Linguistic Instance Item

Context:
- It can range from a Spoken Linguistic Item (with spoken utterances) to a Written Linguistic Item (with written language) to a Signed Linguistic Item (with sign language).
- It can range from being a Sub-Sentence Linguistic Item (such as a word or phrase) to a Linguistic Sentence Item (a complete sentence) to a Linguistic Passage Item (a paragraph or group of sentences) to a Very-Long Linguistic Item (a document, book, or corpus).
- It can be produced by a Linguistic Item Generation System (solving a linguistic item generation task).
- It can be accepted by a Linguistic Item Understanding System (solving a linguistic item understanding task).
- It can be associated with a Linguistic Item Intent (the action or meaning intended by the generator).
- ...
Example(s):
- a Speech Item, such as an oral presentation or conversation.
- a Hand-Written Item, such as a handwritten note or letter.
- a Type-Written Item, such as a typed report or email.
- a Digital Linguistic Item, such as:
- This linguistic passage ⇒ “Here is a digital sentence.”.
- a PDF file, a webpage, or a digital book.
- a Text Embedding.
- …
Counter-Example(s):
- a Gibberish Item, because it lacks coherent meaning.
- an Gesture, because it's non-verbal communication.
- a Painting, because it's visual rather than linguistic.
- a Linguistic Rule.
See: Utterance Act, Linguistic Expression, Linguistic Production, Linguistic Understanding, Linguistic Component.

References

(Romaine, 1984) ⇒ Suzanne Romaine. (1983). “On the Problem of Syntactic Variation and Pragmatic Meaning in Sociolinguistic Theory.” In: Folia Linguistica, 18(3-4). doi:10.1515/flin.1984.18.3-4.409
- Cited by: ~59 http://scholar.google.com/scholar?cites=11225957807231214362
- QUOTE: According to HUDSON's definition, a “linguistic item” is simply a pattern which may be identified, at any level of abstraction in the structure of a sentence".