Dual Processing of Open- and Closed-Class Words

A series of articles in the past two decades has suggested differential processing of open- and closed-class lexical items by normal adults. Difficulties in replicating a crucial study (Bradley, 1978), however, have weakened the dual route hypothesis. We matched 16 French open-class items to 16 closed-class items for phonological structure, word length, and relative word frequency. Three agrammatic aphasics were asked to read each word in isolation and in a sentence context. Error analysis revealed strikingly more phonological errors on closed-class than open-class items. Dysfluencies were greater on closed-class items and contributed to greater overall reading time for the closed-class words, consistent with a two-route model for the production of closed- and open-class lexical items in Broca's aphasics and, thus, normals.