COMMON FEATURES OF SPOKEN LANGUAGES Arbitrary link of sound and meaning occurs in absence of referent (displacement) small set of phonemes (/e/, /sh/,..) that carry meaning (duality) large set of morphemes –small set of “function” words & affixes –large set of “content” words syntactic rules that specify sequence and constituent structure (regularity) unlimited number of potential sentences (productivity) –iteration and recursion

DIFFERENCES AMONG SPOKEN LANGUAGES identity and number of phonemes –English has ~ 45 phonemes –Russian has ~ 70 phonemes specific syntactic rules –e.g., for basic declarative sentence, SVO 35%SOV44% VSO19%OVS 0% number of inflections (walk, walking..) –Chinese has none –Serbo-Croatian has lots total number of morphemes –varies with cultural complexity use of intontation (prosody) phonemically –Cantonese: “ma, ma ma ma, ma ma.”

ANATOMICAL ADAPTATIONS FOR SPOKEN LANGUAGE Lower larynx lets air through mouth vs. nose larger nerve for controlling tongue movements Hypoglossal canal

BROCA’S APHASIA damage to inferior left frontal lobe speech is halting and ‘agrammatic’ –“ah. Monday.. ah..Dad and Paul..and Dad.. hospital. Two.. ah..doctors..and..ah..thirty minutes.. and.. yes.. hospital.. and.. Thursday... teeth. comprehension impaired for more complex sentences –They gave her dog / the biscuits –John was hit by Mary speech articulation errors –chrysanthemum: “chyrsa.. mum.. mum “

WERNICKE’S APHASIA damage to left posterior temporal lobe speech may be fluent but meaningless –“I called my mother on the television and didn’t understand the door. It wasn’t too breakfast, but they came from far to near.” and contain “neologisms” –“ I was just wondering what kind of a hote mone murchin it is.” comprehension often abysmal may be unaware of deficit (anasagnosic)

TYPES OF APHASIA Broca’sLeftnonfluent speech Frontalcomprehension OK poor naming & repetition Wernicke’sLeftfluent, bizarre speech Temporalpoor comprehension poor naming good repetition Conductionarcuatefluent speech fasciculusgood comprehension good naming poor repetition Trans-angularnonfluent speech Corticalgyrus?Poor comprehension good naming & repetition