Sentenceinternal

Sentenceinternal is a term used in linguistics and natural language processing to denote phenomena, structures, or features that are contained entirely within a single sentence. It contrasts with inter-sentential or discourse-level phenomena that span multiple sentences. The concept is used to clarify the scope of analysis when examining syntax, semantics, or morphology.

Typical topics described as sentenceinternal include the scope of negation within a sentence, coreference that is resolved within the same sentence, internal voice and mood markers, tense and aspect realized inside the sentence, and the coordination or subordination relations between constituents inside the sentence. It also covers internal relationships in a dependency or constituency parse, such as which element governs another within the sentence, and ellipsis that affects only the current sentence.

In natural language processing, sentenceinternal features are used in parsing algorithms, feature extraction for machine learning models, and in rule-based grammars that aim to characterize sentence-level constraints, such as subject-verb agreement and internal argument structure. The term is not consistently standardized; some authors may refer to intra-sentential phenomena or within-sentence structure instead.

Sentenceinternal is often contrasted with inter-sentential phenomena, including pronoun resolution across sentences, discourse connective usage linking sentences, and topic continuity in a text. The term’s exact usage can vary by subfield and author, reflecting different analytic emphasis rather than a single universal definition.

See also intra-sentential, inter-sentential, negation scope, coreference, dependency parsing.