Tests for constituents in English
- Coordination.
- Proform substitution (replacement)
- Topicalization (fronting)
- Do-so-substitution.
- One-substitution.
- Answer fragments (answer ellipsis, question test, standalone test)
- Clefting.
- VP-ellipsis (verb phrase ellipsis)
How do you know if something is a constituent?
- Single words are constituents. ( ...
- Any sequence of words which can be functionally replaced by a single word must be a constituent. ...
- Any sequence of words which can stand alone in answer to a question or conversely, any sequence of words which can be questioned as a unit is a constituent.
What is a constituency test used for?
The way to prove the correctness of (3) is by applying so-called constituency tests. A very useful constituency test is substitution. It enables to determine the type of phrase by replacing the relevant word (or string of words) with another one which belongs to the same category [*].
