[nameredacted] Linguistics490 28January2013 MorphologyandAphasia TheBlackwellHandbookofMorphologycontainsanentirechapterontheinteractionbetween themorphologyofhumanlanguageandthephenomenonofaphasiainthehumanbrain,writtenby WilliamBadeckerandAlfonsoCaramazza.Aphasiaisaphenomenonwhereindamagetothetissuesof certainareasofthehumanbraincausesdeficitsinlanguagethesedeficitsappearindifferentareasof humanlanguage,dependingontheareadamaged(theseareasandthecorrespondingkindsofaphasia arenamedforthosewhodiscoveredthem). Aphasiapresentsauniqueopportunitytotestthehypothesisthathumanlanguageisproducedin specificpartsofthebrain.ThemainstudyusedinthisarticleusesapatientidentifiedasS.J.D.,anative Englishspeaker,whoseprimaryspeecherrorsaremorphological(e.g.usingwalkswhenmeaning walking),althoughshowingoccasionalphonologicalerrorsaswell.Thestudyfocusesonthepossibility thattheseerrorscomefromeitherinformationretrievalorinformationcomposition.

Evidenceinthestudyshowedthatillegalmorphologicalcombinationsweremadeinwriting, plannedspeech,andspontaneousspeech,lendingcredencetotheideathattheerrorswere compositionalandnotjustinretrieval.Thestudyadmits,however,thatasonlyonesystemamong others,compositionmaybeconsidereda'backup'systemtousewhenretrievalfailstofunction.The factthatthephysicaldamagetothebrainofthepatientproducesachangeinlanguageprocesses indicatesthatthereisatleastacorrelationbetweenthebrain,mind,andhumanfacultyforlanguage

production.Whatthatcorrelationconsistsof,however,isstillupfordebatefromthedetailsofthe study,itappearsveryunlikelythatanyhardandfastdichotomywilleverbeproven.