ABSTRACT
The language behaviour identified as neologistic jargonaphasia is an intriguing phenomenon that has inspired study since it was first defined by Bastian (1869) as 'a series of speech sounds without meaning' (Brown 1981). Although much is now known about the linguistic characteristics of that behaviour, the mechanisms underlying neologism genesis still engender controversy and resist unambiguous definition. This chapter will address current issues in neologistic jargonaphasia through an analysis of the frequently documented linguistic characteristics found in that syndrome. Discussion of the possible mechanisms underlying production of neologisms will be accomplished through exploration of two competing models in cognitive psychology: the hierarchical model of sentence production developed by Merrill Garrett (1975; 1976; 1980; 1982; 1984) and the interactive activation model of sentence production developed by McClelland and Rumelhart (1981) and Stemberger (1982; 1984; 1985).
