Glossary term U

Ultimate Constituent

An ultimate constituent is one of the grammatically irreducible units that constitutes a construction.

In the construction the dog that killed the cat, the following are ultimate constituents:

  • the
  • dog
  • that
  • kill
  • -ed
  • the
  • cat
  1. Crystal 1985, 68
  2. Quirk, Greenbaum, Leech, and Svartvik 1985, 38
  3. Mish 1991, 281
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