[The frontiers of aphasia]

Brain lesions located outside the language area may be associated with non-aphasic disorders of language. The difficulties encountered by these patients concern one or several of the following levels: incitement to communicate, initiation and maintenance of verbal activity, internal organization and adequation of the discourse to the context, mastery of the lexico-semantic code. In every case, the elementary aspects of language are untouched, but verbal communication is severely perturbed.