The impact of morphophonological patterns on verb production: evidence from acquired morphological impairment.
Stacey Rimikis, Adam Buchwald
PMID 30285489WHAT IT FOUND
In one person with aphasia, past-tense verb errors varied with how common the verb's sound-change pattern was.
Regular verbs were easier when their pattern matched common English patterns. Irregular verb accuracy did not show this pattern, but more typical regular errors were more likely.
Key findings
01For regular past-tense verbs, lower fit with common English sound-change patterns was associated with more errors.
02For irregular verbs, accuracy did not show a reliable relationship with typicality, but regularization errors were more likely when the regular error itself was more typical.
03The tasks showed a morphological deficit separable from phonological errors, because morphological complexity affected accuracy and final consonant deletion more than phonological complexity.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
Read the rest of this summary
You get three full summaries a month, free, and we do not ask for a card. Search, the TL;DRs and your library stay unlimited either way.
What it does not show
This was a single-case study of one person with aphasia, so the pattern may not apply to other clients. The study did not test a treatment, so it cannot show that grouping verbs by sound patterns improves therapy. The effect was not uniform across verb types: irregular verb accuracy was not related to the typicality of the correct irregular pattern. The participant had both morphological and phonological errors, and although tasks were designed to separate them, the findings remain tied to this individual's language profile.
Declared interests
The authors report no conflicts of interest.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read these results as proof that grouping verbs by sound patterns will improve therapy. The study examined one person with aphasia and did not test an intervention, so it shows a pattern of errors, not a treatment effect.