Abstract
This study examined the comprehension ability of 7 conduction aphasics, using the auditory comprehension part of the syntax test for aphasia designed by Fujita (1981). The results were compared to data on other types of aphasics obtained by Fujita in 1989.
Four results were obtained. 1 ) Conduction aphasia showed a hierachy similar to that of Broca's aphasia. 2) The conduction aphasics demonstrated greatest difficulties in particle comprehension. 3) As syntactic constructions which potentially intervene in the conduction aphasics'comprehension, we considered word order, location of the agent in the sentence and the complement construction. Word order was shown to have the strongest effect on comprehension. 4) When the conduction aphasics confronted sentences above their ability, they utilized three possible strategies : a) word-order strategy ; considering the first noun as agent and the second noun as subject, b) verb phrase strategy ; constructing a verb phrase and considering the noun in theverb phrase as the subject, and c) morpheme strategy ; understanding the morphemes of passive and active sentences, thus enabling them to change the word-order strategy.
