THE 2-STAGE MODEL OF LEXICAL RETRIEVAL - EVIDENCE FROM A CASE OF ANOMIA WITH SELECTIVE PRESERVATION OF GRAMMATICAL GENDER

The two-stage theory of lexical production distinguishes the retrieval of lemmas from the subsequent retrieval of the forms of words. The in formation made available by lemma retrieval includes semantic and gram matical details that are specific to a particular word, but not the di rect specification of its phonological or orthographic form. This theo ry makes very strong predictions regarding the dissociability of these information types. In this report we present the case of an Italian a nemic patient whose performance bears on these predictions. In various naming tasks this patient's intact ability to identify the grammatica l gender of words that he cannot produce stands in stark contrast with his inability to provide any information regarding particular lexical forms. We document the reliability of this performance pattern, and w e discuss the significance of this pattern both in terms of the suppor t it provides for the two-stage theory of lexical retrieval and in ter ms of the evidence it furnishes regarding the mental specification of grammatical information.