Syntactic comprehension in Broca's aphasic Spanish-speakers: null effects of word order

The syntactic and nonsyntactic strategies used for understanding sentences by Spanish-speaking Broca's aphasic patients in off-line tasks were analyse d. It is emphasized that given the characteristics of syntax in Spanish, su ch as its flexibility (greater freedom in the order of constituents), the f unction of the direct object with the preposition a (to) and the effect of determiners, research with Spanish-speaking patients will allow for a chara cterization of specific disorders that cannot be generalized on the basis o f research conducted in other languages. A linguistic instrument was applie d to 10 Broca's aphasic patients. A forced choice task was used in which th e patient listened to 190 different reversible sentences and was asked to s elect one of four options presented on a plate; each option contained a pai r of animals performing a specific act and only one option was correct. The results showed significant differences in the use of syntactic and nonsynt actic strategies. Broca's aphasic patients used only morpho-syntactic marks with high cue validity. No significant effects of word order were found. T hese findings imply the existence of specific off-line linguistic mechanism s that influence the comprehension in non-fluent aphasic patients.