Exocentric construction

The exocentric construction, according to Quirk, Greenbaum, Leech and Svartvick (1985), is that syntactic construction that does not have any element that can be a substitute for all of it.

• For example, within the Bloomfieldian or Structuralist approach, a prepositional syntagma or a prayer are treated as exocentric buildings, although the most recent generational approach analyzes such syntactic constituents as endoccentric constructions.
• Several analytical peripheral constructions formed by a coordinating nexus can be considered exocentric constructions. So in the syntagma Juan and Pedro, none of the own names is the syntactic core of the whole syntagma.