Phrase Classes and Structures

Chapter Perspective: How Word Classes Form Phrases

  • Word classes combine to create phrases.

  • Phrases can function as subjects, objects, predicators, or parts of other phrases.

  • A phrase usually has a head, the main word determining the phrase type (noun, verb, adjective, adverb, preposition).

  • Five types of phrases exist: noun, verb, adjective, adverb, and prepositional.

Types of Phrases

Noun Phrase (NP)

  • Consists of a noun head.

  • May have pre-modifiers (before the head) and post-modifiers (after the head).

  • Post-modifiers identify or provide extra information about the head noun.

  • Possible constituents: determiner, pre-modifier, head, and post-modifier.

  • Pre-modifiers are adjective phrases.

Examples of Noun Phrase

  • dark eyes (premod: Adjp, head: noun)

  • sad dark eyes (premod: Adjp, premod: Adjp, head: noun)

  • city life (premod: Adjp, head: noun)

  • the teeth of an animal (det: article, head: noun, post-mod: PP)

  • the taut ropes that control the sail of a ship (det: article, head: noun, post-mod: FC)

  • all the books we read (det: indef. Pron, det: article, head: noun, post-mod: FC)

  • the shin tightly covered with smooth shiny skin (head: noun, post-mod: NFC)

  • these boring books discussed in class (det: dem. Pron, premod: Adjp, head: noun, post-mod: NFC)

Determiners

  • Function: Indicate 'where' a thing/person can be found in relation to the speaker.

  • Examples: articles (a, an, the), dependent pronouns, numerals (a few, a number of, a lot of).

  • Sub-classification into pre-, central, and post-determiners is not used in this course.

Specifying versus Classifying Genitives

  • Specifying Genitive: Expresses possession; can be replaced by a possessive pronoun (e.g., John's book = his book); functions as a determiner.

  • Classifying Genitive: Expresses the type of thing; functions like a pre-modifier/adjective phrase (e.g., car factory, history book); also can be called noun compound.

  • In a specifying genitive, the article is the determiner of the genitive noun.

  • In a classifying genitive, the article is the determiner of the head noun.

    • Example: the child's book (det: spec. gen., head: noun)

    • Example: a history book (det: art., premod: Adjp (classifying gen.), head: noun)

Stress difference in speaking

  • Specifying genitive: more stress on books

  • Classifying genitive: equal stress for children's and books

Post-Modifiers

  • Realized as phrases, finite clauses (FC), or non-finite clauses (NFC).

  • Examples:

    • the boy ahead (Post-mod: AdvP)

    • the boy in the room (Post-mod: PP)

    • the boy who walked into the room (Post-mod: FC)

    • the guy living next door (Post-mod: NFC)

Restrictive vs. Non-restrictive Post-modifiers

  • Restrictive: Identifies the head noun.

  • Non-restrictive: Gives extra information; set off with commas.

    • Example: The students who attended class regularly will do well on their exams. (restrictive)

    • Example: The students, who attended class regularly, will do well on the exam. (non-restrictive)

Relative Pronouns

  • who, whom, whose: Refer to persons (or animals seen as persons).

  • which: Refers to things.

  • that: Can be used for both persons and things in restrictive clauses (no commas!).

  • Relative pronouns function as subordinators and clause constituents (subject, object, adverbial).

  • Relative pronoun that may be omitted if it is not the subject.

  • Whose is a phrase constituent (determiner of a noun phrase).

  • For things, possession is expressed with a post-modifying of phrase.

Ellipsis in Relative Clauses

  • Subject + be verb can be omitted in dependent clauses.

  • Post-modifier can be realized as phrase or non-finite clause.

    • Example: Where is Sandra, who is the head of the English Department? (FC)

    • Example: Where is Sandra, the head of the English Department? (NP)

    • Example: Dr. Wilcox, who is unable to attend the meeting, will be here later. (FC)

    • Example: Dr. Wilcox, unable to attend the meeting, will be here later. (Adjp)

    • Example: I do not know the people who are in this room. (FC)

    • Example: I do not know the people in this room. (PP)

Word Order

  • Pre-determiners, determiners, quantifiers, numerals.

  • Ordinal numbers before cardinal numbers.

  • Descriptive adjectives (opinion before fact, size before shape, age, color).

  • Participles (sometimes before and sometimes after color adjectives).

  • Country of origin.

  • Substance (brass, cardboard, iron, etc.).

  • Adjectives relating to (atomic, biological, criminal, etc.).

  • Descriptive Nouns (church, school, etc.)

Extensions of the Noun Phrase

  • Modification by adjective phrases, prepositional phrases, complements.

  • Function as direct object, indirect object, subject-complement, object-complement.

Functions

  • Subject, Direct Object, Indirect Object, Benefactive Object, Subject Attribute, Object Attribute.

  • Post-modifier in noun phrases, adjective phrases, and adverb phrases.

  • Complement in a prepositional phrase.

Verb Phrase (VP)

  • Consists of a lexical verb (head) and optional auxiliary verbs.

  • Auxiliaries indicate the speaker's view of the process (ongoing, finished, etc.).

    • Example: may have been talking

Phrasal Verbs

  • Lexical verb + adverb/preposition/both.

  • Particles: adverbs and prepositions forming phrasal verbs.

    • Example: stand up (verb + adverb)

    • Example: rely on (verb + preposition)

    • Example: put up with (verb + adverb + preposition)

  • Should not be hyphenated, but nouns derived from them should be.

  • Can be transitive or intransitive.

  • Transitive phrasal verbs with a preposition: direct object follows the preposition.

  • Transitive phrasal verbs with an adverb: pronoun direct object between verb and adverb; noun/noun phrase direct object before or after the adverb.

How to distinguish between Phrasal Verbs followed by Direct Objects and Verbs followed by Prepositional Phrases

  • If the lexical verb cannot stand alone in a sentence without a following preposition, consider the verb and preposition to be a phrasal verb.

  • Phrasal verbs often have meanings that cannot be predicted from the meanings of the words they consist of

  • Prepositional phrases may begin with almost any preposition

  • With transitive phrasal verbs formed with adverbs, direct object is a noun or noun phrase then the adverb can come either after the object or in front of it

Adjective Phrase (Adjp)

  • Consists of an adjective head and potential modifiers.

  • Pre-modifier: adverb phrase.

  • Post-modifiers: adverb phrase, prepositional phrase, clause.

  • Discontinuous modifier possible.

    • Examples:

      • very good (premod: AdvP, head: adjective)

      • very good at swimming (premod: AdvP, head: adjective, post-mod: PP)

      • good enough to participate in the Olympics (head: adjective, post-mod: AdvP, post-mod: NFC)

Functions

  • Modifies nouns.

  • Functions as subject-complements or object-complements.

  • Attributive: precedes the noun.

  • Predicative: functions as a complement.

Adjective Phrases and Adjectival Phrases

  • Adjective phrase: has an adjective as its head.

  • Adjectival phrase: any phrase that can function like an adjective.

Adverb Phrase (AdvP)

  • Consists of an adverb head and potential modifiers.

  • Pre-modifier: adverb phrase.

  • Post-modifiers: adverb phrase, prepositional phrase, clause.

  • Discontinuous modifier possible.

    • Examples:

      • very easily (premod: AdvP, head: adverb)

      • faster than anyone else can imagine (head: adverb, post-mod: FC)

      • easily enough to go to the Olympics (head: adverb, post-mod: AdvP post-mod: NFC)

Functions

  • Adverbials (adjuncts, disjuncts, conjuncts).

  • Modifies adjectives, adverbs, and other word-groups.

Adverb Phrases and Adverbial Phrases

  • Adverb phrase: has an adverb as its head.

  • Adverbial phrase: any phrase that can function as an adverbial.

Prepositional Phrase (PP)

  • Consists of a preposition head and a complement (usually a noun phrase).

  • Preposition links and could even be argued that it's a kind of subordinator.

    • Examples:

      • in London (head: preposition, complement: NP)

      • concerning the news (head: preposition, complement: NP)

      • because of the fact that you were not able to arrive on time (head: preposition, complement: FC)

  • Complex prepositions: groups of words acting as a single preposition.

Functions

  • Adverbials (adjuncts, disjuncts, conjuncts).

  • Complements (subject-complements, object-complements).

  • Modifies preceding/following nouns.

  • Complement of adjective, verb, noun, or adverb.

How to distinguish between similar prepositional phrases

  • Prepositional phrases that function as adverbials can sometimes look very similar to prepositional phrases that function as complements of adjectives, verbs, etc.

  • Adverbials can usually move to the beginning of their sentences. Complements, however, cannot normally do this - they must follow the words that they are complements of: Another difference between adverbials and complements is that prepositional phrases functioning as adverbials can have any of a wide range of prepositions as their heads:: MUCH more restricted: customary prepositions.

Prepositional phrases that modify (that is, describe or identify) nouns are often hard to distinguish from ones that are complements of nouns (that is, that give more information about what the nouns relate to

Appositive Phrases

  • Predicate complement used alone without a subject or form of 'be'.

  • Subject appears elsewhere in the sentence.

Types

  • Predicate noun.

  • Predicate adjective.

  • Adverb (or adverbial expression).

  • Prepositional phrase.

Changing Adjective Clauses to Appositive Phrases

  • Adjective clauses with 'be' can be reduced by retaining the complement.

  • Similar to reduction in participial phrases.

Complements of Appositive Nouns and Adjectives

  • Nouns may be followed by the same types of complements as predicate nouns.

  • Adjectives may be followed by the same types of complements as predicate adjectives.

Position of Appositive Phrases

  • Most common position: after the nouns they refer to.

  • May also occupy initial or final adverbial positions.

  • Nonrestrictive phrases require commas.

Functions of Phrases in Sentences

  • Phrases have sentence/clause constituents (S, P, DO, IO, BO, SA, OA, A) and phrase constituents (heads, modifiers).

  • Five phrase types (except verb phrase) can have these functions.

Example

  • He was a Hindu, a puny wisp of a man, with a shaven head and vague liquid eyes.

    • Level 1: NP as Subject, NP as Subject Attribute

    • Level 2: NP as Post-modifier of a Noun

    • Level 3: PP as Post-modifier (of 'wisp')

    • Level 4: NP as Complement of a Preposition

    • Level 5: PP as Post-modifier (of 'man')

    • Level 6: NP as Complement of a Preposition (in PP modifying man)

Overview of Phrase Structures Table

Noun Phrase

  • Head is noun or pronoun.

  • May have determiners, pre-modifiers, post-modifiers.

Functions

  • Determiner(s): Article, cl. genitive, Pronoun, sp. genitive

  • Pre-Modifier(s): Adjp, NP

  • Head: Noun, Pronoun

  • Post-Modifier(s): AdvP, Adjp, PP, NP, FC, NFC

Adjective Phrase

  • Head is an adjective.

  • May have pre/post-modifiers, discontinuous modifier.

Functions

  • Pre-Modifier(s): AdvP

  • Head: Adjective

  • Post-Modifier(s): AdvP, PP, FC, NFC

  • Discontinuous Modifier

Adverb Phrase

  • Head is an adverb.

  • May have pre/post-modifiers, discontinuous modifier.

Functions

  • Pre-Modifier(s): AdvP

  • Head: Adverb

  • Post-Modifier(s): AdvP, PP, FC, NFC

  • Discontinuous Modifier

Prepositional Phrase

  • Head is a preposition.

  • Complement is usually a noun phrase.

Functions

  • Head: Preposition

  • Complement: NP, FC, NFC

Verb Phrase

  • Head is a lexical verb.

  • May have auxiliaries.

Functions

Aux (mood, aspect, voice), and Head is lexical verb.