Syntax: Terms & Concepts
Phrases
Phrase: a word group held tightly together by meaning relationships. The purpose of a phrase is to signal to our reader or listener which concepts we wish to combine. A phrase like 'my new green hat' instructs the listener to combine the concepts that the words in the phrase stand for, in order to refer to a particular object in the world (the hat). A phrase is built around a head word (Noun, Verb, Adjective, Adverb, Preposition) and may also have several modifiers in it. Modifiers are expressions that add details of meaning to the head. The modifiers may be special single-word modifiers, or modifiers may be phrases of other types, or they may be clauses (especially relative clauses in noun phrases). In English, modifiers can appear on either side of the head word. This fact -- that phrases and clauses may modify words, and therefore be components of a phrase -- is a special property of human language. It often confuses students new to the study of grammar, although of course such students already construct phrases fluently in their unconscious, everday use of language.
Let us use examples (a) and (b)
as components to build a larger phrase, more complex in meaning than its
parts:
| (a) | the | girl | ||||
| determiner + | head noun | = Noun Phrase (NP) | ||||
| (b) | very | intelligent | ||||
| qualifier | head adjective | = Adjective Phrase (AP) | ||||
| (c) | the | very | intelligent | girl | ||
| determiner | qualifier
adjective
ADJECTIVE PHRASE |
head noun | ||||
| modifier
|
modifier
|
head
|
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|
|
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|
|
|
|
More detail will follow about phrases of different kinds. The exercise on the next page gives you practice in dividing a sentence up into phrases, even without knowing what kind they are.
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EXERCISE 2: CREATING PHRASES
Make two columns on a sheet of paper, one of nouns, one of adjectives of your own choosing. Then take each word and expand it into a phrase by adding determiners to the nouns and qualifiers to the adjectives. Then put the phrases together into larger phrases. Use the discussion of 'the very intelligent girl' as a model. Silly or serious, doesn't matter!
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PHRASES: TESTS FOR PHRASEHOOD
You can use the tests described here to find out whether or not a string of words is a phrase (that is, whether or not it can act as a constituent or building block for a sentence, or take up a role such as modifier within another phrase. Study the tests, then apply them in the exercises below.
Test #1: MOVEMENT
A group of words that can move to a different
position in a sentence is a phrase.
Examples:
a. I told you to put the pliers
in
the drawer, because in the drawer is where they go! (The prepositional
phrase in the drawer is moved to the front of the second sentence.)
b. I love fast, exciting basketball
games. Slow, boring baseball games I absolutely despise. (The noun
phrase slow, boring baseball games has been displaced to the front
of the second sentence; a more basic order for the sentence would be I
absolutely despise slow, boring baseball games).
c. I suspected that the discovery
would be really major, and really major it turned out to
be! (The adjective phrase really major moves to the front of the
second sentence.)
d. Out of the box jumped
a lively little puppy. (The prepositional phrase out of the box is
placed first in the sentence; notice that a lively little puppy,
which would come before the verb in basic sentence order, comes after the
verb in this sentence.)
Notice how bad these sentences would sound if we tried to group words into phrases in different ways, and do the movement:
a. *I told you to put the pliers
in
the drawer, because drawer is where they go in the!
b. *I love fast, exciting basketball
games. Baseball games I absolutely despise slow, boring.
c. *I suspected that the discovery
would be really major, and major it turned out to be really!
d. *Of the box jumped a
lively little puppy out.
Test #2: PRO-FORM
Any group of words that can be replaced by a
pro-form is a phrase (one kind of pro-form is a pronoun; but there are
pro-forms for verbs, adjectives, adverbs, prepositional phrases, and whole
sentences).
Examples:
a. NP: Take the box of books
and put it on the shelf. (It replaces box of books in
the second sentence. Words like it, I, me, you, she, her, they, him,
etc. are pronouns: they replace noun phrases (NOT nouns, as
traditional grammar may have taught you).
b. AP: My roommate said that Dr.
Frisch was very sympathetic, but she didn't seem that way
to me. (That way replaces the adjective phrase very sympathetic
in the second sentence.)
c. PP, location: Lee said that
the photos were on the desk, but I looked there and I didn't
find them. (There is a pro-form for the prepositional phrase on
the desk.)
d. PP, time: Kelly: Call me in
the morning. Terry: OK, I'll call you then. (Then is
a pro-form for PPs that designate a time.)
e. Tracy registered for the
course before I could do so. (Do so is a pro-form for
VPs: it replaces the whole VP registered for the course).
f. Kerry screams at his kids
constantly. I could never do that. (Here, do that is
the pro-form for screams at (one's) kids constantly.)
Test #3: CO-ORDINATION (CONJOINABILITY)
Any two groups of words that can be joined by
and qualify as phrases (i.e., each group of words is a phrase, and the
two will be phrases of the same type -- both NPs, both PPs, etc.)
Examples:
a. NP and NP: Two large hyenas
and a lioness fought over the dead wildebeest.
b. AP and AP: The UPS driver brought
me a very large and rather heavy package yesterday.
c. PP and PP: We went over the
river and through the woods.
d. VP and VP: The kids jumped
into the water and played around boisterously.
Notice how bad it is if we try to coordinate non-phrases (i.e., groups of words that may occur near each other in a sentence but do not make up a phrase):
a. *My aunt [baked a] and [ate the]
cake. (Sequences like baked a and ate the don't form phrases,
so they can't be conjoined.)
b. *[Two copies of] and [pages
in] our text are missing. (Two copies of and pages in could
be subparts of a NP, but they form no phrase as they are.)
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EXERCISE 3: TESTS FOR PHRASEHOOD
KEYS FOR EXERCISES
(1) What are the phrases in the following sentences? Use all of the above tests to find them.
(a) My uncle bought a very old truck.
(b) The new teacher will work very hard on her
lesson plans.
(2) In the following sentence, is her new bicycle in the garage a phrase? Use whatever tests you need to prove your answer.
My friend keeps her new bicycle in the garage.
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EXERCISE 4
Use the methods given above to find every single phrase in each of the following sentences:
1. Five bicycles were stolen on campus yesterday.
2. Tracy and her friend hiked the Yosemite trails last summer.
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Phrase Structure
As noted above, there are only two roles in a phrase: head and modifier. Various classes of words can fill these roles. The head of a phrase is a word, and words can fill certain modifier roles in phrases, but modifiers can also be phrases or clauses. In fact, most modifiers in phrases are phrases of other types, as we saw above in the example 'the very intelligent girl' -- 'very intelligent' is an adjective phrase that modifies the head word 'girl'.
Here are some of the major phrase
types of English with typical modifiers. This table does not give all possibilities,
just some examples.
| Phrase type | Modifier | Modifier | Head | Modifier |
| Noun Phrase
Example: |
DET
that |
AP
very expensive |
N
suit |
PP
in the closet |
| Adjective Phrase
Example: |
QUALIFIER
extremely |
A
angry |
PP
about your remark |
|
| Prepositional Phrase
Example: |
QUALIFIER
right |
P
behind |
NP
the desk |
Karen has been looking up the phone numbers of all the committee members. VP = predicate
Karen has been looking up the phone numbers of all the committee members. Verb phrase = lexical verb ('look') plus auxiliaries ('has', 'been') plus particle ('up')
Complements
Within the category modifier, we can make a distinction between modifiers and complements. A complement is a modifier that names something that can be considered an essential aspect of the meaning of the phrase's head word. This term is usually reserved for items that occur after the head of a phrase. Take, for example, a verb like 'eat'. A person cannot be said to be engaged in this action unless they take something (typically food) into their mouth and swallow it. If we name the thing eaten in a sentence with this verb, it will be a complement, usually a NP acting as direct object:
Miguel ate the whole pizza.
Noun phrase /direct object / complement of 'eat'
An adjective like 'proud' implies that there is something that the proud individual is proud of; an expression that names this thing is a complement of the adjective. These are usually PPs, for example:
Barbara is very proud of her prize-winning dogs.
Prepositional phrase / complement of 'proud'
In the case of some words, we are
obliged
to mention one or more complements, or else an ungrammatical sentence of
English results. For example, the verb 'put' requires two complements,
one a direct-object NP and one an adverbial that names the goal location
of the action. The adverbial may be an adverb phrase or a prepositional
phrase, or a pro-form.
| Nguyen put | his book
NP-DO |
on the desk
PP-Adverbial |
| Nguyen put | his book
NP-DO |
down.
AdvP-Adverbial |
| Nguyen put | his book
NP-DO |
there.
Pro-form-Adverbial |
We ate the pizza.
We ate at 3 am.
If you don't eat something, we can't really use the word 'eat' for what you did. But we can use the word without regard to when the eating took place. Non-complement modifiers are viewed as adding rather extraneous information to the phrase.
It is not so important to understand this distinction well as it is just to be aware that it exists. The word complement is used often in grammar and linguistics, and this should help you understand why we use a word other than 'modifier' in some cases.
Typical complements for verbs are direct objects ('hit', 'see'), indirect objects ('give', 'send'), and adverbials ('put'); some verbs also can have subject ('become') or object ('elect') complements. Prepositions have NP complements (called object of the preposition in traditional grammar). As we saw above, adjectives can have PP complements. Nouns can have PP complements, also: in 'a book about the war' the PP 'about the war' is a complement. We know that books are about topics (would a long text between hard covers that wasn't about one unified topic be considered a book?), so naming the topic simply fills in that detail in the meaning of the head.
You will find more detail about
notions such as direct object, adverbial in the section entitled Clauses.