The Definition of Word, Phrase, Clause and Sentence

These definitions are taken from Routledge Dictionary of Language and Linguistics by Hadumod Bussman.

Word: Term used intuitively in everyday language for a basic element of language; numerous linguistic attempts at defining the concept are not uniform and remain controversial.

Phrase: (1) term for word groups without a finite verb that belong together syntactically. In contrast, the term 'Clause' denotes a syntactic construction with finite verb; thus clause stands hierarchically between phrase and sentence. (2) in phrase structure grammar, the term 'phrase' stands for a set of syntactic elements which form a constituent (=relatively independent group of words. The most important phrases are noun phrases (consisting of nominal expressions with corresponding attributive modifiers: Philip, good old Philip, he, Philip, who is a dreamer), verb phrases (dreams, sees the fire, thinks that he's right), prepositional phrases (on the table)among others. (also adjective phrase, determiner phrase)

Clause: Neutral term for both dependent (subordinate clause) and independent (clauses main clause)

Sentence : Unit of speech constructed according to language-dependent rules, which is relatively complete and and independent in respect to content, grammatical structure, and intonation. Sentence can be divided into simple, compound, and complex sentence: simple sentences may contain only one finite verb plus obligatory and optional; compound sentences at least two finite verb, with clauses being joined through coordination; complex sentences contain at least two finite verbs, with all additional (dependent) clauses being joined to the main (independent) clause via subordination.

The next question is what is the difference between a clause and a sentence? According to me, a clause is group that contains words and has at least verb and predicate. The clause can be sentence. However, a sentence is the largest structure formation that contains a main verb, subject, predicate, intonation, and it's built by clause. So there will probably be some finite verbs that joined in one sentence. Example: I like you but I hate you. We would say that the sentence contains two clauses rather two sentences.