| The aim of this study was to carry out a detailed instrumental, phonetic and linguistic analysis of the realisation of temporal and prosodic parameters in the spontaneous speech of brain-damaged patients.;Results showed that eight parameters (mean rise of fundamental frequency, group final intonemes, mean utterance duration, distribu- tion of utterance duration, mean number of syllables per utterance, mean number of groups per utterance, distribution of groups per utterance and utterance final intonemes) were pertinent for distin- guishing sub-groups of subjects with unilateral right hemisphere lesions. Ten parameters (percentage of non-identifiable syllables, percentage of speech time, number of syllables per minute, number of pauses, average pause duration, average group duration, distri- bution of syllables per group, group final syllable lengthening, group final intonemes) were pertinent for establishment of sub-groups of subjects with unilateral left hemisphere lesions. Sixteen parameters, (percentage of verbs, percentage of interjections, number of non-identifiable syllables, percentage of speech time, number of syllables per second, number of syllables per minute, number of pauses, pause-syllable coefficient, pause-group coefficient, pause-utterance coefficient, mean group duration, distribution of group duration, number of syllables per group, group of final intonemes and utter- ance final intonemes) were pertinent for distinguishing subjects with unilateral left hemisphere lesions from subjects with unilateral right hemisphere lesions. All subjects behaved similarly with respect to four parameters (relative syllable duration, distribution of pauses, distribution of group final syllable lengthening, degree of utterance final syllable lengthening).;A new classification of prosodic disorders due to brain damage was proposed. It was also suggested that rhythm (based on relative differences of syllabic duration) is more resistant to the effects of cortical lesion than intonation and constitutes a deep level of language representation.;The subject population consisted of eighteen Francophone subjects with verified, focal, unilateral left and right hemisphere lesions. For each subject a speech sample of approximately two hundred and seventy-five syllables (total sample of five thousand syllables) was chosen and examined in terms of forty-five linguistic and phonetic parameters. |
