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 ( constituency) ...

and grammar, a phrase is 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 which contains the adjective phrase "very happy". Phrases can consist of a single word or a complete sentence. In theoretical linguistics, phrases are often analyzed as units of syntactic structure such as a

constituent Constituent or constituency may refer to: Politics * An individual voter within an electoral district, state, community, or organization * Advocacy group or constituency * Constituent assembly * Constituencies of Namibia Other meanings * Const ...

Common and technical use

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 typically presents a figurative, non-literal meaning attached to the phrase; but some phrases become figurative idioms while retaining the literal meaning of the phrase. Categorized as formulaic language, ...

euphemism A euphemism () is an innocuous word or expression used in place of one that is deemed offensive or suggests something unpleasant. Some euphemisms are intended to amuse, while others use bland, inoffensive terms for concepts that the user wishes ...

, a saying or proverb, a fixed expression, a

figure of speech A figure of speech or rhetorical figure is a word or phrase that intentionally deviates from ordinary language use in order to produce a rhetorical effect. Figures of speech are traditionally classified into '' schemes,'' which vary the ordinary ...

, etc.. In linguistics, these are known as

phraseme A phraseme, also called a set phrase, idiomatic phrase, multi-word 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 restric ...

s. In theories of

, a phrase is any group of words, or sometimes a single word, which plays a particular role within the

syntactic 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 (constituency), ...

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 noun phrase, or a determiner phrase in some theories, which functions as the

object Object may refer to: General meanings * Object (philosophy), a thing, being, or concept ** Object (abstract), an object which does not exist at any particular time or place ** Physical object, an identifiable collection of matter * Goal, an ai ...

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: :: The house at the end of the street

The tree on the left is of the constituency-based, phrase structure grammar, and the tree on the right is of the

dependency grammar Dependency grammar (DG) is a class of modern grammatical theories that are all based on the dependency relation (as opposed to the ''constituency relation'' of phrase structure) and that can be traced back primarily to the work of Lucien Tesni� ...

. The node labels in the two trees mark the syntactic category 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 animals may ...

, which identifies the type and linguistic features of the phrase. The syntactic category of the head is used to name the category of the phrase; for example, a phrase whose head is a noun is called a noun phrase. 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 (AP); the head is an adjective ::the massive dinosaur — Noun phrase (NP); the head is a noun (but see

below Below may refer to: *Earth *Ground (disambiguation) *Soil *Floor *Bottom (disambiguation) Bottom may refer to: Anatomy and sex * Bottom (BDSM), the partner in a BDSM who takes the passive, receiving, or obedient role, to that of the top or ...

for the ''determiner phrase'' analysis) ::at lunch —

Preposition phrase An adpositional phrase, in linguistics, is a syntactic category that includes ''prepositional phrases'', ''postpositional phrases'', and ''circumpositional phrases''. Adpositional phrases contain an adposition (preposition, postposition, or circ ...

(PP); the head is a preposition ::watch TV — Verb phrase (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 In grammar, a conjunction (abbreviated or ) is a part of speech that connects words, phrases, or clauses that are called the conjuncts of the conjunctions. That definition may overlap with that of other parts of speech and so what constitutes a ...

—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 A subordinate clause, dependent clause, subclause, or embedded clause is a clause that is embedded within a complex sentence. For instance, in the English sentence "I know that Bette is a dolphin", the clause "that Bette is a dolphin" occurs as t ...

(or

dependent clause A subordinate clause, dependent clause, subclause, or embedded clause is a clause that is embedded within a complex sentence. For instance, in the English sentence "I know that Bette is a dolphin", the clause "that Bette is a dolphin" occurs as t ...

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

clause In language, a clause is a constituent that comprises a semantic predicand (expressed or not) and a semantic predicate. A typical clause consists of a subject and a syntactic predicate, the latter typically a verb phrase composed of a verb with ...

. 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 In theoretical linguistics, a distinction is made between endocentric and exocentric constructions. A grammatical construction (for instance, a phrase or compound) is said to be ''endocentric'' if it fulfils the same linguistic function as one of ...

, and phrases with heads are endocentric.

Functional categories

Some modern theories of syntax introduce

functional categories Functional may refer to: * Movements in architecture: ** Functionalism (architecture) ** Form follows function * Functional group, combination of atoms within molecules * Medical conditions without currently visible organic basis: ** Functional sy ...

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 Secrecy is the practice of hiding information from certain individuals or groups who do not have the "need to know", perhaps while sharing it with other individuals. That which is kept hidden is known as the secret. Secrecy is often controvers ...

. For example, in order to explain certain syntactic patterns which correlate with the

speech act In the philosophy of language and linguistics, 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 kimchi; could you please pass it to me?" ...

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 A determiner, also called determinative (abbreviated ), is a word, phrase, or affix that occurs together with a noun or noun phrase and generally serves to express the reference of that noun or noun phrase in the context. That is, a determiner m ...

are present in bare noun phrases such as proper names. Another type is the inflectional phrase, where (for example) a finite verb 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 (or 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, animacy, and def ...

– for

agreement Agreement may refer to: Agreements between people and organizations * Gentlemen's agreement, not enforceable by law * Trade agreement, between countries * Consensus, a decision-making process * Contract, enforceable in a court of law ** Meeting o ...

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 Topic, topics, TOPIC, topical, or topicality may refer to: Topic / Topics * Topić, a Slavic surname * ''Topics'' (Aristotle), a work by Aristotle * Topic (chocolate bar), a brand of confectionery bar * Topic (DJ), German musician * Topic (g ...

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 verb phrases (VPs), Phrase structure grammars acknowledge both finite verb phrases and non-finite verb 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. {{div col end Syntactic categories