Uninflected structure in familial language impairment: Evidence from French

We present the results of 20 French subjects with familial language impairm ent (FLI) on a linguistic battery task, with an emphasis on verb production . The results show strong qualitative differences between the verb producti on of FLI subjects and that of controls. Language-specific factors do not s eem to determine the production of verbs in French FLI individuals. Rather, verb frequency and the inflectional status (uninflected vs, inflected) of the form seem to be determining factors in correct/incorrect production of a verb in a sentence context. The phonetic structure of French inflection p rovides additional arguments against the hypothesis of a processing deficit in FLI subjects. French tense morphemes are stressed and salient, and shou ld therefore be produced without problems, according to the processing hypo thesis. We found evidence contrary to this postulate. We therefore submit t hat the morphological deficit hypothesis is supported by the French data. The authors are cited in alphabetical order and have contributed equally to this paper.