agrammatic

Agrammatic is an adjective used to describe language that is not grammatical or that lacks typical grammatical structure. The term is formed from a- meaning not, and grammatical, and is commonly used in linguistics and neurolinguistics. In general usage it can describe errors that violate the expected grammar of a language or a segment of speech that omits function words and inflections.

In clinical linguistics, agrammaticity refers to agrammatism, a language impairment often associated with non-fluent aphasia, typically following left-hemisphere damage. People with agrammatism may produce short, telegraphic utterances with accurate content words but missing grammatical morphemes, articles, conjunctions, and auxiliary verbs, and they may have difficulty with complex sentence structures. This pattern helps researchers distinguish types of aphasia and study the neural basis of grammar.

In other contexts, agrammatic can describe constructions or texts that intentionally or stylistically omit grammatical features, though this is less common and often described as nonstandard or ungrammatical rather than truly agrammatic.

Important caveats: agrammatic does not simply mean incorrect; it can denote a systematic lack or deficit in grammar rather than a single error. The term is primarily used in scholarly discussions of grammar and language impairment rather than as everyday vocabulary.