sentencewide

Sentencewide is a relatively new coinage used mainly in linguistics, computational linguistics, and related fields to describe properties, processes, or constraints that span an entire sentence rather than a single word or subunit. The term signals a scope that reaches beyond local or token-level analysis to consider the sentence as the unit of interest.

In natural language processing and linguistics, sentencewide typically refers to models, representations, or analyses that incorporate the full sentence as context. This contrasts with token- or phrase-level approaches. Examples include sentencewide attention mechanisms, sentencewide discourse features, and sentencewide contextual embeddings used to improve tasks such as coreference resolution or sentiment analysis at the sentence level.

In editing and writing, sentencewide constraints describe requirements that apply to the whole sentence, such as sentencewide tense consistency, voice, tone, or coherence. A sentencewide constraint would require all clauses within a sentence to maintain a unified mood, aspect, or register.

In education, design, or creative writing, the term can describe activities that center on a single sentence, such as one-sentence summaries, sentencewide writing challenges, or puzzles that can be solved within the bounds of a single sentence.

Usage and standardization vary. The term is informal and not yet standardized across major style guides. Hyphenation also varies, with sentence-wide and sentencewide appearing in different sources. Related concepts include sentence-level analysis and discourse-oriented approaches that operate at broader textual units.