Radical autonomy of syntax: Evidence from transcortical sensory aphasia

Abstract

The syndrome of transcortical sensory aphasia provides evidence for modular theories of grammar. The ‘corrective repetitions’ of patients clearly show their preserved competence in the area of core syntax. In this study a detailed discussion of a patient is presented, whose corrective behaviour points to his sensitivity to syntactically autonomous, obligatory dependency relations that typically occur with antecendent-governed agreement relations. This isolated ability contrasts sharply with his complete failure at corrective repetition of lexical-semantic and certain distributional cues.