Unit

单位

In a general, pre-theoretical sense, this term is often used in linguistics and phonetics to refer to any entity which constitutes the focus of an enquiry. In Hallidayan linguistics, however, the term has a special status, referring to one of the four main categories recognized by that theory (the others being structure, class and system). The unit is the stretch of language that carries grammatical patterns, and within which grammatical choices are made. For example, the unit sentence consists of one or more instances of the unit clause, and so on. In some grammatical descriptions, the term unit noun is preferred to countable noun.

按一般的、前理论的涵义，这个名称在语言学和语音学中常用来指任何一个作为探究对象的实体。但是在韩礼德式语言学中“单位”有特殊的涵义，指那种理论区分的四大范畴之一（其他三个是结构、类、系统）。单位是具有语法型式的一个语言片断，可在这些型式中作出语法选择。例如，句子这个单位由一个或几个小句单位的实例组成，依次类推。在某些语法描写中，“单位名词”一语用来指可数名词。