2003 Volume 23 Issue 4 Pages 252-260
This study investigated the effects of bi-mora frequency and lexicality frequency on phonemic paraphasia. Bi-mora refers to frequency of joined mora in a given language. An aphasic patient who showed prominent phonemic paraphasia was asked to repeat real words and non-words in which bi-mora frequency was controlled. The results revealed that phonemic paraphasia occurred more frequently for non-words than for real words ; also, there was a tendency toward increased paraphasia for both real words and non-words having low bi-mora frequency. Word frequency did not have significant effect on the paraphasia. However, these results suggest that lexicality and the frequency of a mora sequence are important factors affecting the production of phonemic paraphasia in the patient.
In general, high bi-mora frequency yields familiarity of sound planning. Phonemic paraphasia is thought to have decreased for real words and non-words with high bi-mora frequency because of familiarity of sound planning, and decreased for real words with high bi-mora frequency because of familiarity of sound planning and semantic cues. In this patient the effect of familiarity seems to be the more significant factor for reducing paraphasia.
