+ Models LINGUA-1472; No of Pages 14 Please cite this article in press as: Garraffa, M., Minimal structures in aphasia: A study on agreement and movement in a non- fluent aphasic speaker. J. Linguistics (2008), doi:10.1016/j.lingua.2008.04.004 Minimal structures in aphasia: A study on agreement and movement in a non-fluent aphasic speaker Maria Garraffa * CISCL: Interdepartmental Center for Cognitive studies on Language, Universita ` degli studi di Siena, Italy Received 2 July 2007; received in revised form 24 April 2008; accepted 26 April 2008 Abstract To investigate the linguistic competence of a non-fluent aphasic speaker we focus on certain properties of the patient’s deficit in the functional lexicon, and ascribe occurrences of non-standard use to defective syntactic computation. By manipulating the position of constituents, we tested agreement in sentences with post-verbal subjects and the patient’s ability to detect errors induced by different elements in attraction configurations. The results show clear asymmetries in grammaticality judgments of the different agreement conditions. A deficit in the computation of agreement in sentences with post-verbal subjects was reported, indicating the fragile nature of post-verbal subject agreement. In the experiment on attraction we found a clear impairment, with attraction induced by linear intervention of a prepositional modifier. However, the patient does not regard clitics as potential interveners in the SubjV agreement relation, in accordance with the view that there is no evidence for the weak status of clitic pronouns in Italian. By investigating the finer properties of functional elements we hope to show the extent to which certain characteristics of aphasic speech may be attributed to a possible reduction in the ability to process the finer structures of linguistic computations. A deficit in non-local configurations (the establishment of a relation over an intervening argument), along the lines of recent theoretical developments, was attested. # 2008 Published by Elsevier B.V. Keywords: Non-fluent aphasia; Subject agreement; Syntactic computation; Attraction effect 1. Introduction The present research is a neurolinguistic investigation of various Subject–Verb (SubjV) agreement configurations in a non-fluent Italian aphasic speaker. Subject–Verb agreement was investigated in an experiment in which the positions of sentence constituents – pre-verbal and post-verbal subjects – were manipulated. Evidence from comparative syntax and language acquisition reveals differences in the realization of agreement morphology depending on whether the subject is pre-verbal, hence in a local Spec/head configuration, or post-verbal, i.e. in a non-local environment. We also tested the ability of our subject to judge agreement errors in attraction configurations, where various elements intervene between the subject and the verb. In light of previous research on French adult www.elsevier.com/locate/lingua Available online at www.sciencedirect.com Lingua xxx (2008) xxx–xxx * Correspondence address: CISCL, Complesso San Niccolo `, Via Roma 56, I-53100 Siena, Italy. Fax: +39 0577 234758. E-mail address: garaffa@unisi.it. 0024-3841/$ – see front matter # 2008 Published by Elsevier B.V. doi:10.1016/j.lingua.2008.04.004