The present invention is a method and system for detecting linguistic markers as signs and indicators of mental illness, even prior to onset of symptoms of the mental illness. The linguistic markers may be detected in diachronic analysis of writing or speech samples. In particular, the present invention may identify lexical and syntactic changes in language due to mental illness. To recognize such changes the present invention may utilize complete, fully parsed texts or speech representing a number of measures. The identification of markers may provide a means of detecting mental illness early on based on a person's use of language. The language may be presented as spontaneous speech or writing, and may include samples of speech and/or writing occurring over time.
Method and system of longitudinal detection of dementia through lexical and syntactic changes in writing