Word order and finiteness in Dutch and English Broca's and Wernicke's aphasia

Abstract

The effect of two linguistic factors in Broca's and Wernicke's aphasia was examined using Dutch and English subjects. Three tasks were used to test (1). the comprehension and (2). the construction of sentences, where verbs (in Dutch) and verb arguments (in Dutch and English) are in canonical versus non-canonical position; (3). the production of finite versus infinitive verbs. Proportions of errors as well as types of errors made by each aphasic group are similar on the sentence comprehension and sentence anagram tasks. On the verb production task the performance pattern is, again, the same, but the error types are different. The discussion focuses on how the similarities and differences across languages and across aphasia types may be interpreted with respect to the underlying deficit in Broca's and Wernicke's aphasia.