From phonological paraphasias to the structure of the phonological output lexicon

This study examined how phonological information is represented and retrieved, using analysis of naming errors in anomia. We focused on questions that relate to metrical and segmental information, the types of information each of them contains, and whether they are organised in parallel or serially. Nine Hebrew-speaking individuals with anomia due to phonological output deficit named 200 pictures. A detailed analysis of the 208 phonological paraphasias they produced, at the group level and at the individual level, revealed errors preserving only segmental information, errors preserving only metrical information (number of syllables and stress pattern), and errors preserving partial information of both types. There were also errors in the order of segments. The pattern of errors indicates that metrical information and segmental information are accessed in parallel rather than serially, and are merged at a later stage in which the segments are inserted into the word form; and that segmental information includes consonants and vowels, and involves information about their identity as well as about their relative position. Information about the number of syllables seems to be retrieved together with information about the stress pattern. The analysis also showed preservation of phonological principles.