Target-Related Neologism Formation in Jargonaphasia

Neologistic demisyllables produced by three subjects with jargonaphasia (Christman, 1990, 1992) were compared to target demisyllables to determine whether phonological patterns underlying target-related neology could be captured by the Sonority Sequencing Principle independently of phonotactics. Results revealed that substitution errors replaced most intended segments with obstruents, despite the absence of phonotactic restrictions that might have conditioned the errors. Findings suggest a default pattern of segment selection to which the phonological system reverts when normal processing is otherwise blocked.