clauseinternal

Clauseinternal is a term used in linguistic theory to denote the internal structure of a clause. It concerns how the core elements of a clause are organized inside the clause boundary, including the subject, predicate, complements, and modifiers, and how these elements relate hierarchically. The term is employed across theoretical frameworks to focus on constituents that reside inside the clause proper, as distinct from discourse-level or clause-external elements.

In clauseinternal analysis, the central components are typically the clause head (usually the verb), its arguments (subject and objects), and modifiers (adverbs, adjectives). The internal structure is often represented as a hierarchical tree in theories like X-bar or dependency grammar, or as a combinatory structure in functional approaches. Heads project larger constituents, and subconstituents can host nested elements such as determiner-noun phrases within the subject or prepositional phrases within the object.

Applications include cross-linguistic comparison of clause structure, description of long-distance dependencies, and informing computational parsers that must identify internal constituency. The notion emphasizes internal relations within the clause rather than external factors such as discourse status or referential context that operate at a higher level.

Example: The cat chased the mouse. Clauseinternal analysis would identify Subject = The cat, Predicate = chased, Object = the mouse. Within the subject, The and cat form a determiner-noun phrase; within the object, the determiner and noun form another determiner-noun phrase. This illustrates how clauseinternal analyzes the internal substructure of major constituents.

See also: Clause, Syntactic theory, X-bar theory, Dependency grammar, Phrase structure.