Non-fluent aphasia in a polysynthetic language:five case studies

• Published in: Aphasiology
• Main Authors: Nedergård, Johanne Sofie Krog, Martinez-Ferreiro, Silvia, Fortescue, Michael David, Boye, Kasper
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: 2020
• Subjects: greenlandic
• Online Access: https://curis.ku.dk/portal/da/publications/nonfluent-aphasia-in-a-polysynthetic-language(29bd3d10-b176-48ef-ae68-608e99d87096).html; https://doi.org/10.1080/02687038.2019.1643000

Background: Polysynthetic languages can be roughly defined as languages which have an extreme morphological complexity. They present a range of challenges to linguistic and neurolinguistics theories that are based on standard average European languages. Yet, no studies exist on aphasia in such languages, and the communities that speak them have little or no access to assessment and language therapy. Aims: The aim of this paper is to provide a first attempt at a characterisation of aphasia in a polysynthetic language, West Greenlandic. Methods and procedures: We recorded semi-spontaneous speech from five participants with aphasia and compared their speech on several parameters with that of matched non-brain-damaged control participants. These parameters included standard production measures, measures of morphological complexity, and measures of syntactic complexity. Outcomes and results: Our findings indicate that non-fluent aphasia in West Greenlandic is not associated with morphological impairment; instead, participants with aphasia produce shorter utterances, and there are trends indicating lower complexity across measures of syntax. Conclusions: While somewhat surprising from the point of view of research on aphasia in standard average European languages, our findings align well with findings from other languages with complex morphology such as Finnish, Turkish, and Japanese. Our study highlights the need for a diverse range of crosslinguistic studies to inform linguistic and neurolinguistic theories.