Agrammatism in aphasiology

Abstract

Agrammatism is a pattern of syntactically defective speech that is frequently observed as a prominent feature in Broca's aphasia. It may range in severity from one-word utterances, completely lacking in grammatical organization, to mildly 'telegraphic' speech. First described in the early 19th century, it was originally interpreted by Pick as being due to economy of effort in finding words. Beginning with Jakobson, in 1956, there have been a succession of efforts to give an account of it in terms of linguistic theory. While the theories are still controversial, they have led to much more detailed and systematic description of the linguistic output in agrammatic speech. Cross linguistic comparisons have revealed that the features of agrammatism are not fixed, but are conditioned by the grammatical structure of the speaker's language.