A hypothesis for the aphasic syndrome of aggramatism--the omission of function words and inflectional morphemes--is presented. The author tests and illustrates the efficacy of closely observing substantive universals of grammatical structure in proposing accounts of linguistic defects. (Author/MV)

The justification for Kean's (EJ 165 107) analysis of agrammatism as a phonological disorder rests on a certain specific theory of the structure of human language faculty, which is summarized. Simply proposing a competing analysis based on a distinct theory does not falsify the hypotheses. However, Kean's claims are subject to empirical…