adjacent words

USAGE SUMMARY

The phrase "adjacent words" is correct and usable in written English.
It can be used to refer to words that are next to each other in a sentence or text, often in discussions about language, grammar, or text analysis. Example: "In the phrase 'the quick brown fox,' the words 'quick' and 'brown' are adjacent words."

✓ Grammatically correct

Science

News & Media

Wiki

Encyclopedias

Human-verified examples from authoritative sources

Exact Expressions

15 human-written examples

They were mostly definitions of words, both words from the text and adjacent words from the Arabic-English dictionary which had caught Teyeb's eye: not just "perpetuate" but also a little treatise on "peripatetic"; not just "veteran" but also "vex".

The New Yorker

Some of the lists were designed to encourage the exchange of onset consonants between adjacent words.

Journal of Memory and Language

However, such an approach fails to exploit the fact that the classifications of adjacent words are interdependent.

SEP

N-grams were generated by inclusion of pairs (bigrams) and triplets (trigrams) of adjacent words; in these cases stop words or connecting words were kept.

Journal of Cheminformatics

The basic problem for such an approach is that experimental data of within-word fixation locations consist of both well-located (i.e., fixations intended for the realized target word) and mislocated fixations (i.e., fixations intended for adjacent words).

Plosone

The proportions of mislocated fixations as a function of within-word fixation position follows a U-shaped curve (Fig. 2b, red line) with higher probabilities of mislocated fixations near word boundaries [8] due to contributions from overlapping tails of the landing position distributions of adjacent words.

Plosone

Human-verified similar examples from authoritative sources

Similar Expressions

45 human-written examples

Landing position distributions can be approximated by normal distributions, however, these distributions are truncated at word boundaries, suggesting that some of the fixations observed experimentally on a particular word were in fact intended for an adjacent word [3].

Plosone

Results: To reduce the statistical dependency between adjacent word matches, we propose to use 'spaced words', defined by patterns of 'match' and 'don't care' positions, for alignment-free sequence comparison.

Bioinformatics

Crucially, the syntactic violation relied on a structural syntactic dependency between two non-adjacent words in the sentence, whereas the semantic violation relied on purely lexical semantic restrictions of the preceding verb.

Plosone

(1) Query formation The query is formed from the example sentences of the given word sense in the WordNet dictionary by taking the target word and its adjacent two words on both sides after removing stop words.

Research and Practice in Technology Enhanced Learning

(3) Snippet scoring and selection Three scoring criteria were used to choose the most probable snippet including the target word used in the given word sense: (1) the word overlap between the example sentence and the snippet, (2) the number of adjacent query words to the target words in the snippet, and (3) the number of query words that appear in the snippet.

Research and Practice in Technology Enhanced Learning

Expert writing Tips

Best practice

When analyzing text, consider the relationship between "adjacent words" to understand context and meaning. Look for patterns, collocations, or semantic relationships that can provide deeper insights into the text's overall message.

Common error

Don't assume that the meaning of "adjacent words" is always obvious. Subtle relationships like irony, sarcasm, or figurative language can significantly alter the intended message. Analyze the surrounding context carefully to avoid misinterpretations.

Linguistic Context

The primary grammatical function of "adjacent words" is to act as a noun phrase where "adjacent" modifies the noun "words". This phrase typically functions as a subject, object, or complement within a sentence, as shown by Ludwig.

Expression frequency: Common

Frequent in

Science

50%

News & Media

22%

Wiki

9%

Less common in

Encyclopedias

3%

Formal & Business

0%

Social Media

0%

Ludwig's WRAP-UP

The phrase "adjacent words" is a grammatically correct and commonly used term that describes words positioned next to each other in a text. As Ludwig shows, it's frequently used in scientific, news, and wiki contexts. Understanding the relationships between "adjacent words" is crucial for text analysis and interpretation. While various alternatives exist, such as "neighboring words" or "contiguous words", "adjacent words" remains a versatile and widely understood choice.

More alternative expressions

Phrases that express similar concepts, ordered by semantic similarity:

neighboring words

Replaces "adjacent" with a synonym emphasizing proximity.

consecutive words

Emphasizes that the words follow one another directly.

contiguous words

Uses a more formal term for words that touch or are in sequence.

adjoining words

Synonym for "adjacent", but less commonly used.

nearby words

Highlights the closeness of the words to each other.

words next to each other

A more descriptive and less concise alternative.

surrounding words

Focuses on words that are around a specific word.

words in proximity

Emphasizes the nearness of words in a more general sense.

words in sequence

Highlights that the words are in a specific order.

sequentially ordered words

More formal and specific to the sequential order.

FAQs

How can I use "adjacent words" in a sentence?

You can use "adjacent words" to describe the position of words in relation to each other. For example: "In the sentence 'The cat sat', 'the' and 'cat' are "adjacent words"".

What are some alternatives to "adjacent words"?

Some alternatives include "neighboring words", "contiguous words", or "nearby words", depending on the specific context.

Why is understanding "adjacent words" important in text analysis?

Analyzing "adjacent words" helps uncover relationships between words, identify patterns, and understand the context of a sentence or passage, which is crucial for accurate interpretation.

What is the difference between "adjacent words" and "non-adjacent words"?

"Adjacent words" are directly next to each other, while "non-adjacent words" are separated by one or more words. The relationship between non-"adjacent words" can still be syntactically significant.