This study examined real-time production of unergative and unaccusative verbs in sentences in 13 controls and 9 agrammatic speakers, using eyetracking. Speakers constructed a sentence, using written words. Results showed that both controls and aphasics showed increased gazes in producing the subject noun phrase in the unaccusative condition as compared to the unergative condition. However, aphasic speakers showed the difference before speech onset, while controls showed the difference during speech. The findings suggest that aphasic speakers are sensitive to the unaccusative-unergative distinction among intransitive verbs, but their time course of sentence planning may be different from that of normal speakers
