Phrases and phrasal categories
In everyday speech, people may refer to any group of words as a “phrase.” In linguistics, however, this term has a more precise meaning. First, a phrase must be a group of words which form a constituent (i.e. a unit according to the criteria). Second, a phrase is lower on the grammatical hierarchy than clauses. Intuitively this means that phrases are in some sense “smaller” than clauses. More precisely, simple clauses may (and usually do) contain phrases, but simple phrases do not (in general) contain clauses. As a preliminary definition, then, let us assume that a PHRASE is a group of words which can function as a constituent within a simple clause.
Just as words may be classified into different categories, so too there are different sorts (categories) of phrases. Phrases of a particular type will be appropriate in some contexts but not in others. Once again, we are faced with two basic questions: (i) how do we know whether two phrases belong to the same or different categories?; and (ii)how do we know what category label to assign to a particular class of phrases? These questions lead us into some fairly complex issues. We will attempt to provide some preliminary answers here.
Concerning the first question (identifying phrasal categories), the answer is much the same as the corresponding answer forword-level categories two phrases belong to the same category if they have the same grammatical properties. Two basic types of evidence are useful for determining whether two phrases belong to the same category. These are: (i) mutual substitutability (i.e. sameness of distribution); and (ii) sameness of internal structure.1
In identifying word classes, “internal structure” means morphological structure, for example the capacity to be inflected for number (in the case of nouns) or tense (in the case of verbs). When we are dealing with phrases, “internal structure” means the category and order of the phrase’s constituents. For example, an English noun phrase frequently begins with a DETERMINER (a, the, this, that).
The criterion of mutual substitutability (sameness of distribution) involves the general principle that two phrases of the same category could potentially occur in the same positions, unless one of them is inappropriate for semantic reasons. For example, phrases which can occur in subject or object position are generally noun phrases.
We turn now to the second question, how to assign labels to phrasal categories. In most phrases, we can identify one word as being the most important element.2 (We will clarify what we mean by “most important” below.) This word is called the HEAD of the phrase. The normal practice in linguistics is to name a phrase by the category of its head. For example, the phrase that big fish is a noun phrase, because its head word (fish) is a noun. The phrase very beautiful is an adjective phrase, because its head word (beautiful) is an adjective.
If we accept the principle that the category of a phrase is normally the same as the category of its HEAD, an important practical question remains to be answered, namely: how do we know which word in the phrase is the head? How can we distinguish the head from its DEPENDENTS (all the other elements in the phrase)? Or, to put the question another way, what makes the head special? We will mention here three specific ways in which the head is more “important” than the other elements. These general properties can help us to identify the head of a phrase when we are in doubt.
First, the head of a phrase determines many of the grammatical features of the phrase as a whole. The contrast between the two sentences in example (20) shows that the head noun determines grammatical number for the subject noun phrase as a whole. Since rice is a mass noun, the whole noun phrase is grammatically singular in (20a) and so requires the singular form of the verb, is. Since kittens is a plural form, the subject noun phrase is grammatically plural in (20b) and so requires the plural form of the verb, are.
(20) a [The new rice] is in the barn.
b [The new kittens] are in the barn.
Second, the head may determine the number and type of other elements in the phrase. For example, we take the verb to be the head of a clause, and different verbs require different numbers and categories of phrases to occur with them in their clause. Dependents which are selected by the head word in this way are referred to as COMPLEMENTS. Thus subjects, objects, etc. are often referred to as complements of the verb. To take another example, many adjective phrases contain a prepositional phrase complement, as illustrated in (21). We know that these prepositional phrases are complements because the choice of preposition is determined by the identity of the head adjective:
(21) a I am [very grateful to you].
b John felt [sorry for his actions].
c Mary looks [very proud of herself].
d Bill is [angry at his lawyers].
e Arthur seems [worried about the next election].
Third, the head is more likely to be obligatory than the modifiers or other non-head elements. For example, all of the elements of the subject noun phrase in (22a) can be omitted except the head word pigs. If this word is deleted, as in (22e), the result is ungrammatical.
(22) a [The three little pigs] eat truffles.
b [The three pigs] eat truffles.
c [The pigs] eat truffles.
d [Pigs] eat truffles.
e *[The three little] eat truffles.
Of course, English noun phrases do not always contain a head noun. In certain contexts, a previously mentioned head may be omitted because it is “understood,” as in (23a). This process is called ELLIPSIS. Moreover, in English, and in many other languages, adjectives can sometimes be used without any head noun to name classes of people, as in (23b,c). But, aside from a few fairly restricted patterns like these, heads of phrases in English tend to be obligatory.
(23) a [The third little pig] was smarter than [the second ___ ].
b [the good], [the bad] and [the ugly]
c [The rich] get richer and [the poor] get children.
As noted above, the head of a phrase will generally be a lexical item of the same category– a noun phrase will be headed by a noun, an adjective phrase by an adjective, etc. However, not all lexical (word-level) categories can be heads of phrases. Those that can (including at least Noun, Verb, Adjective, and Preposition in English) are called MAJOR CATEGORIES; those that cannot (e.g. conjunctions) are called MINOR CATEGORIES. A listing of the most important lexical categories for English is given in (24):
(24) a MAJOR CATEGORIES (can function as heads of phrases)
Noun (dog, tree, water, kindness, etc.)
Verb (run, melt, hit, love, etc.)
Adjective (big, red, friendly, impossible, etc.)
Adverb (quickly, unexpectedly, fortunately, etc.)3
Preposition (on, under, from, etc.)
b MINOR CATEGORIES (do not normally function as heads of phrases)
Conjunction (and, or, but, etc.)
Interjection (oh, ah, well, ouch, etc.)
Determiners: includes articles (a, the), demonstratives (this, that), and quantifiers (all,
some, many, etc.)
Major categories are typically OPEN CLASSES; these categories contain an indefinite but large number of words, and new words tend to be added frequently through borrowing or innovation. Minor categories are typically CLOSED CLASSES; such classes contain only a small, fixed number of words, and new words are added very slowly. But this correlation is not perfect. For example, Preposition is a major category but probably a closed class (although English has a larger inventory of prepositions than many other languages).
1. See Bickford (1998:38–40).
2. The question of whether all phrases must have heads is a theoretical issue which will not be addressed here.
3. Adverb is often considered a minor category, but I take the combination of intensifier + Adv to be an example of a “headed” (or ENDOCENTRIC) AdvP: very quickly, rather unexpectedly, quite happily, most fortunately, etc. However, it is true that many constituents which are called “adverbial phrases” do not have an adverb as head; they tend to be either subordinate clauses or prepositional phrases.
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