Linear and structural accounts of theta-role assignment in agrammatic aphasia

Patients with Broca's aphasia have long been known to interpret who is doing what to whom in certain kinds of comprehension tasks in quite anomalous ways. Attempts to explain their observed interpretation patterns have focused on how theta-roles get to be assigned to NPs in a so-called "agrammatic'' patient's representation. These attempts follow one of two basic approaches. In one approach, it is specified that theta-roles are assigned according to linear considerations, and in the other approach, it is proposed that theta-role assignment is achieved structurally. This review paper argues that the structural accounts are to be preferred to the linear accounts on both conceptual and empirical grounds.