Definition of paragrammatism in English:
noun[mass noun] Psychiatry
Confused or incomplete use of grammatical structures, found in certain forms of speech disturbance.
- Paragrammatism (literally meaning the wrong use of grammar) and parasyntax (the wrong use of syntax) are variously described as the inappropriate use of words, speech made difficult to understand because of the breakdown of grammatical/syntactical construction.
- Caplan (1987: 286ff.) himself has conceded that agrammatism may be but a stronger form of syntactic deficit than paragrammatism (usually caused by left posterior perisylvian lesions).
- Example sentences
- Arthur Palacas finds that paragrammatical structures - structures outside the basic sentence - offer the speaker's evaluative comments on the content of the basic sentences.
- Paragrammatical variations are more frequent in life science publications than in common English due to the large number of publications by non-native speakers.
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