Adpositionaalisia

Adpositionaalisia is a coined term in linguistics describing a hypothetical disorder affecting the use of adpositions in language production and comprehension. The term combines adposition with a suffix that evokes medical neologisms, though it is primarily used in theoretical discussions and fictional worldbuilding rather than as a diagnosed condition.

Symptoms include systematic misselection or omission of adpositions across languages, overuse of certain prepositions, or reliance on lexical nouns instead of functional phrases. It can manifest in both speech and writing and may be observed in speakers with high multilingual exposure or in language-learning contexts. The phenomenon is typically discussed as a pattern rather than a single universal presentation.

Causes are described as a mix of cognitive-language processing factors, cross-language interference, and reduced sensitivity to case marking or syntactic roles in adpositional phrases. Some researchers treat it as part of broader adpositional processing difficulties, while others view it as a theoretical construct used for explanatory modeling in conlangs and cross-linguistic studies. Because adpositions vary widely across languages, the concept is often framed as a cross-linguistic phenomenon rather than a universal defect.

Diagnosis and evaluation are conceptual tools in theoretical discussions. In practical terms, researchers might design controlled elicitation tasks, sentence repetitions with manipulated adpositional structures, and comprehension tasks to identify recurring patterns of anomaly. Treatment is hypothetical in real-world terms but in practice would emphasize targeted practice with adpositional phrases, explicit instruction on case and subcategorization, and cross-linguistic contrastive analysis.

In usage, adpositionaalisia appears mainly in fiction, linguistics education, and speculative research, where it helps illustrate how adpositional systems interact with syntax and semantics across languages.