grammar In linguistics, grammar is the set of rules for how a natural language is structured, as demonstrated by its speakers or writers. Grammar rules may concern the use of clauses, phrases, and words. The term may also refer to the study of such rul ...

, a phrasecalled expression in some contextsis a group of words or singular word acting as a grammatical unit. For instance, the English expression "the very happy squirrel" is a

noun phrase A noun phrase – or NP or nominal (phrase) – is a phrase that usually has a noun or pronoun as its head, and has the same grammatical functions as a noun. Noun phrases are very common cross-linguistically, and they may be the most frequently ...

which contains the

adjective phrase An adjective phrase (or adjectival phrase) is a phrase whose Head (linguistics), head is an adjective. Almost any grammar or syntax textbook or dictionary of linguistics terminology defines the adjective phrase in a similar way, e.g. Kesner Bland ( ...

"very happy". Phrases can consist of a single word or a complete sentence. In

theoretical linguistics Theoretical linguistics is a term in linguistics that, like the related term general linguistics, can be understood in different ways. Both can be taken as a reference to the theory of language, or the branch of linguistics that inquires into the ...

, phrases are often analyzed as units of syntactic structure such as a constituent. There is a difference between the common use of the term ''phrase'' and its technical use in linguistics. In common usage, a phrase is usually a group of words with some special

idiom An idiom is a phrase or expression that largely or exclusively carries a Literal and figurative language, figurative or non-literal meaning (linguistic), meaning, rather than making any literal sense. Categorized as formulaic speech, formulaic ...

euphemism A euphemism ( ) is when an expression that could offend or imply something unpleasant is replaced with one that is agreeable or inoffensive. Some euphemisms are intended to amuse, while others use bland, inoffensive terms for concepts that the u ...

, a saying or

proverb A proverb (from ) or an adage is a simple, traditional saying that expresses a perceived truth based on common sense or experience. Proverbs are often metaphorical and are an example of formulaic speech, formulaic language. A proverbial phrase ...

, a fixed expression, a

figure of speech A figure of speech or rhetorical figure is a word or phrase that intentionally deviates from straightforward language use or Denotation, literal meaning to produce a rhetorical or intensified effect (emotionally, aesthetically, intellectually, et ...

, etc.. In

linguistics Linguistics is the scientific study of language. The areas of linguistic analysis are syntax (rules governing the structure of sentences), semantics (meaning), Morphology (linguistics), morphology (structure of words), phonetics (speech sounds ...

, these are known as

phraseme A phraseme, also called a set phrase, fixed expression, multiword expression (in computational linguistics), or idiom, is a multi-word or multi-morphemic utterance whose components include at least one that is selectionally constrained or restri ...

s. In theories of

syntax In linguistics, syntax ( ) is the study of how words and morphemes combine to form larger units such as phrases and sentences. Central concerns of syntax include word order, grammatical relations, hierarchical sentence structure (constituenc ...

, a phrase is any group of words, or sometimes a single word, which plays a particular role within the syntactic structure of a sentence. It does not have to have any special meaning or significance, or even exist anywhere outside of the sentence being analyzed, but it must function there as a complete grammatical unit. For example, in the sentence ''Yesterday I saw an orange bird with a white neck'', the words ''an orange bird with a white neck'' form a

, or a

determiner phrase In linguistics, a determiner phrase (DP) is a type of phrase headed by a determiner such as ''many''. Controversially, many approaches take a phrase like ''not very many apples'' to be a DP, Head (linguistics), headed, in this case, by the determin ...

in some theories, which functions as the object of the sentence.

Phrase trees

Many theories of syntax and grammar illustrate sentence structure using phrase ' trees', which provide schematics of how the words in a sentence are grouped and relate to each other. A tree shows the words, phrases, and clauses that make up a sentence. Any word combination that corresponds to a complete subtree can be seen as a phrase. There are two competing principles for constructing trees; they produce 'constituency' and 'dependency' trees and both are illustrated here using an example sentence. The constituency-based tree is on the left and the dependency-based tree is on the right (where

adjective An adjective (abbreviations, abbreviated ) is a word that describes or defines a noun or noun phrase. Its semantic role is to change information given by the noun. Traditionally, adjectives are considered one of the main part of speech, parts of ...

(A),

determiner Determiner, also called determinative ( abbreviated ), is a term used in some models of grammatical description to describe a word or affix belonging to a class of noun modifiers. A determiner combines with a noun to express its reference. Examp ...

(D),

noun In grammar, a noun is a word that represents a concrete or abstract thing, like living creatures, places, actions, qualities, states of existence, and ideas. A noun may serve as an Object (grammar), object or Subject (grammar), subject within a p ...

(N), sentence (S),

verb A verb is a word that generally conveys an action (''bring'', ''read'', ''walk'', ''run'', ''learn''), an occurrence (''happen'', ''become''), or a state of being (''be'', ''exist'', ''stand''). In the usual description of English, the basic f ...

(V),

(NP),

prepositional phrase An adpositional phrase is a syntactic category that includes ''prepositional phrases'', ''postpositional phrases'', and ''circumpositional phrases''. Adpositional phrases contain an adposition (preposition, postposition, or circumposition) as he ...

(PP),

verb phrase In linguistics, a verb phrase (VP) is a syntax, syntactic unit composed of a verb and its argument (linguistics), arguments except the subject (grammar), subject of an independent clause or coordinate clause. Thus, in the sentence ''A fat man quic ...

(VP)): :: The_house_at_the_end_of_the_street

The tree on the left is of the constituency-based,

phrase structure grammar The term phrase structure grammar was originally introduced by Noam Chomsky as the term for grammar studied previously by Emil Post and Axel Thue ( Post canonical systems). Some authors, however, reserve the term for more restricted grammars in t ...

, and the tree on the right is of the

dependency grammar Dependency grammar (DG) is a class of modern Grammar, grammatical theories that are all based on the dependency relation (as opposed to the ''constituency relation'' of Phrase structure grammar, phrase structure) and that can be traced back prima ...

. The node labels in the two trees mark the

syntactic category A syntactic category is a syntactic unit that theories of syntax assume. Word classes, largely corresponding to traditional parts of speech (e.g. noun, verb, preposition, etc.), are syntactic categories. In phrase structure grammars, the ''phrasa ...

of the different constituents, or word elements, of the sentence. In the constituency tree each phrase is marked by a phrasal node (NP, PP, VP); and there are eight phrases identified by phrase structure analysis in the example sentence. On the other hand, the dependency tree identifies a phrase by any node that exerts dependency upon, or dominates, another node. And, using dependency analysis, there are six phrases in the sentence. The trees and phrase-counts demonstrate that different theories of syntax differ in the word combinations they qualify as a phrase. Here the constituency tree identifies three phrases that the dependency trees does not, namely: ''house at the end of the street'', ''end of the street'', and ''the end''. More analysis, including about the plausibilities of both grammars, can be made empirically by applying constituency tests.

Heads and dependents

In grammatical analysis, most phrases contain a

head A head is the part of an organism which usually includes the ears, brain, forehead, cheeks, chin, eyes, nose, and mouth, each of which aid in various sensory functions such as sight, hearing, smell, and taste. Some very simple ani ...

, which identifies the type and linguistic features of the phrase. The

of the head is used to name the category of the phrase; for example, a phrase whose head is a

is called a

. The remaining words in a phrase are called the dependents of the head. In the following phrases the head-word, or head, is bolded: ::too slowly — Adverb phrase (AdvP); the head is an adverb ::very happy —

Adjective phrase An adjective phrase (or adjectival phrase) is a phrase whose Head (linguistics), head is an adjective. Almost any grammar or syntax textbook or dictionary of linguistics terminology defines the adjective phrase in a similar way, e.g. Kesner Bland ( ...

(AP); the head is an adjective ::the massive dinosaur —

Noun phrase A noun phrase – or NP or nominal (phrase) – is a phrase that usually has a noun or pronoun as its head, and has the same grammatical functions as a noun. Noun phrases are very common cross-linguistically, and they may be the most frequently ...

(NP); the head is a noun (but see below for the ''determiner phrase'' analysis) ::at lunch — Preposition phrase (PP); the head is a preposition ::watch TV —

Verb phrase In linguistics, a verb phrase (VP) is a syntax, syntactic unit composed of a verb and its argument (linguistics), arguments except the subject (grammar), subject of an independent clause or coordinate clause. Thus, in the sentence ''A fat man quic ...

(VP); the head is a verb The above five examples are the most common of phrase types; but, by the logic of heads and dependents, others can be routinely produced. For instance, the subordinator phrase: ::before that happened — Subordinator phrase (SP); the head is a subordinating conjunction—it subordinates the independent clause By linguistic analysis this is a group of words that qualifies as a phrase, and the head-word gives its syntactic name, "subordinator", to the grammatical category of the entire phrase. But this phrase, "before that happened", is more commonly classified in other grammars, including traditional English grammars, as a subordinate clause (or

dependent clause A dependent clause, also known as a subordinate clause, subclause or embedded clause, is a certain type of clause that juxtaposes an independent clause within a complex sentence. For instance, in the sentence "I know Bette is a dolphin", the claus ...

); and it is then labelled ''not'' as a phrase, but as a

clause In language, a clause is a Constituent (linguistics), constituent or Phrase (grammar), phrase that comprises a semantic predicand (expressed or not) and a semantic Predicate (grammar), predicate. A typical clause consists of a subject (grammar), ...

. Most theories of syntax view most phrases as having a head, but some non-headed phrases are acknowledged. A phrase lacking a head is known as exocentric, and phrases with heads are endocentric.

Functional categories

Some modern theories of syntax introduce functional categories in which the head of a phrase is a functional lexical item. Some functional heads in some languages are not pronounced, but are rather covert. For example, in order to explain certain syntactic patterns which correlate with the

speech act In the philosophy of language and linguistics, a speech act is something expressed by an individual that not only presents information but performs an action as well. For example, the phrase "I would like the mashed potatoes; could you please pas ...

a sentence performs, some researchers have posited ''force phrases'' (ForceP), whose heads are not pronounced in many languages including English. Similarly, many frameworks assume that covert determiners are present in bare noun phrases such as

proper name A proper noun is a noun that identifies a single entity and is used to refer to that entity (''Africa''; ''Jupiter''; ''Sarah''; ''Walmart'') as distinguished from a common noun, which is a noun that refers to a class of entities (''continent, pl ...

s. Another type is the inflectional phrase, where (for example) a

finite verb A finite verb is a verb that contextually complements a subject, which can be either explicit (like in the English indicative) or implicit (like in null subject languages or the English imperative). A finite transitive verb or a finite intra ...

phrase is taken to be the complement of a functional, possibly covert head (denoted INFL) which is supposed to encode the requirements for the verb to

inflect In linguistic morphology, inflection (less commonly, inflexion) is a process of word formation in which a word is modified to express different grammatical categories such as tense, case, voice, aspect, person, number, gender, mood, a ...

– for agreement with its subject (which is the specifier of INFL), for tense and aspect, etc. If these factors are treated separately, then more specific categories may be considered: ''tense phrase'' (TP), where the verb phrase is the complement of an abstract "tense" element; ''aspect phrase''; ''agreement phrase'' and so on. Further examples of such proposed categories include ''topic phrase'' and ''focus phrase'', which are argued to be headed by elements that encode the need for a constituent of the sentence to be marked as the topic or focus.

Variation among theories of syntax

Theories of syntax differ in what they regard as a phrase. For instance, while most if not all theories of syntax acknowledge the existence of

s (VPs),

Phrase structure grammar The term phrase structure grammar was originally introduced by Noam Chomsky as the term for grammar studied previously by Emil Post and Axel Thue ( Post canonical systems). Some authors, however, reserve the term for more restricted grammars in t ...

s acknowledge both

phrases and

non-finite verb Non-finite verbs, are verb forms that do not show tense, person, or number. They include: # Infinitives (e.g., to go, to see) - They often function as nouns or the base form of a verb # Gerunds (e.g., going, seeing) - These act as nouns but are ...

phrases while

s only acknowledge non-finite verb phrases. The split between these views persists due to conflicting results from the standard empirical diagnostics of phrasehood such as constituency tests.For empirical arguments against finite VP's, see Miller (2011:54f.) and Osborne (2011:323f.). The distinction is illustrated with the following examples: ::The Republicans may nominate Newt. - Finite VP in bold ::The Republicans may nominate Newt. - Non-finite VP in bold The syntax trees of this sentence are next: :: Phrase 2

The constituency tree on the left shows the finite verb string ''may nominate Newt'' as a constituent; it corresponds to VP₁. In contrast, this same string is not shown as a phrase in the dependency tree on the right. However, both trees, take the non-finite VP string ''nominate Newt'' to be a constituent.

Notes

References

*Finch, G. 2000. Linguistic terms and concepts. New York: St. Martin's Press. *Kroeger, Paul 2005
Analyzing grammar: An introduction
Cambridge University Press. *Miller, J. 2011
A critical introduction to syntax
London: continuum. *Osborne, Timothy, Michael Putnam, and Thomas Gross 2011
Bare phrase structure, label-less structures, and specifier-less syntax: Is Minimalism becoming a dependency grammar?
The Linguistic Review 28: 315–364. *Sobin, N. 2011. Syntactic analysis: The basics. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. {{Authority control Syntactic categories

Phrase trees

Heads and dependents

Functional categories

Variation among theories of syntax

See also

Notes

References