Functional categories in agrammatism

Abstract

This paper comments on Hagiwara's (1994b, this volume) proposals to account for the language deficits found in agrammatic aphasia, with special emphasis on Functional Categories (FCs). Some contemporary assumptions about FCs are reviewed focusing on their contentfulness, morphological features, and depiction as a heterogeneous set. This paper also discusses the view that the target of impairment in agrammatism constitutes a natural class. Treatment of FCs in their connection to chains and Lexical-Relatedness is discussed in terms of feature checking and morphological characteristics.