PHRASES – CLAUSES - SENTENCES

INTRODUCTION
Word and sentence are two basic units to grammar, though they are by no mean
the only units of grammatical structure, and there is no direct relation between words and
sentences. Neither are they the smallest and largest units of grammar respectively: there
are recognizable units smaller than words, and units larger than sentences. However,
sentences do exhibit a structure that a larger unit, i.e. paragraph or discourse, does.
Words do not pattern directly into sentences. This implies that there are some
intervening levels of organization between word and sentence.
Consider the following sentence:
The grand old man of letters stumbled along the dimly- lit road, but the pen which he had
lost had been picked up by a small boy.
This sentence cannot be viewed simply as a concatenation of words: the + grand + old +
man+ etc. Some groups of words belong more closely together than any of them do with
any others, and these longer stretches of group words in turn form larger units. In this
sentence, we can recognize the following word groupings: the grand old man of letters/
stumbled/ along the dimly-lit road/ the pen which he had lost/ had been picked up/by a
small boy/. These are called phrases. They combine in turn into larger units: the grand
old man of letters stumbled along the dimly lit road/ the pen which he had lost had been
picked up by a small boy. These are called clauses. And then they are linked together by
BUT to form a complete sentence.
Thus, words pattern into phrases, phrases into clauses and clauses into sentences.
Or from the alternative perspective, a sentence is composed of one or more clauses, a
clause is composed of one or more phrases and a phrase is composed of one or more
words. Our investigation of grammar will, then, be concerned with the kinds of words,
phrases, clauses and sentences that occur in contemporary English, and with the rules for
their structure and combination.
(Jackson, pp3-4)
 PHRASES

Classes of phrase:
We shall recognize five classes of phrase: NOUN PHRASE (NP), ADJECTIVE
PHRASE (ADJ.P), ADVERB PHRASE (ADV.P), PREPOSITIONAL PHRASE (P.P)
and VERB PHRASE (VP). Of these, noun phrase (NP), adjective phrase (adj.p), adverb
phrase (adv.p) all have the same basic structure:
[Premodifier(s)] + HEAD + [Postmodifier(s)]

I. NOUN PHRASE (NP)

A. Structure: The structure of the NP is as follow:
Determiners + Adj Phrase + Noun modifier + HEAD + post modifiers
1 2 3 4 5

1. DETERMINERS may be:

 All, both, half, twice, such (a), etc.

 Articles: a, an, the.
 Demonstratives: this, that, these, those.
 Possessives: my, your, our, John’s, etc.
 Indefinite: some, any, another, each, every, no, enough, etc.
 Cardinal number: one, two, three, etc.
 Ordinal numbers: first, second, third, etc.
 General ordinals: other, next, last,
2. ADJECTIVE PHRASE:
When there are more than one adjective in front of the head noun, they must be
aranged in the order OSASCO
O-S-A-S-C-O: opinion, size, age, shape, colour, origin
E.g. a handsome(O) tall(S) young(A) American(O) man
Big(S) blue(C) eyes
a new(A) black(C) shirt

3. NOUN PREMODIFIER:
E.g. evening class; gold rings; a nylon shirt
4. The HEAD of an NP may be:

 a noun: the beauty, Linda, these cats, etc.

 a pronoun: them, itself, everyone in the street, etc.
 an adjective: the rich, the young, etc.
 a genitive phrase: the teacher’s, Lan’s, etc.
 an enumerator: all fifteen, her twenties, etc.
Two of the less usual possibilities (iii) & (v) are illustrated in:
E.g. The greedy will take all three.
In such cases, there is usually a noun which semantically is understood to be the
head: the greedy = the greedy people, all three = all three loaves.
5. The POSTMODIFIERS of an NP may be:
 Prepositional phrases:
E.g. the best day of my life, his desire for fame, etc.
The occurrence of subordinate PPs as post-modifiers is very common, and it is
important to distinguish cases like:
E.g. (1) the girl by the table with the carved legs
(2) the girl by the table with the sunburnt legs
In (1) one PP post-modifies “girl”, and the other PP is subordinate to it, post-
modifying “table”. In (2), however, both PPs post-modify “girl”.
 Adjective phrases:
E.g. something strange, people alive, etc.
  Adverb phrases:
E.g. the room upstairs, the house opposite, etc.
 Noun phrase as apposition:
E.g. the bandicoot, a tiny marsupial
 Relative clauses:
E.g. a quality that I admire, the book which I bought at a book festival, the man who
leads the collection campaign, etc.

 Non-finite clauses:
3 types of non-finite clause can occur as post-modifiers:

 To infinitive:
E.g. the man to see; the energy to run away

 Ing participle:
E.g. the man carrying the shotgun; three men digging for gold

 Ed participle:
E.g. the techniques used; the film directed by Mel Gibson
B. Function:
In the clause, NPs act as subject (S), as object (O), or as complement (C) and as
adverbial (A).
E.g. The house was empty. NP = S
The cost of living in London is high NP = S
We have bought a new house. NP = Od
They gave him some money. NP = Oi
This must be their house. NP = Cs
Her youngest daughter has become a very famous violist. NP = Cs
They elected him the monitor NP = Co
 We called him a fool NP = Co
We moved to Ho Chi Minh City last year. NP = A
The couple is going to Dalat for their honeymoon next week. NP = A
II. THE PREPOSITIONAL PHRASE (PP)
A. Structure:
PP = Preposition + NP/-V-ing/finite clause

B. Function:
 In the clause, PPs act as adverbials (A):
E.g. We have been living here for 10 years.
The children go to school every day.
The adverbial PPs have various meanings. In the following sentence, the three PPs
are adverbials of time-when, means, and place, answering the questions When? How?
and Where?
E.g. By Monday we had arrived by train in New York.
 In NPs, Adj.Ps, Adv.Ps and PPs, subordinate PPs act as postmodifiers.
E.g. the girl in the room
afraid of spiders
too quickly for comfort
on the top of the bookshelf
III. THE ADJECTIVE PHRASE AND THE ADVERB PHRASE
The adjective phrase (Adj.P)
A. Structure:
[Premodifier(s)] + HEAD + [Postmodifier(s)]

a) The head of an Adj.P must be an Adjective which may be simple,

comparative or superlative.
E.g. quite cheap, her elder brother, the most intelligent boy, etc.
 b) Premodifiers are always adverbs: typically, adverbs of degree (extremely,
rather, too, very) or other adverbs (surprisingly, convincingly). Some, especially very and
too, can be reduplicated (very very very tall).
c) Postmodifiers can be:
 Adverbs (indeed, enough)
E.g. very tall indeed, nice enough
 PPs:
E.g. too hot for comfort
 Non-finite clauses:
E.g. too difficult for me to understand
 Finite clauses:
E.g. more interesting than I thought
B. Function:
 In the clause, Adj.Ps function as complement (C):
E.g. This coffee is hot.
Adolphus drinks his coffee hot.
In the phrase, Adj.Ps can function as premodifiers in NPs:
E.g. a very large slice of bread
the most boring book
The adverb phrase (Adv.P)
A. Structure:
[Premodifier(s)] + HEAD + [Postmodifier(s)]
a) The head of an Adv.P must be an adverb
E.g. very successfully, quite quickly, etc.
b) Otherwise, the structure of Adv.Ps is the same as that of Adj.Ps:
E.g. too quickly for comfort
 more slowly than we expected
clearly enough for me to understand
B. Function:
Adv.Ps function in the clause as adverbials (A).
E.g. She sang very well.
The passengers are talking extremely noisily in the outside the station.
IV. THE VERB PHRASE (VP)
The VP always acts as predicator (P) in the clause. We need to distinguish
between finite and non-finite verb phrases.
1. Finite and non-finite verb phrases:
The verb forms operate in finite and non-finite verb phrase, which are
distinguished as follows:
Finite verb phrase:
(i) Finite verb phrases have tense distinction:
E.g. He works as a builder.
He worked as a builder.
(ii) Finite verb phrase occurs as the verb element of a clause. There is person and
number concord between the subject and the finite-verb. Concord is particularly overt
with BE.
E.g. I am/ she is/ we are...
With most lexical verbs, concord is restricted to a contrast between 3rd and non-
3rd person singular present:
E.g. He reads the paper every morning.
They read the paper every morning.
With modal auxiliaries there is, no concord:
E.g. I/ you / he / they/ we {could come.
{can play the guitar.
 (iii) Finite-verb phrases have mood. In contrast to the “unmarked” indicative
mood, we distinguish the “marked” moods and imperative and subjunctive.
E.g. He spoke to me as if I were deaf.
It is necessary that every member inform himself of these rules.
Be reasonable!
Non-finite verb phrase:
The non-finite forms of the verb are the infinitive (with or without TO), the -ing
participle, and the -ed participle. Non-finite verb phrases consist of one or more such
items. Compare:
E.g. Finite verb phrases Non-finite verb phrases
He smokes heavily To smoke like that must be dangerous
He is working I found him working.
B. The structure of finite verb phrases:
The structure of the VP is mentioned in two kinds of elements: The main verb
(Mv) and auxiliaries (Aux). The auxiliaries are optional, and precede the main verb.
At the most general level the structure of VP is:

{ Aux } {Aux } {Aux }Mv

In practice we can distinguish sixteen different kinds of VP, and moreover, four
different functions performed by the auxiliaries (see the table below - Table 1). In this
table, the general label Aux can be replaced by some more specific function labels:
Modality, perfect aspect, progressive and passive.
Table 1:
MODALITY PERFECT PROGRESSIVE PASSIVE MAIN
ASPECT ASPECT VOICE VERB

(Mod.) (Perf.) (Prog.) (Pass.) (Mv.)

modal have be be V
 shook 1
might shake 2
had shaken 3
was shaking 4
was shaken 5
might have shaken 6
might be shaking 7
The might be shaken 8
branch
had been shaking 9
had been shaken 10
was being shaken 11
might have been shaking 12
might have been shaken 13
might be being shaken 14
had been being shaken 15
might have been being shaken 16

V. SUMMARY
The following, then are the formal structures of the five types of phrase.
A. Noun phrases (NP): {Mn} H {Mn}.
Where H (head) may be: N, pronoun, Adj., etc.; M before H (premodifiers) may be: det.,
Adj., N, etc.; M after H (postmodifiers) may be: PP, NP, Adv.P, Adj.P, relative clause,
etc.
B. Prepositional phrases (PP): p{Mn } H {Mn }/V-ing/ finite clause
Where P is a preposition, and M, H, and M are exactly as in noun phrases.
C. Adjective phrases (Adj.P): {Mn } H {Mn }
Where H (head) is an Adjective; M before H (premodifiers) are normally Adv.;
M after H (postmodifiers) are PP, Adv, and some clauses.
D. Adverb phrases (Adv.P): {Mn } H {Mn }
Where H (head) is an Adv, and M are Adv.Ps.
E. Verb phrases (VP):{Aux} {Aux} {Aux} {Aux} Mv
Where all Aux are v (operator - verbs), and Mv is either v (operator - verb) or V (full -
verb).
The functions of these phrase classes in the clause can be summarized as shown in
the following figure. The arrow X ----- Y is to be interpreted: X may be a Y.