Lesson 2 - Phrases

Types of Phrases

A sentence consists of words, phrases, subordinate clauses and simple sentences. In the hierarchy of sentence structures, phrases are on the second tier above words. All phrases have a Head. The following is a list of eight types of phrases:

The head words give the phrases their names. Except the verb phrases, phrases have neither verb element nor a subject element as sentences do and cannot assume predicates of sentences. Verb phrases and verbal phrases will be covered in separate lesson pages.

Noun phrases

The components of a noun phrase are given below:

Not all three types of determiners are needed in a noun phrase. When referenced, the three types of determiners listed appear in a noun phrase in the designated numerals 1, 2 and 3 in square brackets [].

What are determiners? The determiners are words that determine. In dictionaries, they are categorized in as nouns, pronouns and/or adjectives.

Type [1] Pre-determiners include:

Indefinite pronouns (quantifiers): all, both, half
Multipliers: twice, five times
Fractions: one-third, three-fourths

Type [2] Central determiners include:

Articles: a, an, the
Demonstratives: this, that, these and those
Indefinite pronouns: some, any, no, every, each, either, neither
Possessives: my, our, your, John’s, people’s

Type [3] Post-determiners include:

Numerals: one, two, three, first, second, next, last
Quantifiers: many, much, more, most, a lot of, a few, a little, least, another, other, several

Among the three types of determiners, the first two types are mutually exclusive. only Type [3] determiners can be repeated in the same noun phrase.

However,

they appear in front of adjectives,
they do not have the three degrees of comparison as the adjectives have, and
some determiners can be used as pronouns instead of nouns or noun phrases.

Some examples are shown below:

All determiners are used to modify nouns. To modify means to limit the scope of and make the meaning of nouns in a sentence more definitive.

Take the singular countable common noun “man” for example. With an article in front, both “a man” and “the man” are noun phrases.

(a) When the indefinite article “a” is used, then “a man” denotes a male stranger.

(b) When the definite article “the” is used, “the man” refers to someone known to both the speaker and the listener, or someone they have talked about.

The pre-modifiers, such as adjectives, present participles and past participles, that are placed in front of nouns but after the determiners, also limit the scope of the meaning of the noun being modified. So, the use of an adjective “young” or “old” in front of “man” immediately limit the scope of the meaning of the noun “man”. If the indefinite article “a”, is used, “a young man” is a noun phrase used to denote any young man. If the definite article “the” is used, “the young man” is a noun phrase used to denote someone known to both the speaker and the listener or someone they have talked about.

Among all types of phrases, noun phrases are the most widely used in sentences. In the following six sentences, there are a total of fourteen noun phrases:

The noun phrases can assume the grammatical functions of sentence elements, and also be “embedded” in other phrases. Embedding is a very useful syntactic technique that is frequently used to enrich the content of phrases as well as sentences.

We now analyze the fourteen noun phrases listed above here below:

*The nouns in the table above marked with an asterisk * are all singular common nouns

** This is the present participle of the verb “sing” used as an adjective.

It should be noted that the present participle phrase and past participle phrase, infinitive, infinitive phrase and adjective clause can also function as modifiers.

For instance:

any student in the school who is interested in participating in this project

some people living in the city who came from all over the world

the most important thing to keep in mind when you are in a foreign country

Adjective phrases

An adjective phrase has an adjective as its head. The structure of an adjective phrase is given below:

Adverb phrases

Adverb phrases have an adverb as its head, and they are used to modify verbs, adjectives and other adverbs as an adverb. The structure of an adverb phrase is described below:

The following are examples of adverb phrase and their analyses:

Prepositional phrases

Prepositional phrases can be used to express temporal, spatial or other relationships. The preposition is placed in front of a noun as its object to show relationship between the object and the words in front of the preposition.

(a) If the relationship is with a noun, the phrase functions as an adjective and modifies the noun.

(b) If the relationship is with a verb, the phrase functions as an adverb and modifies the verb.

Prepositional phrases can be used either as adjectives or adverbs.

The word “preposition” with the prefix “pre-”in front of the root “position” means it is a word to be placed in front of its object. The object of preposition can be a noun, noun phrase or a noun clause. So, the head of a prepositional phrase is the preposition at the very beginning of the phrase. The structure of a prepositional phrase is shown below:

Consider the two noun phrases “the book” and “the desk”. If they are put one after the other. The four words “the book the desk”, or “the desk the book” do not give any definitive meaning. However, if a preposition “on” or “under” is used, we have

(a) the book on the desk, or

(b) the book under the desk.

Then the relative position between the two becomes clear, or it may mean different books.

In addition, the sentence “He writes his left hand” nonsensical though grammatically acceptable. By adding the preposition “with” after the verb “writes", the sentence “He writes with his left hand" means the writer is left-handed.

The following are some of the commonly used prepositions for forming prepositional phrases:

Prepositions used to express relationship with time

It should be pointed out that in front of the four determiners every, last, next, and this, the three prepositions above are omitted. For instance:

(a) We brush teeth every morning.

(b) My son came to visit me last year.

(d) It’s not very hot this summer.

Prepositions used to express relationship with a period of time

Prepositions used to express relationship with place, position, or direction

Prepositional phrases can be used as either adjectives or adverbs. In the following two sentences, the prepositional phrase “in the garden” is used as an adjective in the first sentence and as an adverb in the second.

1. The flowers in the garden are beautiful.

In this sentence, the prepositional phrase is embedded in the noun phrase “the flowers in

the garden” as a post-modifier to modify the head noun “flowers”.

2. We took a walk in the garden.

In this sentence, the same prepositional phrase “in the garden” is used to play the role an

adverbial element to indicate where the walk took place.

Summary

Phrases are not sentences, but they play an important role in sentences. The following examples illustrate the roles they play in sentences. The phrases are in italics.

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