrammatic aphasics across different tasks.. The functional categories studied are: tense affixes, subject–verb agreement and noun and adjective agreement. The availability of verbal affixes and grammatical features was investigated using spontaneous speech, recitiation of Koranic verses, picture description and picture-matching tasks. In task 1 the participants were asked to talk about their family life, work, history of illness, hobbies and preferences for entertainment. In task 2, the participants were asked to describe the “cookie theft” picture (Kaplan & Goodglass, 1983). In task 3, they had to recite Koranic verses. In task 4, the participants were asked to name 60 pictures (30 depicting actions, and 30 depicting an object). The participants achieved high correctness scores for object naming, while scores for action naming were below average. They also achieved high correctness scores for verbal and nominal agreement, while tense affixes were impaired. To account for the observed disassociations, we suggest that the production deficit in Moroccan Arabic agrammatism cannot be explained in terms of a structural account, but rather in terms of a processing account that takes the view that inaccessible syntactic knowledge affects the subjects’ ability to produce verbal affixes. Conclusion: The study provides further evidence that tense production is selectively impaired in agrammatic aphasia. On this account, we posited a processing account to explain the problems experienced by individuals with agrammatism.