THE NEUROLINGUISTIC STUDY OF SEMANTICS

This paper deals with the problem of the organization of the inner lexicon according to the Vygotsky-Luria approach. To discover mechanisms of meaning functioning Luria used aphasia data, that in their turn were analysed taking into account different genesis and functions of referential meaning (reference) and significative meaning (sense), developed by Vygotsky. The experimental studies reported, following Luria, showed 2 types of word meaning disturbances in fluent aphasia: a primary defect of signification in semantic aphasia and a primary defect of reference in different subtypes of Wernicke's aphasia. The results support Luria's hypothesis about different mechanisms and brain representation for referential and significative meanings.