Phonologische Komplexität: Demisilben inVersprechern, Paraphasien und Neologismen

The following study addresses the question whether slips of the tongue(Frankfurter Versprecherkorpus) alter the phonological complexity of thetargeted demisyllables. The analysis is based on Clements (1990) phonologicaltheory, in which the markedness of demisyllables is calculated onthe basis of major class features and syllabic positions of the respectivephonemes. The analysis of the slips of the tongue showed no significantasymmetry. The erroneous as well as the intended demisyllables did notdiffer in their phonological complexity. Furthermore, slip repairs are insensitiveto phonological complexity. Even for phonological paraphasias phonologicalcomplexity is not a critical feature. In this respect they behavelike slips of the tongue. On the contrary, so-called abstruse neologismsproduced by aphasic patients are mostly constructed with unmarked demisyllables.To explain this difference, we refer to a modified language productionmodel by Buckingham (1990). In contrast to slips and paraphasias,a language processing component that is underused after languageacquisition is completed is activated during the production of abstruse neologismsdue to lexical blocking. This sublexical component, the so-calledrandom generator, fills the syllable positions in such a way that demisyllablesof low phonological complexity are generated.