Electrophysiological Evidence for Sentence Comprehension - Wings

Binding, to be more precise) to explain language deficits in SLI children claiming that the
source of the deficit lies in the inability of SLI children to assign correct thematic roles to
arguments (van der Lely & Stollwerk, 1997). This explains wrong choices of case
markers or difficulties in understanding of passive sentences in English (inverse word
order with reverses thematic role assignments). In recent articles (van der Lely & Battell,
2003) she tries to explain the core deficit in SLI within the ‘Minimalist program’
(Chomsky, 1995) claiming that it is the movement rule that is affected in SLI.
1.4.2. Approaches to SLI
Common denominator of these 'linguistic' approaches is the claim that the source of the
deficit lies on the representational level, not on the processing one. This makes such
approaches highly controversial, to say the least: for example, according to the Extended
Optional Infinitive Account there should not be SLI in Croatian at all because there are
no optional infinitives in the first place.
There are several ways to classify theoretical approaches to SLI. Leonard (1998) provides
the most detailed classification. He divides theoretical accounts of SLI into three groups:
(i) SLI as a deficit in linguistic knowledge, (ii) SLI as a processing deficit in specific
mechanisms, and (iii) SLI as a limitation in general processing capacity. The first group
comprises of the theoretical accounts already described: a search for the deficit in the
grammatical system is common to these approaches. It is a ‘missing rule’ account. Other
two theoretical accounts have one common characteristic: they see SLI as a processing
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