US English 101
is brought to you by Lindiana, who holds her Bachelor of Science Degree in Secondary Education/English.
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When putting a sentence together, words act not only individually but as a group. The grouped words can work together in a variety of ways but the way we will be concentrating on in this chapter is the
phrase.
We touched upon the verb phrase during the chapter on parts of speech but we shall discuss all types of phrases in this chapter.
A phrase is a group of words
not
containing a verb and its subject. A phrase is used as a single part of speech and is not a sentence. There are five major types of phases that we will be reviewing:
prepositional phrases, participial phrases, gerund phrases, infinitive phrases, and appositive phrases.
The Prepositional Phrase
A
prepositional phrase
is a group of words that begins with a preposition and usually ends with a noun or pronoun. In review, the following is a list of common prepositions:
about, at, but (meaning except), into, throughout, above, before, by, like, to, across, behind, concerning, of, toward, after, below, down, off, under, against, beneath, during, on, underneath, along, beside, except, over, until, amid, besides, for, past, unto, among, between, from , since, up, around, beyond, in, through, upon, with, within and without.
The noun or pronoun that ends the prepositional phrase is called the
object of the preposition
. In the phrase
after the break
, after is functioning as a preposition. The object of the preposition is break. The easiest way to figure out the object of the preposition is ask yourself what as in "after what?" and your answer above would be "the break". Try to find the prepositional phrase in the following sentence: Jane lifted her head with a laugh.
If you said
with a laugh,
you are correct. Now name the preposition and the object of the preposition.
If you said the preposition was
with
and the object was
a laugh
, you are correct.
Prepositional phrases are usually used to modify or expand the meaning of the sentence. Therefore, they usually function as an adjective or adverb. Occasionally, a prepositional phrase can be used as a noun. Example:
After lunch will be too early
. In this example,
after lunch
is the subject of the sentence and functions as a noun.
The Adjective Phrase
The adjective phrase is a prepositional phrase that modifies, or expands the definition of, a noun or a pronoun, just like an adjective does.
The Adverb Phrase
The adverb phrase is a prepositional phrase that modifies, or expands the definition of, a verb, an adjective or another adverb, just like an adverb does.
The Participial, Gerund and Infinitive Phrases
The last three types of verbal phrases are far less common than the prepositional phrase but are very useful for a writer. They are called verbal phrases because the most important word in them is verbal. Verbals are called that because they are formed by verbs and, in some respects, act like verbs. They may express an action, they may contain a modifier and they may be followed by a complement. However, verbal phrases are NOT used as verbs in a sentence. They can be used as a noun, adjective or adverb but they are not used as verbs.
The Participle and the Participial Phrase
A participle is a verb form that is used as an adjective. Examples: The rapidly
developing
storm kept small boats in port.
Developing
rapidly, the storm kept small boats in port. The storm,
developing
rapidly, kept small boats in port.
In all three of the above sentences, the word
developing
which is formed from the verb develop is used as an adjective modifying the noun
storm.
There are two kinds of participles: past and present. A present participle indicates present tense and ends in
–ing.
A past participle indicates past tense and ends in
