Neologistic Jargon Sparing Numbers: A Category-specific Phonological Impairment

Are Number Words Fundamentally Different? A Qualitative Analysis of Aphasic Errors in Word and Number Word Production

“…With respect to post-lexical processing, Cohen et al examined the ability of reading aloud written number words, Arabic numbers, and other words in a patient with Wernicke's aphasia [15]. The results showed a double dissociation between number words and other words: In the production of words phonological errors were the most frequent error type, whereas in number words the most frequent error type were lexical errors.…”

“…Therefore, the authors concluded that their patient showed a deficit in post-lexical phoneme activation. More specifically, they suggested that number words are processed on the basis of different units compared to words: "While phonemes are the building blocks of most words, one may say that … individual number words [are] the building blocks of complex numerals" (p. 1058) [15]. Consequently, phonological errors in word production will arise because of incorrect phoneme-retrieval, while lexical errors in number word production will arise because of incorrect morphemeretrieval.…”

“…Specifically, they argued for differential processing routines at the lexical and phonological/orthographic level for number words and other words. Following Cohen et al [15] they suggested that the basic processing units may be phonemes in the case of words but morphemes in the case of number words. Thus, this account could be termed categorical as it assumes processing to depend on word type in a categorical way.…”

“…One relevant type of observation concerned the kind of errors produced for both types of words: Number words predominantly led to lexical errors whereas other words predominantly let to phonological errors [1,12,[15][16][17][18]. This pattern of performance has been explained by a 'categorical' account assuming fundamentally different processing units for both types of words at the lexical and/or postlexical level: While the processing unit may be phonemes in the case of words, it may be morphemes in the case of number words [1,15]. Unfortunately, the categorical account has remained underspecified, failing to explain how exactly processing of both types of words can be perceived.…”

“…Thus, if morphemes were the processing unit of number words, how to explain 7% phonological errors in reading aloud of number words as observed by Messina [1]? Such deviant errors have been reported repeatedly [15,16]. This conceptual question turns into a methodological one if one asks which distribution of errors can be regarded as sufficiently skewed to assume a qualitatively different processing routine.…”