Contents introduction chapter I prepositional phrases and their use

I.2 Phrases and their types
We will term "phrase" every combination of two or more words which is a grammatical unit but is not an analytical form of some word (as, for instance, the perfect forms of verbs)⁹. A phrase is a group of related words that is used as a single part of speech and that does not contain both a verb and its subject¹⁰.The constituent elements of a phrase may belong to any part of speech. For instance, they may both be nouns, or one of them may be an adjective and the other a noun, or again one of them may be a verb and the other a noun, or one may be a preposition and the other a noun; or there may be three of them, one being a preposition, the other a noun, and the third a preposition, etc.
We thus adopt the widest possible definition of a phrase and we do not limit this notion by stipulating that a phrase must contain at least two notional words, as is done in a number of linguistic treatises.¹¹ The inconvenience of restricting the notion of phrase to those groups which contain at least two notional words is that, for example, the group "preposition + noun" remains outside the classification and is therefore neglected in grammatical theory.
The difference between a phrase and a sentence is a fundamental one. A phrase is a means of naming some phenomena or processes, just as a word is. Each component of a phrase can undergo grammatical changes in accordance with grammatical categories represented in it, without destroying the identity of the phrase. For instance, in the phrase write letters the first component can change according to the verbal categories of tense, mood, etc., and the second component according to the category of number. Thus, writes a letter, has written a letter, would have written letters, etc., are grammatical modifications of one phrase.
With a sentence, things are entirely different. A sentence is a unit with every word having its definite form. A change in the form of one or more words would produce a new sentence.
It must also be born in mind that a phrase as such has no intonation, just as a word has none. Intonation is one of the most important features of a sentence, which distinguish it from a phrase.
Last not least, it is necessary to dwell on one of the most difficult questions involved in the study of phrases: the grammatical aspect of that study as distinct from the lexicological.
The difference should be basically this: grammar has to study the aspects of phrases which spring from the grammatical peculiarities of the words making up the phrase, and of the syntactical functions of the phrase as a whole, while lexicology has to deal with the lexical meaning of the words and their semantic groupings.
Thus, for instance, from the grammatical point of view the two phrases read letters and invite friends are identical, since they are built on the same pattern "verb + noun indicating the object of the action". From the lexicological point of view, on the other hand, they are essentially different, as the verbs belong to totally different semantic spheres, and the nouns too; one of them denotes a material object, while the other denotes a human being. Thus, the basic difference between the grammatical and the lexicological approach to phrases appears to be clear. However, it is not always easy to draw this demarcation line while doing concrete research in this sphere.
It is to the phrase level that the syntactical notions of agreement (or concord) and government apply.
In studying phrases from a grammatical viewpoint we will divide them according to their function in the sentence into those which perform the function of one or more parts of the sentence, for example, predicate, or predicate and object, or predicate and adverbial modifier, etc., and those which do not perform any such function but whose function is equivalent to that of a preposition, or conjunction, and which are, in fact, to all intents and purposes equivalents of those parts of speech. The former of these two classes comprises the overwhelming majority of English phrases, but the latter is no less important from a general point of view.
TYPES OF PHRASES
The type "noun + noun" is a most usual type of phrase in Modern English. It must be divided into two subtypes, depending on the form of the first component, which may be in the common or in the genitive case. ¹
The type "noun in the common case + noun" may be used to denote one idea as modified by another, in the widest sense.
Find here a most varied choice of semantic spheres, such as speech sound, silver watch, army unit, which of course deserve detailed study from the lexicological viewpoint. We may only note that the first component may be a proper name as well, as in the phrases a Beethoven symphony or London Bridge.
The type "noun in the genitive case + noun" has a more restricted meaning and use, which we need not go into here, as we have discussed the meaning of the form in -'s.
Another very common type is "adjective + noun", which is used to express all possible kinds of things with their properties.
The type "verb + noun" may correspond to two different types of relation between an action and a thing. In the vast majority of cases the noun denotes an object of the action expressed by the verb, but in a certain number of phrases it denotes a measure, rather than the object, of the action. This may be seen in such phrases as, walk a mile, sleep an hour, wait a minute, etc. It is only the meaning of the verb and that of the noun which enable the hearer or reader to understand the relation correctly. The meaning of the verb divides, for instance, the phrase wait an hour from the phrase appoint an hour, and shows the relations in the two phrases to be basically different.
In a similar way other types of phrases should be set down and analysed. Among them will be the types, "verb + adverb", "adverb + adjective", "adverb + adverb", "noun + preposition + noun", "adjective + preposition + noun", "verb + preposition + noun", etc.
An important question arises concerning the pattern "noun + verb". In our linguistic theory different opinions have been put forward on this issue. One view is that the phrase type "noun + verb" (which is sometimes called "predicative phrase") exists and ought to be studied just like any other phrase type such as we have enumerated above.¹² The other view is that no such type as "noun + verb" exists, as the combination "noun + verb" constitutes a sentence rather than a phrase.¹³ This objection, however, is not convincing. If we take the combination "noun + verb" as a sentence, which is sometimes possible, we are analysing it on a different level, namely, on sentence level, and what we can discover on sentence level cannot affect analysis on phrase level, or indeed take its place. Besides, there is another point to be noted here. If we take, for instance, the group a man writes on the phrase level, this means that each of the components can be changed in accordance with its paradigm in any way so long as the connection with the other component does not prevent this. In the given case, the first component, man, can be changed according to number, that is, it can appear in the plural form, and the second component, writes, can be changed according to the verbal categories of aspect, tense, correlation, and mood (change of person is impossible due to the first component, change of number is predetermined by the number of the first component, and change of voice is made impossible by its meaning). Thus, the groups, a man writes, men write, a man wrote, men are writing, men have written, a man would have been writing, etc., are all variants of the same phrase, just as man and men are forms of the same noun, while writes, wrote, has written, etc. are forms of the same verb. It is also important to note that a phrase as such has no intonation of its own, no more than a word as such has one. On the sentence level things are different. A man writes, even if we could take it as a sentence at all, which is not certain, is not the same sentence as Men have been writing, but a different sentence.
This example is sufficient to show the difference between a phrase of the pattern "noun + verb" and a sentence. The existence of phrases of this type is therefore certain. The phrase pattern "noun + verb" has very ample possibilities of expressing actions as performed by any kind of subject, whether living, material, or abstract.
Besides phrase patterns consisting of two notional words with or without a preposition between them, there are also phrases consisting of a preposition and another word, mainly a noun. Thus, such groups as in the street, at the station, at noon, after midnight, in time, by heart, etc. are prepositional phrases performing some function or other in a sentence. Some of these phrases are phraseological units (e.g. in time, by heart), but this is a lexicological observation which is irrelevant from the grammatical viewpoint.
Phrases consisting of two components may be enlarged by addition of a third component, and so forth, for instance the phrase pattern "adjective + noun" (high houses) may be enlarged by the addition of an adjective in front, so that the type "adjective + adjective + noun" arises (new high houses). This, in its turn, may bo further enlarged by more additions. The limit of the possible growth of a phrase is hard to define, and we will not inquire into this subject any further.
A phrase is a group of related words (within a sentence) without both subject and verb. For example, He is laughing at the joker.
A phrase functions as a noun, verb, adverb, adjective or preposition in a sentence. The function of a phrase depends on its construction (words it contains). On the basis of their functions and constructions, phrases are divided into various types i.e. noun phrase, verb phrase, adverb phrase, adjective phrase, appositive phrase, infinite phrase, participle phrase and gerund phrase.