Phrases
Phrases are comprised of one or more words that form a meaningful grammatical unit. They are one of the most important elements of English grammar.
What Are Phrases?
A phrase is comprised of one or more words that form a single part of speech (grammatical unit). If you think of a sentence as a building, phrases are like bricks of that building. They are typically a part of a clause or a sentence.
Phrases: Structure
A phrase is comprised of:
- One head (also called Headword)
- Two or more modifiers
The head of the phrase determines the grammatical nature of the unit.
Phrases: Types
There are five main types of phrases in English:
- Noun Phrase (NP)
- Verb Phrase (VP)
- Prepositional Phrase (Pre. P)
- Adjective Phrase (Adj. P)
- Adverb Phrase (Adv. P)
Other Types of Phrases
- Conjunctional Phrase
- Interjectional Phrase
- Gerund Phrase
- Participial Phrase
- Infinitive Phrase
- Appositive Phrase
Difference between Clause and Phrase
Noun Phrase
A noun phrase (NP) is comprised of a noun plus its modifiers. It can be one word or a group of words. A noun phrase can take the position of subject, object, or complement.
Tip
Usually, a noun phrase is just a noun or a pronoun.
Noun Phrase: Structure
A noun phrase can be made up of:
- a Head
- Pre-modifier(s)
- Post-modifier(s)
Pre-modifiers
'Pre-' is a prefix that means 'before' and pre-modifiers means words that go before the head. Pre-modifiers can be:
- Determiner (the, a, an, these, that, etc.)
- quantifiers (some, a lot of, all, etc.)
- numbers (two, ten, a hundred, etc.)
- Adjectives (beautiful, young, careless, etc.)
In the table below, you can see the order of pre-modifiers:
| Determiners and quantifiers | Numbers | Adjectives | Noun |
|---|---|---|---|
| The | beautiful | house | |
| These | seven | young | soldiers |
| a lot of | unused | stuff |
Post-modifiers
using a prepositional phrase
'Post-' is a prefix that means 'after' and post-modifiers are words that go after the head. Post-modifiers can be:
- Prepositional phrases
- –ing phrases
- Relative clauses
- That clauses
- To-infinitives
a
the
the
Verb Phrase
A verb phrase is comprised of a main verb alone, or a main verb plus a modal and/or auxiliary verbs.
Tip
The main verb always comes last in the verb phrase.
Types of Verb Phrases
Based on the type of the head, there are two types of verb phrases:
- Finite Verb Phrases
- Non-finite Verb Phrases
Finite Verb Phrases
In finite verb phrases, the head verb is finite and it is in the present or past form.
I
I
Non-finite Verb Phrases
The head verb in 'non-finite verb phrases' is participle, gerund, or infinitive.
I
She
Prepositional Phrases
A prepositional phrase consists of a preposition, the object of that preposition (which can be a noun or a pronoun), and any modifiers of that object.
I lived
The baby
Adjective Phrase
An adjective phrase is comprised of an adjective plus modifiers that describe a noun or a pronoun.
You have
The statues
Adverb Phrases
The head of an adverb phrase is an adverb. Adverb phrases can appear alone or be modified by other words.
I will come
Review
In this article, we have learned about phrases. They are words that are put together with no subjects and verbs. In this case, they cannot have a complete meaning. There are some main phrases and some other ones as follows:
| main phrases | 1. noun phrase | 2. verb phrase | 3. prepositional phrase | 4. adjective phrase | 5. adverb phrase |
|---|
| other types of phrases | 1. conjunctional phrase | 3. interjectional phrase | 5. gerund phrase |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2. participial phrase | 4. infinitive phrase | 6. appositive phrase |
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