Production of plural nouns in German: evidence from non-fluent aphasia

Abstract

This paper investigates the production of German plural nouns by two aphasic participants with non-fluent speech production. Experimental tasks included two production tasks: (1) picture naming of single and multiple objects, and (2) an elicitation task of singular and plural nouns. Materials were controlled for regularity and predictability of plural form, and for dominance of number, referring to the relative difference in word form frequency between a singular and its corresponding plural form. Both regularity and number dominance have been shown to affect plural noun production in both unimpaired and aphasic speakers, but the underlying functional origin of these effects is still a matter of debate. The results point to differences in the lexical representation and processing of regular and irregular German plural nouns. Thus, the data are in line with the dual mechanism account.