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This paper proposes an understanding of agrammatism from the perspective of a recent usage-based theory of grammatical status, the ProGram theory (Boye and Harder, 2012). According to this theory, grammatical elements have two central properties: they are by convention discursively secondary (i.e. attentional background) and dependent on combination with a host item. The paper first surveys studies of agrammatic speech which, based on or reconsidered in relation to the above-mentioned criteria, show that the usage-based theory makes correct predictions about the behaviour of linguistic elements in agrammatic speech. Subsequently, the paper outlines and discusses two hypotheses about the mechanism behind agrammatism that can be derived from each of the two central properties of grammatical items. According to the prominence hypothesis, agrammatism is due to insufficient overall processing resources; this leads to a prioritization of lexical over grammatical expressions because the latter, being discursively secondary, can be dispensed with for communicative purposes. According to the dependence hypothesis, agrammatism results from an impaired capacity for combining or unifying simple elements into complex wholes: This impairment affects grammatical elements in particular, because these are dependent on (combination with) host items.

Coordination of international aphasia research would minimise duplication of effort, support synergistic international activities across languages and multidisciplinary perspectives, and promote high-quality conduct and reporting of aphasia research, thereby increasing the relevance, transparency, and implementation of findings. The Collaboration of Aphasia Trialists (CATs) sought to develop an aphasia research agenda to direct future research activities, based on priorities shared by people with aphasia, family members, and healthcare professionals. Our established international research network spanning 33 countries contributed to this activity. Research literature reporting the priorities of stakeholders was reviewed and synthesized (phase 1). Representatives from Working Groups on Aphasia Assessment & Outcomes, Prognosis & Predictors of Recovery, Effectiveness of Interventions, and Societal Impact & Reintegration participated in a two-day research agenda-setting meeting. The CATs expert panel refined research objectives and identified constituent components of research and methodological developments required to address these research components. The objectives and research components were grouped into overarching themes (phase 2). The resultant list was then circulated to more than 180 CATs members for review, revision, and approval. Consensus on the final aphasia research agenda and roadmap was reached by CATs executive committee (phase 3). The expert panel identified five overarching research themes: (i) evidence-based interventions for people with aphasia, (ii) effective interventions to support those communicating with people with aphasia, (iii) cross-linguistic assessment and core outcomes for aphasia research, (iv) predictors of language recovery, and (v) clinical implementation of research findings. Within these broad themes, 30 research objectives and 91 individual aphasia research components were identified and sequentially ordered. This agenda builds

Background: Polysynthetic languages can be roughly defined as languages which have an extreme morphological complexity. They present a range of challenges to linguistic and neurolinguistics theories that are based on standard average European languages. Yet, no studies exist on aphasia in such languages, and the communities that speak them have little or no access to assessment and language therapy. Aims: The aim of this paper is to provide a first attempt at a characterisation of aphasia in a polysynthetic language, West Greenlandic. Methods and procedures: We recorded semi-spontaneous speech from five participants with aphasia and compared their speech on several parameters with that of matched non-brain-damaged control participants. These parameters included standard production measures, measures of morphological complexity, and measures of syntactic complexity. Outcomes and results: Our findings indicate that non-fluent aphasia in West Greenlandic is not associated with morphological impairment; instead, participants with aphasia produce shorter utterances, and there are trends indicating lower complexity across measures of syntax. Conclusions: While somewhat surprising from the point of view of research on aphasia in standard average European languages, our findings align well with findings from other languages with complex morphology such as Finnish, Turkish, and Japanese. Our study highlights the need for a diverse range of crosslinguistic studies to inform linguistic and neurolinguistic theories.

The lexical-grammatical divide has been a widely addressed topic in aphasia. Speech parts are generally classified as either belonging to a lexical or a grammatical category based on the frequency of acquisition of new members in their paradigms (open vs. closed classes), thus neglecting heterogeneity within categories. Such an approach has led to contradictory findings. First, prepositions form closed classes, but are classically taken as lexical items. Pronouns, also belonging to a closed class, are analyzed as grammatical elements. Second, both within the group of prepositions and pronouns, forms with different syntactic and semantic properties co-exist. Following the theoretical notions granted by a usage-based theory of grammar, the ProGram theory, and taking focalizability as the classification criteria, we hypothesize that individuals with non-fluent aphasias will experience more severe problems with grammatical prepositions and pronouns, given that these elements are secondary and dependent, whereas informants in the fluent group will experience more severe trouble with lexical forms, potentially primary and independent. We focused on the performance of nine Spanish-speaking individuals with aphasia from the Rosell (2005) corpus. Samples of 300 words were transcribed and analyzed. As predicted, grammatical prepositions were found to be more severely compromised in the speech output of individuals with deficits of motor predominance, whereas lexical prepositions are more severely affected in individuals with deficits of sensory predominance. Although less conclusively, the same tendency holds in the case of pronouns. Our results, consistent with previous findings, confirm the heterogeneity of prepositions and pronouns, which should no longer be analyzed en bloc.

Imageability is a psycholinguistic variable that indicates how well a word gives rise to a mental image or sensory experience. Imageability ratings are used extensively in psycholinguistic, neuropsychological, and aphasiological studies. However, little formal knowledge exists about whether and how these ratings are associated between and within languages. Fifteen imageability databases were cross-correlated using nonparametric statistics. Some of these corresponded to unpublished data collected within a European research network-the Collaboration of Aphasia Trialists (COST IS1208). All but four of the correlations were significant. The average strength of the correlations (rho = .68) and the variance explained (R (2) = 46%) were moderate. This implies that factors other than imageability may explain 54% of the results. Imageability ratings often correlate across languages. Different possibly interacting factors may explain the moderate strength and variance explained in the correlations: (1) linguistic and cultural factors; (2) intrinsic differences between the databases; (3) range effects; (4) small numbers of words in each database, equivalent words, and participants; and (5) mean age of the participants. The results suggest that imageability ratings may be used cross-linguistically. However, further understanding of the factors explaining the variance in the correlations will be needed before research and practical recommendations can be made.

Comparative research on aphasia and aphasia rehabilitation is challenged by the lack of comparable assessment tools across different languages. In English, a large array of tools is available, while in most other languages, the selection is more limited. Importantly, assessment tools are often simple translations and do not take into consideration specific linguistic and psycholinguistic parameters of the target languages. As a first step in meeting the needs for comparable assessment tools, the Comprehensive Aphasia Test is currently being adapted into a number of languages spoken in Europe. In this article, some key challenges encountered in the adaptation process and the solutions to ensure that the resulting assessment tools are linguistically and culturally equivalent, are proposed. Specifically, we focus on challenges and solutions related to the use of imageability, frequency, word length, spelling-to-sound regularity and sentence length and complexity as underlying properties in the selection of the testing material.