sentencecentric

Sentence-centric is a term used across linguistics, education, and computational linguistics to describe an approach that treats sentences as the primary unit of analysis or design. In this perspective, the focus is on sentence-level structure, meaning, and function, rather than on smaller units like words or larger units like texts or discourses. The term is not tied to a single theory and can vary in emphasis by domain.

In linguistics and NLP, sentence-centric analysis involves parsing sentences, modeling their syntax, and annotating their semantic roles and information structure. It may inform sentence segmentation, grammar checking, and the evaluation of language models based on sentence-level metrics, such as acceptability, fluency, and adequacy. Sentence-centric approaches often complement word- or discourse-centered methods by providing a fixed unit for analysis and comparison.

Advantages include clear boundaries for annotation, reproducibility, and interpretability. Limitations include potential neglect of cross-sentential phenomena like coreference, discourse relations, and narrative flow. The term remains informal and usage varies by field; some researchers prefer 'sentence-level' or 'sentence-based' phrasing. Applications span education, where it can guide instruction on sentence construction, and computational linguistics, where it can influence model design.

Related concepts include sentence structure, sentence-level semantics, and discourse relations.