nominal aphasia
1
9.7
- noun
- /ˈnɑːmɪnəl əˈfeɪʒə/
- Specialized
:
afasia nominal
- The neurologist diagnosed her with nominal aphasia after repeated difficulty in naming common objects during the assessment.
Examples
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After his stroke, the patient developed nominal aphasia and struggled to recall the names of everyday items.
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People with nominal aphasia may understand an object's function but cannot remember or say its name.
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Patients with nominal aphasia struggle to recall the names of common objects.
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Is nominal aphasia common among stroke survivors?
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After the stroke, she struggled with nominal aphasia, often forgetting the names of everyday objects.
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Doctors explained that nominal aphasia can make it difficult for patients to identify common items like a pen or a chair.
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His nominal aphasia led him to call a cup a 'thing' because he couldn't recall the correct term.
Synonyms
Difficulty naming objects in speech or writing
A language problem that makes you unable to name objects or people
A condition in which a person cannot name objects or people
A condition that makes it hard to find names of objects while the person still understands speech
Surface Forms
Morphology
The term is compositionally built from 'aphasia' (loss of language) and 'nominal' (relating to nouns), so it denotes a language impairment specifically affecting noun retrieval or naming. However, 'nominal' is a technical/linguistic adjective that many B1 learners may not know or may misinterpret, so the meaning is only partly predictable without prior exposure.
Etymology
Nominal aphasia comes from the parts nominal (about names) and aphasia ('loss of speech'). Imagine someone who knows what an object is and how to use it but the word for it is missing from their mind — that's why nominal aphasia means 'being unable to name things'.