Verb Phrase

6 Key excerpts on "Verb Phrase"

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  eBook - PDF

  Introduction to English Syntax

  • Rolf Kreyer, Joybrato Mukherjee(Authors)
  • 2012(Publication Date)
  • Peter Lang GmbH, Internationaler Verlag der Wissenschaften

    (Publisher)

  3 The Verb Phrase The Verb Phrase is central to the study of syntax for several reasons: firstly, be- cause the lexical verb in the Verb Phrase determines what other clause constitu- ents are obligatory. The verb give, for example, demands somebody who gives, something that is given and somebody who is given that something, otherwise the sentence would be incorrect. This aspect will be discussed in more detail in chapter six. The second reason for the central status of the verb in syntax is that it actually occupies a central position in the declarative sentence, and the other clause constituents are grouped around the Verb Phrase. Thirdly, the finite Verb Phrase provides information regarding the event described in the sentence, such as the time of occurrence, completion or continuation of the event, likelihood or unlikelihood of the event, and so on. The first two sections of this chapter dis- cuss the structure and the function of the finite Verb Phrase. The third section will then explore non-finite Verb Phrases. 3.1 The structure of the finite Verb Phrase In section 1.3 we introduced the concept 'phrase' as a level of description be- tween words on the one hand and clauses or sentences on the other. We also saw that phrases fulfil different functions in a sentence. The Verb Phrase denotes the action or the event described in the sentence. The Verb Phrase has seen in the sentence the man has seen the car, for instance, denotes the action itself, i.e. 'seeing', and also tells us that this action has happened at some point in the past and is of some relevance to the present. In this chapter we will take a closer look at the formal side of finite Verb Phrases. Very simplified, we can define a Verb Phrase as a phrase which consists of verbal elements only, such as goes, has lived, will be going, must have been sleeping, etc. If the first element in the Verb Phrase is a finite verb, we speak of a finite Verb Phrase.

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  Linguistic Perspectives on English Grammar

  • Martin J. Endley(Author)
  • 2007(Publication Date)
  • Information Age Publishing

    (Publisher)

  Linguistic Perspectives on English Grammar, pages 39–75 Copyright © 2010 by Information Age Publishing All rights of reproduction in any form reserved. 39 2 Verbs and Verb Phrases in Linguistic Perspective In this chapter, I turn to the other major syntactic category in English, the verb. The plan for this chapter is as follows. I begin by trying to establish more precisely what a verb is and what purposes verbs serve when viewed in linguistic perspective. Here, I discuss the important idea that verbs play a central role in describing particular “situations.” After that, I discuss the very important closed class of so-called primary verbs, which have a very high frequency in modern English and can appear either as main verbs or as auxiliaries. As we will see, it makes sense to treat these as a distinct group on the basis of their morphosyntactic properties. Much of the remainder of the chapter is devoted to a detailed discussion of the especially interesting group of “multi-word” verbs. These are a striking feature of modern Eng- lish and are widely recognized as presenting a particular challenge to non- native English speakers. In consequence, the nature of these challenges, in- volving both problems of form and problems of meaning, will be discussed at some length. 40  Linguistic Perspectives on English Grammar What Are Verbs? A traditional answer to this question would say that verbs are words that de- scribe or identify actions and events. There is much to be said for this view. Verbs often do this, providing descriptions of perceptually accessible events that often involve physical motion or action and, frequently, rapid change. Yet, as with nouns, it does not take long to see that many verbs do not fit this definition and that it really only works with what are called dynamic verbs such as walk, run, jump, and so on. This way of thinking about verbs is much less effective for state or psych verbs such as know, want, hope, and numerous others.

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  eBook - ePub

  Analysing Sentences

  An Introduction to English Syntax

  • Noel Burton-Roberts(Author)
  • 2021(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  4 The basic Verb Phrase

  DOI: 10.4324/9781003118916-5

  You now know that the basic sentence consists of a Noun Phrase (functioning as subject) followed by a Verb Phrase (functioning as predicate). This chapter deals with the general structure (the immediate constituents) of the VP half of the basic sentence.

  Paddle, sunbathed beside a stream, dreads affectionate cats, came to the graduation ceremony and stopped the car are all VPs. As these show, categories introduced in previous chapters can appear in the VP, including NPs. Within the VP, NPs have a range of different functions. It’s these different functions of NP and other phrasal categories that concern us here.

  A first look at verbs

  The one constituent a Verb Phrase (VP) must contain is a head verb (V).

  There are two kinds of verb in English: lexical and auxiliary . Lexical verbs are the ones that belong to the indefinitely large general vocabulary of the language – e.g. run, eat, apply, explain, recycle, break, prepare, depend …. Auxiliary verbs, by contrast, are a special, restricted set of verbs. The clear ones are: can/could, will/would, shall/should, may/might, must, need – and be, have and do (these three can also be lexical).

  A full VP must contain a

  lexical

  verb and it may contain

  auxiliary verbs . In the following, the lexical verbs are in bold and the auxiliary verbs are in italics.

  [1a] Diana plays the piano.

  [1b] Diana played the piano.

  [2] Anders is explaining his generalisation.

  [3] Maggie should have recycled those bottles.

  [4] Francois may have been preparing his lecture.

  Auxiliaries are dealt with in Chapter 6 . So, this chapter is called ‘The basic Verb Phrase’ because it’s about VPs containing just LEXICAL verbs.

  Lexical verbs are easily identified by their morphological (i.e. their word-form) possibilities. They take some if not all of the verbal inflections

  -s, -ing, -ed, -en

  . For example: plays, playing, played and writes, writing, written

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  Introducing English Syntax

  A Basic Guide for Students of English

  • Peter Fenn, Götz Schwab(Authors)
  • 2017(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  It does so precisely because they are capable of extension into a multi-word unit with themselves as potential heads. Looked at from the opposite point of view, most multi-word phrases can be reduced syntactically to their heads alone and the phrase struc- ture of the sentence will remain intact. Drinks and regularly, then, represent phrases (a Verb Phrase and an adVerb Phrase respectively), i.e. phrases with only one constituent. And by the same token the single-word constituents of (1), (2) and (4) can now be described, more accurately in a syntactic sense, as phrases: (8) noun phrase + Verb Phrase Jenny drinks. (9) noun phrase + Verb Phrase + noun phrase + adVerb Phrase Jenny drinks tea regularly. (10) noun phrase + Verb Phrase + noun phrase John kissed Mary. 10 Basic elements of grammatical structure 1.3 What word-classes are there, and what are their characteristic features? If you look a word up in a dictionary, you will find that its word-class (part of speech) is given before the meaning. For instance: house, noun: A building for human habitation make, verb: to construct, build, or create, from separate parts This underlines a point made above: that word-class is a permanent feature of a particular word, i.e. part of its individual character. We generally distinguish between the following main word-classes: nouns, pronouns, verbs, adverbs, adjectives, prepositions, conjunctions, determiners. We will now point to basic features that identify each word-class, using the three different perspectives of semantics, morphology and syntax. The func- tional aspect of syntax will not be discussed here, however, as functions are not introduced until the next chapter. Under the ‘syntax’ heading we will confine ourselves for the moment to other kinds of relationship between words. 1.3.1 Nouns • Semantics: Nouns denote entities, i.e.

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  Greek: A Comprehensive Grammar of the Modern Language

  • David Holton, Peter Mackridge, Irene Philippaki-Warburton, Vassilios Spyropoulos(Authors)
  • 2012(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  243 Part III Syntax 245 Chapter 1 The verb and the Verb Phrase 1.1 The constituents of the Verb Phrase The verb is the central element of the clause in that every clause must contain a verb with the exception of some copular clauses where the verb είμαι ‘I am’ may be omitted (see Section 1.9). Furthermore, the number and the type of constituents that may combine with the verb are determined by the type of the verb. A Verb Phrase is the combination of the verb with its objects (direct and indirect, locative, benefactive, etc.) or predicate complements , as well as the manner, place and time adverbials which modify the verb. 1.1.1 Objects Objects are those noun phrases which combine with the verb in a very close syntactic-semantic relationship. Depending on the type of the verb, an object may be excluded, as in the case of intransitive verbs , or may be required, as in the case of transitive verbs . Transitive verbs may require only one object ( monotransitive ) or they may take two such objects ( bitransitive ). These varieties are presented below. 1.1.1.1 Intransitive verbs Intransitive verbs are those which do not combine with an object. They, of course, may combine with adverbs of any type and some may require a subject or clausal complement . Intransitive verbs may be subdivided as follows: (a) Verbs in active voice form expressing action which is not transferred to some other entity, e.g.: ροχαλίζω ‘I snore’, as in (1): 246 Part III Ch. 1 The verb and the Verb Phrase (1) Ο Γιάννης ροχαλίζει κάθε βράδυ ‘John snores every night’ Other verbs of this type include: αναπνέω ‘I breathe’, χαμογελώ ‘I smile’, δακρύζω ‘I have tears in my eyes’.

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  eBook - ePub

  Introducing English Syntax

  A Basic Guide for Students of English

  • Peter Fenn, Götz Schwab(Authors)
  • 2017(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  regularly , then, represent phrases (a Verb Phrase and an adVerb Phrase respectively), i.e. phrases with only one constituent. And by the same token the single-word constituents of (1), (2) and (4) can now be described, more accurately in a syntactic sense, as phrases:

  p.10 1.3 What word-classes are there, and what are their characteristic features? If you look a word up in a dictionary, you will find that its word-class (part of speech) is given before the meaning. For instance:

  This underlines a point made above: that word-class is a permanent feature of a particular word, i.e. part of its individual character.

  We generally distinguish between the following main word-classes: nouns, pronouns, verbs, adverbs, adjectives, prepositions, conjunctions, determiners.

  We will now point to basic features that identify each word-class, using the three different perspectives of semantics, morphology and syntax. The functional aspect of syntax will not be discussed here, however, as functions are not introduced until the next chapter. Under the ‘syntax’ heading we will confine ourselves for the moment to other kinds of relationship between words.

  1.3.1 Nouns

  •    Semantics:

  Nouns denote entities , i.e. living things (person , woman , plant , animal ), objects (table , road , car ), other physical phenomena (weight , distance , electricity , rain , wind ), and abstractions like concepts and ideas (wish , religion , memory , economics , friendship ). Names such as Peter , London , Christianity , Communism are called proper nouns

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