Assessing frequency effects on verb inflection use by Spanish-speaking individuals with agrammatism: Theoretical and clinical implications

Abstract

The resistance of high-frequency linguistic elements to aphasic impairment suggests that frequency of occurrence may be implicated in verb use differences in agrammatic aphasia. The highly-inflected Spanish verb system allows for the examination of frequency of occurrence along two main metrics, daily usage frequency and paradigmatic frequency. In this study, we explored the role of those two frequency dimensions in verb repetition by Spanish speakers with agrammatism. Six native Spanish-speaking individuals with agrammatic oral expression were matched for age, education and Spanish dialect with six speakers with typical language. The speakers participated in a sentence repetition task involving simple verb tenses. Results revealed that high frequency in daily usage can have a stronger facilitating effect on verb repetition than paradigmatic frequency. Theoretical and clinical implications of the findings are discussed to highlight some plausible repercussions of typical discourse patterns in providing a socio-cognitive dimension to agrammatism theory and in supporting the use of frequency-based linguistic features in agrammatism therapy.