The terms SENTENCE, CLAUSE and PHRASE are sometimes used interchangeably, although they are not the same thing. There is usually no problem as far as the term WORD is concerned, and there are the even smaller grammatical units, morphemes. How do they all relate to each other? Well, they form a hierarchy with sentence on the top and morpheme at the bottom. To be precise, there’s DISCOURSE, which is above SENTENCE in the hierarchy and there’s PHONEME or GRAPHEME below MORPHEME, but for our purposes today, let’s focus on the part from SENTENCE down to MORPHEME.
Here’s the video version:
Here’s an example of a sentence:
When she entered the house, her kids had turned in.
A sentence may consist of one or more clauses. Here we have two clauses:
When she entered the house, | her kids had turned in.
Each clause may consist of one or more phrases. Here we have the following phrases:
When | she | entered | the house, | her kids | had turned in.
A phrase may consist of one or more words. Here we have the following words:
When | she | entered | the | house, | her | kids | had | turned | in.
Finally, each word may consist of one or more morphemes. In our case we have:
When | she | enter|ed | the | house, | her | kid|s | had | turn|ed | in.