| constituent. When a sentence consists of a single clause, it is considered a simple sentence.
When the sentence consist of 2 or more clauses, it can be either a complex or a compound
sentence. These notions depend on the concept of clause. Now, a clause consists of phrases.
The term phrase refers to a constituent either of 1 or more than 1 word.
By segmenting speech/text into unitary constituents, we are faced with the task of
making a hierarchical organization of them. As a particular unit may consist of one, or more than
one unit of a different kind, it follows that we cannot say which one is longer or larger than the
other. Because of this, we look into the possible realizations of a unit to determine a hierarchy:
Highest unit SENTENCE which consists of one or more
CLAUSES, which consist of one or more
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