in a broad sense, any sequence of linguistic elements linked by the relationship of dependent member to governing member. This is F. de Saussure’s concept of syntagm.
A syntagm may be a sequence of words (external syntagm) or a sequence of morphemes (internal syntagm). For example, dom-ik forms an internal syntagm in which the element dom- (“house”) is the dependent member and ik (diminutive suffix) the governing member. This syntagm corresponds to the external syntagm malen’kii dom, in which dom is dependent and malen’kii (“small”) is governing.
In a narrower sense, a syntagm is a phrase within a sentence; it may be predicative, attributive, or objective. In this same sense, the sentence is a chain of consecutive syntagms. L. V. Shcherba defined a syntagm as an articulated phonetic unit organized by intonation, expressing a single meaningful whole, and consisting of one or several rhythmic groups. A sentence may be divided into syntagms in various ways, depending on shades of meaning, logical emphasis, or syntactic homonymy. An example is vchera/bylo zharko as contrasted to vchera bylo/zharko (“yesterday/it was hot”—”yesterday it was/hot”).
V. A. VINOGRADOV