Syntactic theory and the characterization of dysphasic speech

This paper reports research in progress aimed at providing a formal syntactic description of agrammatic language. The underlying assumption is that certain aspects of aphasic language are most revealingly captured at a syntactic level of description, and that currently the most parsimonious such description is to be found in syntactic theories developed within the generative framework, notably the Principles and Parameters framework (Government and Binding Theory) (Chomsky, 1981, 1986). The research extends existing attempts to characterize agrammatism in formal syntactic terms by reflecting recent developments in GB theory.