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kernel sentence
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kernel sentence

linguistics
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A "kernel sentence" in linguistics refers to a grammatically simple sentence type that serves as the basic building block for all sentences in a language. These fundamental patterns, such as "Subject + Verb + Object," are the foundation from which more complex sentences are derived and described within transformational grammar. The term was first used in 1957.1

The word "kernel" itself, in a broader sense, means the central or essential part of something. This concept aligns with the linguistic idea of a kernel sentence being the core structure from which other sentences develop.21

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