Impairment of inflectional morphology and lexical storage

The present study investigates the repetition, comprehension, and production abilities of three French-speaking agrammatic aphasics on stimuli that require attention to the inflectional markers of number, gender, and tense. Two sets of experiments were conducted within a Strong Lexicalist framework. The results suggest that morphological deficits can manifest themselves at distinct levels of grammar, the lexical and the postlexical. The internal morphological structure and idiosyncracies of lexical items were found to have an effect on aphasic performance. A proposal of a differentially organized lexical storage reflecting the particularities of the French verbal system is put forth. The storage hypothesis suggested for verbs is extended to other lexical items.