Word formation in aphasia: Evidence from Japanese kanji words

Abstract

A series of four experiments was carried out to assess the ability of word formation with eighteen aphasic patients (six Anomic, seven Broca's, and five Wernicke's aphasics) and seven normal people. Experiment 1 required subjects to form two two-letter kanji words with four kanji characters presented. Experiments 2 and 3 were addressed to each of two linguistic processes of word formation, i.e. selection and order, respectively. The tasks of these two experiments were to select the correct one from two connected forms of kanji. Experiment 4 focused on subjects' ability to analyze a derivative or a compound. The results of these experiments indicated that aphasics' ability of word formation was impaired, with the Wernicke's patients being the most severe and the Anomic patients the least. The Broca's patients were situated between the two aphasia types. However, some common features were observed across the three types of aphasic patients. Moreover, it is suggested that in aphasic patients deficits lie in gaining access to lexical information, rather than in the lexical organization itself.