Immediate Constituent
Definition:
An immediate constituent is any one of the largest grammatical units that constitute a construction. Immediate constituents are often further reducible.
Examples:
(English)
In the complex noun phrase the dog that killed the cat, each of the following items are immediate constituents:
- the
- dog
- that killed the cat
Source:
This page is an extract from the LinguaLinks Library. Version 5.0 published on CD-ROM by SIL International, 2003.