A grammatical constituent is a unit that participates as a component of a larger grammatical construction. Constituency describes hierarchical grouping, so adjacency alone does not establish that an arbitrary sequence of words forms one unit. Different levels of an analysis can contain constituents of different sizes.[ref]
In The red kite rose, a conventional analysis groups the red kite as a noun phrase and assigns it the subject relation. Replacing the whole group with it gives It rose, providing one structural diagnostic. The example separates the number of written words from the number of units occupying that grammatical position.
A useful analysis combines several diagnostics and states the construction under consideration. Context can license omissions or exceptional patterns, so one substitution does not prove every proposed grouping. Grammatical constituents provide the units of a theory of syntax; judgments and controlled comparisons supply evidence for choosing among theories.

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