Phrase

A phrase is a grammatical unit that consists of organized words. A phrase may consist of a single word or a group of words.

## Characteristics

The following example consists of three major phrases, as shown by bracketing each phrase:

1. [The oposition] [demands] [a more representative government].

Phrases can be identified by substitution -- that is, by replacing one expression with another, to see how it fits into the structure. In particular, a multi-word word phrase can often be replaced by a single-word phrase without changing the basic meaning:

1a. [It] [demands] [something].

We can also identify phrases by movement tests. A phrase can be moved as a unit to a different position. Compare 1 above with 1a, this means that one phrase is embedded (i.e. included) inside another. The possibility of embeddding sometimes means that a given structure can be understood in two or more different ways. Consider the following example:

2. They passed the table with the two men.

Notice there are two possible meanings of this clause, corresponding to different ways of grouping the words (i.e. different phrase structures):

2a. [They] [passed] [the table [with [the two men] ] ].

2b. [They] [passed] [the table] [with [the two men] ].

The meaning of 2a is roughly: "They passed the table where the two men were sitting". But in 2b the meaning is "With (i.e. accompanied by) the two men, they passed the table."

## Syntactic roles

Phrase types differ both in their internal structure and in their sntactic roles-i.e. their relations to larger structures. REcognizing syntactic roles, like subject and object, can be crucial for the interpretation of phrases. For exapmle, consider the difference between:

1. [Mommy] [loves] [the kitty].

2. [The kitty] [loves] [mommy].

Here the noun phrases at the beginning and end are interchanged, resulting in a clearly different meaning. Thus the first phrase in both 1 and in 2 is the subject, and the second phrase is the object. By interchanging the positions of *Mommy* and *the kitty*, we have also changed their syntactic roles.

## Phrases in use

Noun phrases and prepositional phrases can have particularly complex structure in written texts, with several layers of phrase embedding. In fact, the complexity of phrases is a very striking measure for comparing the complexity of syntax in different registers of English. The simplest structures occur in conversation and the complexity increases through fiction and newspaper writin, with academic writing showing the greatest complexity of phrase structure.

## Types of phrases

For each class of lexical word, there is a major phrase type with an example of that class as the head: noun phrase, verb phrase, adjective phrase, adverb phrase and prepositional phrase. The head is the principal, obligatory word. In fact, each phrase can often consist of just one word: the head.

The factors that need to be recognized in describing phrase types:

* **Form/structure:** Our main test for the classification of phrases is structure, especially the word class of the head of the phrase and other elements contained in the phrase. (This is analogous to the morphological structure of words).
* **Syntactic role:** Phrases can be described according to their function or syntactic role in clauses (e.g. subject, object).
* **Meaning:** In general, the semantic nature of phrases is to specify and/or elaborate the meaning of the head word and its relation to other elements in the clause.