Hostname: page-component-6898cfcb55-w5hgh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-11-11T14:31:46.430Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Lexicon: Evidence from Acquired Dyslexia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 March 2026

Victoria A. Fromkin
Victoria A. Fromkin*
Affiliation:
University of California, Los Angeles
*
University of California, Los Angeles
Get accessRights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The organization and structure of the lexicon in a linguistic performance model is here examined, using data elicited from dyslexic patients suffering from focal brain lesions. It is argued that phonological, semantic, and orthographic representations, in separate sub-lexicons, are needed to account for the selective reading and writing disorders. The role of such data and their relevance to linguistic theory are discussed. Linguistic concepts provide the framework for investigating both normal and abnormal (e.g. aphasic) speech production and comprehension. In turn, data from aphasia may provide new insights into the nature of the mental grammar.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Language , Volume 63 , Issue 1 , March 1987, pp. 1 - 22
Copyright
Copyright © 1987 Linguistic Society of America

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

Footnotes

*

This paper is based upon the Presidential Address presented at the Annual Meeting of the Linguistic Society of America on December 28, 1985, in Seattle, Washington.

Space limitations do not permit a full expression of the debt I owe to all my teachers, students, colleagues, and friends. However, on this occasion of my Presidential Address, I feel I must at least express my deepest gratitude to the late Harry Hoijer (who taught my first linguistics course), to Peter Ladefoged (my doctoral adviser, collaborator, and colleague without whose guidance I would not be here), to Noam Chomsky (the major influence on my linguistic thinking as he has been for a large portion of the present generation of linguists and other cognitive scientists), to Freda Newcombe (for imparting her knowledge of neuropsychology and for guiding my research with her patients), to Antonio and Hanna Damasio (for teaching me what I know about the neurological substrate of language), and to Jack Fromkin (for trying to keep me intellectually honest and for his patience, inspiration, and support). I would also like to acknowledge the support provided by a UCLA Academic Senate Research Grant.

References

Allport, Alan. 1979. Word recognition in reading. Processing of visible language, ed. by Kolers, Paul A. et al., 1.227–57. New York: Plenum.Google Scholar
Benton, Arthur. 1981. Aphasia: Historical perspectives. Acquired aphasia, ed. by Sarno, Martha Taylor, 1–21. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Berndt, Rita, and Caramazza, Alfonso. 1980. A redefinition of the syndrome of Broca's aphasia: Implications for a neuropsychological model of language. Applied Psycholinguistics 1.225–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bloomfield, Leonard. 1942. Linguistics and reading. Elementary English 18.125–30, 183–6.Google Scholar
Borer, Hagit. 1984. The projection principle and the rules of morphology. Irvine: University of California, ms.Google Scholar
Bradley, Diane C., and Garrett, Merrill. 1980. Effects of vocabulary type on word recognition. (Center of Cognitive Science, Occasional paper 12.) Cambridge, MA: MIT.Google Scholar
Bradley, Diane C., and Garrett, Merrill; and Zurif, Edgar. 1980. Syntactic deficits in Broca's aphasia. Biological studies of mental processes, ed. by Caplan, David, 269–86. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Broca, Paul. 1861. Nouvelle observation d'aphémie produite par une lésion de la moitié postérieure des deuxième et troisième circumvolutions frontales. Bulletin de la Société Anatomique de Paris 3.398–407.Google Scholar
Buckingham, Hugh W. Jr. 1980. On correlating aphasic errors with slips of the tongue. Applied Psycholinguistics 1.199–220.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Butterworth, Brian. 1980. Some constraints on models of language production. Language production I, ed. by Butterworth, B., 423–59. London: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Caplan, David, et al. 1984 (eds.) Biological perspectives on language. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chomsky, Noam. 1957. Syntactic structures. The Hague: Mouton.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chomsky, Noam. 1965. Aspects of a theory of syntax. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Chomsky, Noam. 1978. On the biological basis of language capacities. Psychology and biology of language and thought: Essays in honor of Eric Lenneberg, ed. by Miller, George A. & Lenneberg, Elizabeth, 199–220. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Chomsky, Noam. 1980. Rules and representations. New York: Columbia University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chomsky, Noam. 1982a. Lectures on government and binding. Dordrecht: Foris.Google Scholar
Chomsky, Noam. 1982b. On the generative enterprise: A discussion with Riny Huybregts and Henk van Riemsdijk. Dordrecht: Foris.Google Scholar
Coltheart, Max, Patterson, Karalyn; and Marshall, John C. 1980 (eds.) Deep dyslexia. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
Curtiss, Susan. 1981. Dissociations between language and cognition. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders 11.15–30.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Curtiss, Susan. 1982. Developmental dissociations of language and cognition. Exceptional language and linguistics, ed. by Obler, Loraine & Menn, Lise, 285–312. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Déjérine, Joseph. 1892. Contributions à l'étude anatomopathologique et clinique des différentes variétés de cécité verbale. Memoirs de la Société Biologique 4.61–90.Google Scholar
Fay, David, and Cutler, Ann. 1977. Malapropisms and the structure of the mental lexicon. LI 8.505–20.Google Scholar
Fodor, Jerry A. 1983. The modularity of mind. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Forster, Kenneth I. 1979. Levels of processing and the structure of the language processor. Sentence processing, ed. by Cooper, William E. & Walker, Edward C. T., 27–85. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Friederich, Angela D. 1981. Production and comprehension of prepositions in aphasia. Neuropsychologia 19.191–9.Google Scholar
Friederich, Angela D. 1983. Perception of words in sentential contexts: Some real-time processing evidence. Neuropsychologia 21.351–8.Google Scholar
Fromkin, Victoria A. 1968. Speculations on performance models. Journal of Linguistics 4.47–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fromkin, Victoria A. 1971. The non-anomalous nature of anomalous utterances. Lg. 47.27–52.Google Scholar
Fromkin, Victoria A. 1973. Introduction. Speech errors as linguistic evidence, ed. by Fromkin, V. A., 1–45. The Hague: Mouton.Google Scholar
Fromkin, Victoria A. 1980 (ed.) Errors in linguistic performance: Slips of the tongue, ear, pen, and hand. London: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Fromkin, Victoria A. 1985. Evidence in linguistics. Linguistics and linguistic evidence, ed. by Killingley, Siew-Yue, 18–38. Newcastle upon Tyne: Grevatt & Grevatt.Google Scholar
Garrett, Merrill. 1976. Syntactic processes in sentence production. New approaches to language mechanisms, ed. by Wales, Roger & Walker, Edward, 231–56. Amsterdam: North-Holland.Google Scholar
Garrett, Merrill. 1980. Levels of processing in sentence production. Language production I, ed. by Butterworth, Brian, 177–220. London: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Garrett, Merrill. 1984. The organization of processing structure for language production: Applications to aphasic speech. In Caplan, et al., 172–93.Google Scholar
Gazdar, Gerald. 1982. Phrase structure grammar. The nature of syntactic representation, ed. by Jacobson, Pauline & Pullum, Geoffrey K., 131–86. Dordrecht: Reidel.Google Scholar
Gordon, Barry, and Caramazza, Alfonso. 1985. Lexical access and frequency sensitivity: Frequency saturation and open/closed class equivalence. Cognition 21.95–115.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Grodzinsky, Yosef. 1984. The syntactic characterization of agrammatism. Cognition 16.99–120.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Halle, Morris. 1973. Prolegomena to a theory of word formation. LI 4.3–16.Google Scholar
Jacob, François. 1977. Evolution and tinkering. Science 196 (June 10), 1161–6.Google Scholar
Jakobson, Roman. 1940. Kindersprache, Aphasie and allgemeine Lautgesetze. Uppsala: Almqvist & Wiksell. [Translated as Child language, aphasia, and phonological universal. The Hague: Mouton, 1968.]Google Scholar
Jakobson, Roman. 1955. Aphasia as a linguistic problem. On expressive language, ed. by Werner, Heinz, 69–81. Worcester, MA: Clark University Press.Google Scholar
Jakobson, Roman. 1963. Linguistic types of aphasia. Brain function III, ed. by Carterette, Edward, 67–81. Berkeley & Los Angeles: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Jakobson, Roman. 1964. Towards a linguistic typology of aphasic impairments. Disorders of language, ed. by deReuck, Anthony V. S. & O'Connor, M., 21–41. Boston: Little, Brown.Google Scholar
Joos, Martin. 1957 (ed.) Readings in linguistics. Washington, DC: American Council of Learned Societies.Google Scholar
Kaplan, Ronald, and Bresnan, Joan. 1982. Lexical-Functional Grammar: A formal system for grammatical representation. The mental representation of grammatical relations, ed. by Bresnan, J., 173–281. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Kean, Mary-Louise. 1977. The linguistic interpretation of aphasic syndromes: Agrammatism in Broca's aphasia, an example. Cognition 5.9–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kean, Mary-Louise. 1978. The linguistic interpretations of aphasic syndromes. Explorations in the biology of language, ed. by Walker, Edward, 67–138. Montgomery, VT: Bradford.Google Scholar
Kean, Mary-Louise. 1980. Grammatical representations and the description of language processing. Biological studies of mental processes, ed. by Caplan, David, 239–68. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Kean, Mary-Louise. 1985 (ed.) Agrammatism. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Kiparsky, Paul. 1968. How abstract is phonology? [Published in Phonological representations, ed. by Osamu Fujimura, 5–56. Tokyo: TEC, 1973.]Google Scholar
Kiparsky, Paul. 1982. Lexical morphology and phonology. Linguistics in the Morning Calm, 3–92. Seoul: Linguistic Society of Korea.Google Scholar
Kriendler, A., Calavuzo, C.; and Mihailescu, L. 1971. Linguistic analysis of one case of jargon aphasia. Revue Roumaine de Neurologie 8.209–28.Google Scholar
Lakoff, George. 1971. On generative semantics. Semantics, ed. by Steinberg, Danny & Jakobovits, Leon, 232–96. Cambridge: University Press.Google Scholar
Liberman, Isabel Y. 1971. Basic research in speech and lateralization of language: Some implications for reading disability. Bulletin of the Orton Society 21.71–87.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Liberman, Isabel Y., et al. 1977. Phonetic segmentation and recoding in the beginning reader. Toward a psychology of reading: The proceedings of the CUNY Conference, ed. by Reber, A. S. & Scarborough, D. L. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Lieber, Rochelle. 1980. On the organization of the lexicon. MIT dissertation.Google Scholar
Lieber, Rochelle. 1983. Argument linking and compounds in English. LI 14.251–86.Google Scholar
Linebarger, Marcia, Schwartz, Myrna F.; and Saffran, Eleanor M. 1983. Grammatical judgments in so-called agrammatic aphasics. Cognition 13.361–92.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Marshall, John C., and Newcombe, Freda. 1966. Syntactic and semantic errors in paralexia. Neuropsychologia 4.169–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Marshall, John C. 1973. Patterns of paralexia: A psycholinguistic approach. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research 2.175–99.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Marslen-Wilson, William D. 1984. Function and process in spoken word recognition: A tutorial review. Attention and performance X, ed. by Bouma, Herman & Bouwhuis, Don G., 125–50. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Marslen-Wilson, William D., and Tyler, Laurie K. 1980. The temporal structure of spoken language comprehension. Cognition 8.1–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mehler, Jacques, Morton, John; and Jusczyk, Peter. 1984. On reducing language to biology. Cognitive Neuropsychology 1.83–116.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mehler, Jacques, Segui, Juan; and Carey, Peter W. 1978. Tails of words: Monitoring ambiguity. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior 17.29–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mohanan, K. P. 1982. Lexical phonology. MIT dissertation.Google Scholar
Morton, John. 1969. The interaction of information in word recognition. Psychological Review 76.165–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Morton, John. 1984. Brain-based and non-brain-based models of language. In Caplan, et al., 41–64.Google Scholar
Morton, John, and Patterson, Karalyn. 1980. A new attempt at an interpretation. In Coltheart, et al., 91–118.Google Scholar
Newcombe, Freda, and Marshall, John C. 1981. On psycholinguistic classifications of the acquired dyslexias. Bulletin of the Orton Society 31.29–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Newcombe, Freda. 1984. Varieties of acquired dyslexia: A linguistic approach. Seminars in Neurology 4:2.181–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Newcombe, Freda. 1985. Reading and writing by letter sounds. In Patterson, et al., 35–52.Google Scholar
Newman, Jean E., and Dell, Gary. 1978. The phonological nature of phoneme monitoring: A critique of some ambiguity studies. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior 17.359–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Patterson, Karalyn. 1978. Phonemic dyslexia: Errors of meaning and the meaning of errors. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology 29.515–25.Google Scholar
Patterson, Karalyn. 1982. The relation between reading and phonological encoding: Further neuropsychological observations. Normality and pathology in cognitive functions, ed. by Ellis, Andrew W., 77–111. London: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Patterson, Karalyn; and Coltheart, Max. 1985 (eds.) Surface dyslexia. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
Postal, Paul. 1972. The best theory. Goals of linguistic theory, ed. by Peters, Stanley, 131–70. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.Google Scholar
Rozin, Paul, and Gleitman, Lila R. 1977. The structure and acquisition of reading, II. Toward a psychology of reading: The proceedings of the CUNY Conference, ed. by Reber, A. S. & Scarborough, D. L., 55–141. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Schwartz, Myrna F., Saffran, Eleanor M.; and Marin, Oscar S. M. 1980. Fractionating the reading process in dementia: Evidence for word-specific print-to-sound associations. In Coltheart, et al., 259–69.Google Scholar
Selkirk, Elisabeth. 1982. The syntax of words. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Shallice, Tim D., and Warrington, Elizabeth K. 1975. Word recognition in a phonemic dyslexic patient. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology 27.187–99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wernicke, Carl. 1874. Der aphasiche Symptomenkomplex. Breslau: Cohn & Weigert.Google Scholar
Zurif, Edgar. 1984. Psycholinguistic interpretations of the aphasias. In Caplan, et al., 158–71.Google Scholar
Zwicky, Arnold. 1975. The strategy of generative phonology. Phonologica 1972: Akten der zweiten Internationalen Phonologie-Tagung, ed. by Dressler, Wolfgang & Mares, F. V., 151–68. Munich: Fink.Google Scholar