The regression hypothesis: communicative continuum vs. parametrically defined grammars

Proposals concerning the regression hypothesis in aphasia presented in Grodzinsky (1990) and Schnitzer (1989, 1990) are compared. It is argued that Grodzinsky's model, which is syndrome-based, is observationally inadequate, and thus fails to lend aphasiological support to a neurophysiologically realized central language system along the lines of Chomsky's Theory of Principles and Parameters. Schnitzer's approach rejects the notion of mental grammars and interprets aphasic regression microgenetically, along the lines of Givón's continuum. It is argued that this approach has the potential to become truly explanatory.