Uninflected structure in familial language impairment: evidence from French

We present the results of 20 French subjects with familial language impairment (FLI) on a linguistic battery task, with an emphasis on verb production. The results show strong qualitative differences between the verb production of FLI subjects and that of controls. Language-specific factors do not seem to determine the production of verbs in French FLI individuals. Rather, verb frequency and the inflectional status (uninflected vs. inflected) of the form seem to be determining factors in correct/incorrect production of a verb in a sentence context. The phonetic structure of French inflection provides additional arguments against the hypothesis of a processing deficit in FLI subjects. French tense morphemes are stressed and salient, and should therefore be produced without problems, according to the processing hypothesis. We found evidence contrary to this postulate. We therefore submit that the morphological deficit hypothesis is supported by the French data.