An approach with the same descriptive aims is called constituent analysis. The technique employed in this approach is designed to show how small constituents (or components) in sentences go together to form larger constituents. One basic step is determining how words go together to form phrases. In the following sentence, we can identify nine constituents at the word level: An old man brought a shotgun to the wedding. How do those nine constituents go together to form constituents at the phrase level? Does it seem appropriate to put the words together as follows?

We don’t normally think of these combinations as phrases in English. We are more likely to say that the phrase-like constituents here are combinations of the following types: an old man, a shotgun, the wedding, which are noun phrases; to the wedding, which is a prepositional phrase; and brought a shotgun, which is a verb phrase.

This analysis of the constituent structure of the sentence can be represented in different types of diagrams. One type of diagram simply shows the distribution of the constituents at different levels.

Using this kind of diagram we can determine the types of forms that can be substituted for each other at different levels of constituent structure. One advantage of this type of analysis is that it shows rather clearly that proper nouns or names (Gwen, Kingston) and pronouns (I, him, her), though they are single words, can be used as noun phrases and fill the same constituent space as longer phrases (e.g. an old man).