The processing of compound words: A study in aphasia

Tile naming difficulties of an aphasic patient (MB) are almost exclusively confined to compound words. The paraphasias in response to compounds always reflect the compound structure of the targets. Frequent semantically adequate substitution errors suggest the separate processing of single components at the lemma level. MB's specific difficulties probably arise when two lemmas are defined by one lexical entry, as we suggest for compounds. The compound structure, as well as the positions of the single lemmas within the compound, would be specified before lemmas are accessed. The lack of a positional effect in substitution errors suggests a parallel activation of the two components.