Concept in Definition ABC
Miscellanea / / November 13, 2021
By Javier Navarro, on Feb. 2018
A phrase is a word or a set of words that are organized and articulated from a core. Said nucleus has a certain syntactic function within a sentence. It must be borne in mind that in every sentence the words have specific functions and those words that perform the same homework they become phrases.
Phrase types
The set of words make up different grammatical categories. There are eight types of words: nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions, determiners, and pronouns.
Of these grammatical categories, some of them can form a nucleus, that is, the part totally essential of every phrase (the conjunction and the determinant are the categories that do not allow to form a nucleus).
- The noun phrase can be one word or a combination of several. In any case, its kernel is always a noun. Thus, in the sentence "the strawberry is a fruit very tasty "the word strawberry is the core of the noun phrase. A pronoun or a substantive adjective can also act as the nucleus of a noun.
- The verbal It is formed from a verb form that acts as the nucleus of a predicate in a sentence. Thus, the word "rains" in a sentence constitutes a verb phrase. Obviously, the verb phrase can be accompanied by a noun phrase or other phrases.
- The adjectival has an adjective as its nucleus. In this way, the word "soft" in a sentence would form an adjectival phrase.
- The adverbial is formed by a adverb that acts as a nucleus in a sentence The word "near" is part of the category grammar of adverbs and within a sentence becomes the nucleus of an adverbial phrase.
Each phrase has some kind of syntactic function within a sentence
Normally every sentence is made up of a subject and a predicate. The subject is usually a noun phrase formed by a noun or a pronoun and its function is to star a specific action (in the sentence "Juan buys shoes" Juan is the person who carries out the action of to buy).
In the predicate the most part important is the verb form, which constitutes the nucleus of the verb phrase and this has the function of expressing something about the subject (in the sentence "I like Anita a lot" the nucleus of the verb phrase refers to Anita, the nucleus of the subject).
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Syntagma Topics