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In linguistics, a pro-form is a type of function word or expression (linguistics) that stands in for (expresses the same content as) another word, phrase, clause or sentence where the meaning is recoverable from the context. [1] They are used either to avoid repetitive expressions or in quantification (limiting the variables of a proposition).
The earliest use of the word clause in Middle English is non-technical and similar to the current everyday meaning of phrase: "A sentence or clause, a brief statement, a short passage, a short text or quotation; in a ~, briefly, in short; (b) a written message or letter; a story; a long passage in an author's source."
An example is land in the phrase land mines given above. Examples of the above types of modifiers, in English, are given below. It was [a nice house]. (adjective modifying a noun, in a noun phrase) [The swiftly flowing waters] carried it away. (adjectival phrase, in this case a participial phrase, modifying a noun in a noun phrase)
A clause typically contains a subject (a noun phrase) and a predicate (a verb phrase in the terminology used above; that is, a verb together with its objects and complements). A dependent clause also normally contains a subordinating conjunction (or in the case of relative clauses, a relative pronoun, or phrase containing one).
laugh loudly - Verb phrase (VP) with luck - Prepositional phrase (PP) that it happened - Subordinator phrase (SP = subordinate clause) Examples of phrases that contain both left- and right-branching (= head-medial phrases): the house there - Noun phrase (NP) very happy with it - Adjective phrase (AP) only laugh loudly - Verb phrase (VP)
where it is a cleft pronoun and X is usually a noun phrase (although it can also be a prepositional phrase, and in some cases an adjectival or adverbial phrase). The focus is on X, or else on the subordinate clause or some element of it. For example: It's Joey (whom) we're looking for. It's money that I love. It was from John that she heard the ...
Example: In the sentence John helped Bill in Central Park, the phrase in Central Park is an adjunct. [ 1 ] A more detailed definition of the adjunct emphasizes its attribute as a modifying form, word, or phrase that depends on another form, word, or phrase, being an element of clause structure with adverbial function. [ 2 ]
In linguistics, center embedding is the process of embedding a phrase in the middle of another phrase of the same type. This often leads to difficulty with parsing which would be difficult to explain on grammatical grounds alone. The most frequently used example involves embedding a relative clause inside another one as in: