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phrase-structure rule

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noun Linguistics.
a rule that generates a sentence or other syntactic construction from words and phrases and identifies its constituent structure.
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British Dictionary definitions for phrase-structure rule

phrase-structure rule

noun
generative grammar a rule of the form A → X where A is a syntactic category label, such as noun phrase or sentence, and X is a sequence of such labels and/or morphemes, expressing the fact that A can be replaced by X in generating the constituent structure of a sentenceAlso called: rewrite rule Compare transformational rule
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
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