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What are parts of writing like "statement", "assertion", "argument", "hypothesis", etc collectively called?

English Language & Usage Asked on May 10, 2021

Consider the following made up paragraph

Suppose I give you a word, any word. Would you be able to make sense of it? Is it even possible to make sense of a word without surrounding context? I do not think it is. But seeing that sentences, paragraphs, and even books are all made up of individual words, it’s hard to believe that anything else should make sense. It doesn’t make sense. I think we should all come together to abolish words and all language.

With my very incomplete and disorganized knowledge, here is how I’d label parts of this paragraph.

  • First Sentence: supposition, question. Entire sentence is a proposition.
  • Second Sentence: rhetorical question, statement.
  • Third Sentence: observation, deduction
  • Fourth Sentence: assertion
  • Fifth Sentence: appeal
  • The entire paragraph: argument

We know grammar is made up of word classes/parts of speech which are nouns, verbs, etc. These are the labels we give to individual words.

But we can also give labels to entire sentences, clauses, and paragraphs. Is there a collective term to refer to these just like we have parts of speech for labels of words?

Bonus question: is there also a term analogous to grammar? grammar is to parts of speech like X is to Y. Where Y is the answer to main question, and Y to this bonus question.

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