title: For a new look at 'lexical errors': evidence from semantic approximations with verbs in aphasia.
abstract: The ability to understand the similarity between two phenomena is fundamental for humans. Designated by the term analogy in psychology, this ability plays a role in the categorization of phenomena in the world and in the organisation of the linguistic system. The use of analogy in language often results in non-standard utterances, particularly in speakers with aphasia. These non-standard utterances are almost always studied in a nominal context and considered as errors. We propose a study of the verbal lexicon and present findings that measure, by an action-video naming task, the importance of verb-based non-standard utterances made by 17 speakers with aphasia ("la dame déshabille l'orange"/the lady undresses the orange, "elle casse la tomate"/she breaks the tomato). The first results we have obtained allow us to consider these type of utterances from a new perspective: we propose to eliminate the label of "error", suggesting that they may be viewed as semantic approximations based upon a relationship of inter-domain synonymy and are ingrained in the heart of the lexical system.
authors.affiliation: Laboratoire CLLE-ERSS, Maison de la Recherche, Université Toulouse 2, 5, Allées A. Machado, 31058, Toulouse, France. duvignau@univ-tlse2.fr
authors.forename: Karine
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Duvignau
authors.forename: Thi Mai
authors.initials: TM
authors.lastname: Tran
authors.forename: Mélanie
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Manchon
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D001037:Aphasia / Q000503:physiopathology*; D032882:Comprehension; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007802:Language; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011578:Psycholinguistics; D013060:Speech / Q000502:physiology*; D014825:Vocabulary