Phonemic false evaluation: Theoretical and clinical aspects

Abstract

The phenomenon of phonemic false evaluation has been appreciated since the latter part of the 19th century, when it was first observed that hearers quite often assign speech sounds produced by speakers to phonemic units different from the ones intended by speakers. This speaker-hearer mismatch had occasioned serious problems for the first linguistic analyses of American Indian languages. Early in the 20th century, N. Trubetzkoy coined the term ‘phonemic false evaluation’, and elaborated upon it in his characterizations and comparisons of the phonological systems of a vast array of languages of the world. The present paper is an attempt to show that phonemic false evaluation can represent a stumbling block in the analysis of aphasia, since as we demonstrate, many subphonemic articulatory aberrations produced by aphasic speakers are perceived by hearers as higher level phonemic substitutions—substitutions quite often never intended by the aphasic. The theoretical and diagnostic consequences of phonemic false evaluation are subsequently considered for the description, analysis and evaluation of aphasia.