English Syntax
The Phrase

The Structure of Grammatical
Description
Morpheme
Word
Phrase
Clause
Sentence

What is a phrase?
A phrase is a group of words which forms part of sentence.
We like medieval music
John is very worried about his son .
She drives more carefully than her husband .
The type of a phrase is determined by the headword.

What is a noun phrase?
A noun phrase may consist of determiner
(not always), headword, and modifier.
ex:
A beautiful determiner modifier girl headword
New books on linguistics mod head mod mod

Some Syntactic Categories of
Nouns
Count and Mass nouns
Count noun = countable nouns ex: car, table, factory, etc.
Mass noun = uncountable nouns ex: information, bread, water, etc
Proper Nouns
Proper nouns consist of the names of particular, often unique, persons, places and things.
ex; Andy, Singapore, The Bahamas.

What is a Verb Phrase?
A verb phrase consists of verb as the headword, auxiliaries, and complements of the verb.
ex: was waiting at the door aux. head arrived late head complement(object of prep) complement(S complement)

Some syntactic categories of verbs
• Transitive verbs = Verbs that require an object ex: drink, buy, eat, kill, etc.
• Intransitive verbs = Verbs that don’t require an object.
ex: sleep, cry, run, walk, etc.
• Linking Verb = Verbs that link the equivalency between the subject and the complement of the verb.
ex: be, become, seem, and look.