Eng 311 Modern

English Grammar

English phrases

Dr Boi sebina
English phrases

– The English language has five phrases.

– A. Noun phrase
– B. Adjective phrase
– C. Verb phrase
– D. Adverb phrase
– E. Prepositional phrase
What is a phrase?

– It is an expression which contains one or more words.

– It does not have a subject.
– It does not have a verb/predicate.
– What is a subject?
– that which carries the actions of the verb. E.g. Bame baked the cake.
– What is a predicate?
– It is the part of the sentence that has the verb. It is everything after the subject.
– Baked the cake-predicate.
– EXAMPLES OF PHRASES: Bame-noun phrase
– Baked the cake-verb phrase.
Questions

– Are these phrases or sentences?

– The angry man
– Lesego jumped over the fence
– She cried
– Across the bridge
– The handsome strong tall young dark Motswana man
– Extremely painful
– The bottle in the fridge
Structures of phrases

Most phrases are made up of a Headword and modifiers.

HEADWORD
– A phrase derives its name from the headword. E.g noun phase etc
– It is the dominant element which can replace all the elements in a phrase.
– Therefore it is what remains when the other elements are removed.
– It carries the meaning of the phrase.
– It constitutes what is talked about in a phrase. As such it is the topic/subject of the phrase.
– It is the obligatory member of the phrase.
– Example: the big bottle: identify the headword
Modifiers

– Modifier/s describe the headword.

– It gives more information about the headword.
– It is an optional member of the phrase.
– That is it can be left out or removed from the phrase without affecting the
grammar/meaning of the phrase.
– It can be a single word or a group of words.
– Big house
– Beautiful big oval white bowl
Types of modifiers

– There are two types of modifiers

– Pre-modifiers:
– They come before the headword.
– Big house
– Very tall
– Post modifiers
– The come after the headword.
– Tall indeed
– Ate quickly
Exercise

– 1. What is a phrase?
– 2. Discuss the headword of a phrase.
– 3. Discuss the modifier/s of a phrase.