What is Phrase (10 Types) and Why Learn It?

Compare these two sentences (comments in square brackets).

In the first sentence, a noun Tom is functioning as the subject of the sentence. In the second, a noun phrase The man with bloodstains on his t-shirt is functioning as the subject. The phrase packs in far more information than the one-word noun, doesn’t it? Another example:

Like the one-word adjective warm, an adjective phrase sufficiently warm to gargle describes the noun water, and with lot more detail. You need to think beyond one-word part of speech to write better. Pick any publication, and you’ll find long string of words functioning as noun, adjective, verb, and adverb.

So, what’s a phrase? It’s a group of words, but not any.

What’s a phrase?

A phrase is a grammatical group of words that does not have both subject and verb. If the group of words has both subject and verb, it becomes a clause. Note that verb here means finite (or tense) verb, and not participle or infinitive.

Since subject and verb together essentially represent an idea – a person or thing (subject) doing (verb) something – a phrase, unlike clause, is not an idea. Examples:

The above groups of words don’t contain both subject and verb. Hence, they’re phrases. Phrases don’t need to be short though. As long as they don’t have both subject and verb, they can take any length.

in view of the growing number of students seeking admission this year [growing and seeking are non-finite form of verb]

People face difficulty in differentiating between phrase and clause. Learn, through several examples:

• How to tell a phrase apart from a clause through a 2-step process?

Why learn phrase: It brings structure to writing

As we saw at the beginning of the post, a phrase can pack in complex information than its word counterpart. Besides, it brings structure to writing.

Here is an analogy, which has also been used to explain clauses, that will help you understand why we need phrases.

A house can be constructed brick by brick. But what if larger prefabricated units, say portions of wall, are available to be assembled? That will save time as well as reduce the chance of error.

A sentence can be constructed word by word. But what if larger prefabricated units, say phrases and clauses, are available to be assembled? You get the point.

Like building blocks of a house can be viewed as both bricks and prefab units (which are essentially made of bricks), building blocks of sentences can be viewed as both words and phrases & clauses (which are essentially made of words). For example, this sentence can be viewed as combination of words.

In the harsh sun, while the antelopes were relaxing under the shade of the tree, the subadult lioness slowly crept close to them.

The same sentence can be viewed as combination of words, phrases, and clauses. (Phrases and clauses have been underlined, and they’ve been named in the same sequence in the comment. Note that single words have not been treated as phrases, though, when thinking in terms of phrases, it’s not uncommon to classify words as phrases.)

If we can write in such prefab units or chunks, writing can be simpler and less prone to errors. With such chunks, we won’t have to create afresh every time we write. It’s similar to chunks we learn in speaking – come on, good morning, let’s do it, you wanna try it, you got to be kidding, and so on – that automate several parts of our speech.

Based on what we covered in this subsection, here is an alternative definition of phrase:

A phrase is a prefabricated Lego-like unit not containing both subject and verb. It conveys complex information concisely while functioning as one of the four parts of speech – noun, adjective, verb, and adverb. (More on parts of speech later in the post.)

An example of how you can add phrases like prefab units

You can add phrases to a sentence like you can add prefab units to a building. We start with a base sentence and make it more informative by successively adding phrases.

We can add clauses as well.

Doesn’t the above construction support what Joe Moran said in First you write a sentence:

Only when you learn to separate clauses and phrases properly with commas can you write long sentences of lucidity and grace.

Phrases have been standardized into eight (or ten) types

If you’re wondering how to construct a phrase out of words, your task has been simplified by the grammarians. To standardize how we write phrases, five types of phrases have been prescribed.

1. Noun phrase
2. Verb phrase
3. Adjective phrase
4. Adverb phrase
5. Prepositional phrase

They’re so called because the most important word (also called head word) in these phrases is a noun, a verb, an adjective, an adverb, and a preposition, respectively.

Each of these phrases has a particular function (or part of speech) in sentences, just like words have. That’s true. Every unit – word, phrase, or clause – that is part of a sentence must function as a part of speech. Phrases though can function as only four parts of speech – noun, adjective, verb, and adverb.

A noun phrase functions as a noun in a sentence. An adjective phrase functions as an adjective in a sentence. (If you remember, we used a noun phrase and an adjective phrase in place of a noun and adjective, respectively, at the beginning of the post.) An adverb phrase functions as an adverb in a sentence. A verb phrase functions as a verb in a sentence. Finally, a prepositional phrase functions as an adverb or an adjective in a sentence.

Verbs come with a twist though. They’ve finite and non-finite forms, each of which has its own phrase(s). Some grammar books include both types within verb phrase, and some deal with non-finite form separately. In this post, we’ll separate the non-finite verb phrases – infinitive phrase and participial phrase – as they work differently from the finite verb phrase (or the regular verb phrase). For the sake of completion, we’ll add an eighth phrase, absolute phrase, which is largely a variant of participial phrase.

Here is a pictorial representation of phrases and their function (part of speech). Like some words, some phrases can play multiple functions in sentences.

It’s common to categorize words, phrases, and clauses on the basis of their function (noun, adjective, etc.) in a sentence. If you look at the above image, you’ll realize that adjective and adverb is the most common function of phrases. Phrases that function as adjective (see the fourth column) are called adjectival phrases, and phrases that function as adverb (see the fifth column) are called adverbial phrases. (If you’re wondering how a phrase functions as a particular part of speech, say noun phrase functioning as an adverb, refer to the two links for examples.)

We saw that every word, phrase, and clause must function as a part of speech in a sentence. Here is an overall picture of different parts of speech words, phrases, and clauses can function as. (In this overall picture, the first table has been summarized in column 3.)

https://lemongrad.com/phrase-vs-clause/

Let’s take a brief look at the eight phrases. If we write phrases like these, we’ll create prefab units that can be used as four different parts of speech. As mentioned earlier, the first five phrases contain head words (shown in bold).

1. Noun phrase

Also called nominal phrase, a noun phrase is a phrase that has a noun as its head word (or the most important word), and it functions as a noun in a sentence, implying that the noun phrase can be the subject, object, subject complement, etc. in a sentence.

Appositive phrases are nothing but noun phrases.

So are gerund phrases because gerunds are nouns.

Swimming in deep waters is not my forte. [Noun phrase as subject]

Learn more about noun phrases:

• Noun phrase: How to write and how to identify it?

2. Verb phrase

A verb phrase is a phrase that has a lexical verb as its head word (or the most important word), which is preceded by one or more auxiliary verbs. The verb phrase functions as a verb in a sentence.

3. Adjective phrase

An adjective phrase is a phrase that has an adjective as its head word (or the most important word), and it functions as an adjective in a sentence.

Learn more about adjective phrases:

• Adjective phrase: How to write and how to identify it?

4. Adverb phrase

An adverb phrase is a phrase that has an adverb as its head word (or the most important word), and it functions as an adverb in a sentence.

Learn more about adverb phrases:

• Adverb phrase: How to write and how to identify it?

5. Prepositional phrase

A prepositional phrase comes in ‘preposition + noun’ combination, with preposition as the head word (or the most important word). It can function as an adjective or an adverb, with the latter being more common function. They’re the most common adverbial phrases, especially to answer questions on place and time, often appearing at the beginning of a sentence followed by a comma.

As mentioned earlier, the next three phrases are derivatives of non-finite form of verb.

6. Infinitive phrase

An infinitive phrase is a phrase that starts with ‘to + verb’. It can function as a noun, an adjective, or an adverb.

7. Participial phrase

A participial phrase is a phrase that starts with the present participle or past participle form of verb. Like a prepositional phrase, it too can function as an adjective or an adverb, with the former being more common function. Participial phrases functioning as an adverb will often, but not always, start with a subordinating conjunction such as while, after, before, and when.

8. Absolute phrase

Absolute phrases are mainly formed by adding a participial phrase to a noun or pronoun. Example:

This is the most common structure of absolute phrases, but this isn’t the only one. These phrases though aren’t common in regular non-fiction writing. You’ll find them mostly in fiction and literary non-fiction.

Phrase you write must be a standard phrase

Phrases we study in English have standard structures like mentioned above, and only in these forms they function as different parts of speech. We can’t disturb their structure even if the improvised group of words look meaningful.

In this sentence, some of the standard phrases have been underlined, which are functioning as noun, noun, and adverb, respectively. (If you don’t understand why they’re functioning as particular part of speech, you don’t need to bother to understand the message here.)

The debate over which car to buy has dragged on for a week now.

But these aren’t phrases, even though they might carry some meaning.

The debate over which car to buy has dragged on for a week now.

They don’t belong to any of the standard phrases and hence can’t function as a part of speech in a sentence. For example, you can’t use The debate over as noun, or any other part of speech, in this sentence.

The debate over was boring.

So, The debate over and dragged on for aren’t phrases, even though people may call them so in common parlance.

Phrases often contain clauses and other phrases

Where some phrases such as in London don’t contain any clause or other phrase, some do. Example:

The man who apparently committed the crime disappeared at the turn of the street.

The noun phrase The man who apparently committed the crime contains the noun phrase The man and a relative clause who apparently committed the crime, which in turn contains the noun phrase the crime.

The prepositional phrase at the turn of the street contains the noun phrase the turn of the street, which in turn contains the prepositional phrase of the street, which in turn contains the noun phrase the street.

That’ like nesting dolls, isn’t it?

The above wheels-within-wheels is not to scare you but to show you how phrases and clauses work together. Once you get hang of them, you’ll start writing them without thinking what they contain.

How understanding of phrases helps your writing?

First and foremost, they help squeeze in complex information succinctly in a sentence while making writing somewhat Lego-like. Since we’ve covered this throughout the post, we’ll skip it here.

Appreciation of phrase as a unit like its one-word functional counterpart helps us avoid few errors.

1. Unnecessary comma

Unless required for some other reason, a comma is not required within a phrase. However, sometimes people place a comma within a phrase, especially when it’s long, just to take a pause. Example:

The matter of investing millions of dollars in space program while many live below poverty line, arises every time the country launches a satellite.

It’s a long noun phrase, working as a single unit, but it doesn’t require a comma after line. How does this look?

The matter, arises every time the country launches a satellite.

If this looks incorrect to you, so should the sentence with a longer phrase. The two sentences are fundamentally the same.

2. Faulty subject-verb agreement

The faulty subject-verb agreement in this sentence is a result of assuming colors to be the subject of the sentence.

The insect with multiple colors are the star attraction at the insectarium.

The subject, however, is the noun phrase The insect with multiple colors, and its agreement with the verb should be determined by the head word insect. So, the sentence with correct subject-verb agreement would be.

The insect with multiple colors is the star attraction at the insectarium.

3. Wrong placement of relative clause

Although uncommon, I’ve seen this happening. Because of not appreciating phrase as a unit, some put the relative clause immediately after the head noun and not the noun phrase. Examples:

The first relative clause describes the phrase interpretation of the inscriptions and not interpretation. The second describes the phrase severe allergic reaction to mRNA vaccines and not severe allergic reaction.

Therefore, the two relative clauses should be placed next to their respective phrases.