The most critical attribute of human language is its unbounded combinatorial nature: smaller elements can be combined into larger structures on the basis of a grammatical system, resulting in a hierarchy of linguistic units, such as words, phrases and sentences.
Three sorts of linguistic units are mentioned, all of them explained in terms of function, not structure.
Before the child has any understanding of linguistic units, it undertakes a vast apprenticeship in their formative elements.
By contrast, in SFL, the three metafunctions are alike and contribute jointly to the description of linguistic units.
Domain concerns the level of linguistic unit at which a change took place.
The city's character was enriched by dozens of such groups, representing a broad array of linguistic and cultural backgrounds.
The panel votes on an array of linguistic issues (is "irregardless" standard? How should one pronounce "harass"?).
3 Although Canada has two official languages (English and French), it is a nation with many immigrants, representing an array of linguistic traditions.
Biology majors and nonmajors from different colleges and classes appear to use a consistent and detectable array of linguistic expressions to represent heredity concepts (e.g., Table 1).
On the other hand, in the case of disagreement between linguistic units (non-congruent collocations), there is a high likelihood of negative transfer.
Another distinguishing feature of stratificational grammar, in its later development at least, is its description of linguistic structure in terms of a network of relationships, rather than by means of a system of rules; linguistic units are said to be nothing more than points, or positions, in the relational network.
