Abstract
The purpose of this study was to investigate the mechanism for speaking neologisms. The subjects were 10 aphasic patients who generated neologisms most often among other linguistic errors. The method of investigation was to analyze changes in error responses between the first assessment and one month later. The subjects were classified into four groups according to how their speech errors changed. Three patients generated phonemic paraphasias dominantly. In three other patients non-related paraphasias increased. In two patients semantic paraphasias increased, and two other patients showed verbal paraphasias and phonemic paraphasias. These differences in speech errors reflected differences in damage in language processing. These findings suggested that the causes of neologisms are the disorders at both the phonological and semantic/lexical levels.
