The current study examined the phenomenon of syllable duration reduction in words of increasing length in non-fluent and fluent aphasic patients and normal control subjects. Subjects produced four repetitions of 10 sets of three words each: a monosyllabic root word, a two-syllable word containing the root word, and a three-syllable word containing the root word. Acoustic analyses revealed that normal speakers consistently reduce root syllable duration in two-syllable words as compared to one-syllable words; a further reduction in root syllable duration occurs for three-syllable words relative to two-syllable words. Both non-fluent and fluent aphasic patients demonstrated a reduction in root syllable duration in two-syllable words as compared to monosyllabic words; for the non-fluent aphasics this reduction was smaller in magnitude than that exhibited by normals. Further, root durations were not further decreased in three-syllable as compared to two-syllable words for either aphasic group. Results are interpreted as indicative of a deficit in the implementation of a rule of temporal control in the non-fluent aphasic group, related to limitations on maximum speaking rate in these patients. Several alternative explanations are considered for the fluent patients' results.
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Shari R. Baum (1992) studied this question.
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