ON THE PHYSIOLOGY OF LANGUAGE
Abstract
Healthy language is of two inseparable yet distinct forms:â (1) Intellectual, i.e., the power to convey propositions. (2) Emotional, i.e., the ability to exhibit states of feeling. The two are separated by disease. It is intellectual language alone which suffers in most of the cases to be described. Emotional language usually escapes altogether. Intellectual language suffers throughout, not only in its most striking manifestation in (a) words, but in (b) writing, and (c) sign-making. It is the power of intellectual expression by "movements" of any kind which is impaired, those most special, as of speech, suffering most; those of simple sign-making least, or not at all. Emotional language is conserved throughout, not only in its most striking manifestation by (a) variations of voice, but in (6) smiles, &c, and in its most simple manifestation by (c) gesticulation. Although thus circumscribed by the term "defects of intellectual language," there are within this limit many varieties of defects produced by disease near the corpus striatum. The author never uses the terms "aphasia," "aphemia," &c. It is easiest to say what they are not. (1) They are not defects of voice. (2) They are not defects due to mere paralysis of