APA Dictionary of Psychology

grammaticality

Updated on 04/19/2018
n. the quality of adhering to the rules of grammar. In the linguistics of Noam Chomsky, the grammaticality (or otherwise) of a sentence can be intuited by native speakers and explained by the rules of formal grammar. A sentence can be recognized as grammatical even when it is otherwise meaningless, as in the case of Chomsky’s famous example Colorless green ideas sleep furiously.
ADVERTISEMENT

Word of the Day

ADVERTISEMENT

Psychology in the News