Constituency Tests
Constituency tests are diagnostics employed to identify the constituent structure of sentences. There are numerous constituency tests applied to English sentences, many of which are listed here: 1. topicalization (fronting), 2. clefting, 3. pseudoclefting, 4. pro-form substitution (replacement), 5. answer ellipsis (question test), 6. passivization, 7. omission (deletion), 8. coordination, etc. These tests are rough-and-ready tools that grammarians employ to reveal clues about syntactic structure. A word of caution is warranted when employing these tests, since they often deliver contradictory results. Some syntacticians even arrange the tests on a scale of reliability, with less-reliable tests treated as useful to confirm constituency though not sufficient on their own. Failing to pass a single test does not mean that the unit is not a constituent, and conversely, passing a single test does not mean necessarily that the unit is a constituent. It is best to apply as many tests as possible to a given unit in order to prove or to rule out its status as a constituent.
Read more about this topic: Constituent (linguistics)
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