Noun phrase

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A noun phrase or nominal phrase (abbreviated NP) is a phrase which has a noun (or indefinite
pronoun) as its head, or which performs the same grammatical function as such a phrase.[1] Noun
phrases are very common cross-linguistically, and they may be the most frequently occurring
phrase type.

Noun phrases often function as verb subjects and objects, as predicative expressions, and as the
complements of prepositions. Noun phrases can be embedded inside each other; for instance, the
noun phrase some of his constituents contains the shorter noun phrase his constituents.

In some more modern theories of grammar, noun phrases with determiners are analyzed as
having the determiner as the head of the phrase, see for instance Chomsky (1995) and Hudson
(1990).

Identifying noun phrases[edit]

Some examples of noun phrases are underlined in the sentences below. The head noun appears in
bold.

The election-year politics are annoying for many people.

Almost every sentence contains at least one noun phrase.

"Those five beautiful shiny Arkansas Black apples look delicious" is a noun phrase of
which apples is the head. To test, a single pronoun can replace the whole noun phrase, as
in "They look delicious".
Current economic weakness may be a result of high energy prices.

Noun phrases can be identified by the possibility of pronoun substitution, as is illustrated in the
examples below.

a. This sentence contains two noun phrases.

b. It contains them.
a. The subject noun phrase that is present in this sentence is long.
 b. It is long.
a. Noun phrases can be embedded in other noun phrases.
b. They can be embedded in them.

A string of words that can be replaced by a single pronoun without rendering the sentence
grammatically unacceptable is a noun phrase. As to whether the string must contain at least two
words, see the following section.

Status of single words as phrases[edit]

Traditionally, a phrase is understood to contain two or more words. The traditional progression
in the size of syntactic units is word < phrase < clause, and in this approach a single word (such
as a noun or pronoun) would not be referred to as a phrase. However, many modern schools of
syntax – especially those that have been influenced by X-bar theory – make no such restriction.[2]
Here many single words are judged to be phrases based on a desire for theory-internal
consistency. A phrase is deemed to be a word or a combination of words that appears in a set
syntactic position, for instance in subject position or object position.

On this understanding of phrases, the nouns and pronouns in bold in the following sentences are
noun phrases (as well as nouns or pronouns):

He saw someone.
Milk is good.
They spoke about corruption.

The words in bold are called phrases since they appear in the syntactic positions where multiple-
word phrases (i.e. traditional phrases) can appear. This practice takes the constellation to be
primitive rather than the words themselves. The word he, for instance, functions as a pronoun,
but within the sentence it also functions as a noun phrase. The phrase structure grammars of the
Chomskyan tradition (government and binding theory and the minimalist program) are primary
examples of theories that apply this understanding of phrases. Other grammars, for instance
dependency grammars, are likely to reject this approach to phrases, since they take the words
themselves to be primitive. For them, phrases must contain two or more words.

Components of noun phrases[edit]

A typical noun phrase consists of a noun (the head of the phrase) together with zero or more
dependents of various types. (These dependents, since they modify a noun, are called
adnominal.) The chief types of these dependents are:

 determiners, such as the, this, my, some, Jane's

 attributive adjectives, such as large, beautiful, sweeter
 adjective phrases and participial phrases, such as extremely large, hard as nails, made of
wood, sitting on the step
 noun adjuncts, such as college in the noun phrase a college student
  nouns in certain oblique cases, in languages which have them, such as German des
Mannes ("of the man"; genitive form)
 prepositional phrases, such as in the drawing room, of his aunt
 adnominal adverbs and adverbials, such as (over) there in the noun phrase the man (over)
there
 relative clauses, such as which we noticed
 other clauses serving as complements to the noun, such as that God exists in the noun
phrase the belief that God exists
 infinitive phrases, such as to sing well and to beat in the noun phrases a desire to sing
well and the man to beat

The allowability, form and position of these elements depend on the syntax of the language in
question. In English, determiners, adjectives (and some adjective phrases) and noun modifiers
precede the head noun, whereas the heavier units – phrases and clauses – generally follow it.
This is part of a strong tendency in English to place heavier constituents to the right, making
English more of a head-initial language. Head-final languages (e.g. Japanese and Turkish) are
more likely to place all modifiers before the head noun. Other languages, such as French, often
place even single-word adjectives after the noun.

Noun phrases can take different forms than that described above, for example when the head is a
pronoun rather than a noun, or when elements are linked with a coordinating conjunction such as
and, or, but. For more information about the structure of noun phrases in English, see English
grammar § Noun phrases.

Syntactic function[edit]
Noun phrases typically bear argument functions.[3] That is, the syntactic functions that they fulfill
are those of the arguments of the main clause predicate, particularly those of subject, object and
predicative expression. They also function as arguments in such constructs as participial phrases
and prepositional phrases. For example:

For us the news is a concern. - the news is the subject argument

Have you heard the news? - the news is the object argument
That is the news. - the news is the predicative expression following the copula is
They are talking about the news. - the news is the argument in the prepositional phrase about the
news
The man reading the news is very tall. - the news is the object argument in the participial phrase
reading the news

Sometimes a noun phrase can also function as an adjunct of the main clause predicate, thus
taking on an adverbial function, e.g.

Most days I read the newspaper.

She has been studying all night.
Noun phrases with and without determiners[edit]
In some languages, including English, noun phrases are required to be "completed" with a
determiner in many contexts, and thus a distinction is made in syntactic analysis between phrases
that have received their required determiner (such as the big house), and those in which the
determiner is lacking (such as big house).

The situation is complicated by the fact that in some contexts a noun phrase may nonetheless be
used without a determiner (as in I like big houses); in this case the phrase may be described as
having a "null determiner". (Situations in which this is possible depend on the rules of the
language in question; for English, see English articles.)

In the original X-bar theory, the two respective types of entity are called noun phrase (NP) and
N-bar (N, N′). Thus in the sentence Here is the big house, both house and big house are N-bars,
while the big house is a noun phrase. In the sentence I like big houses, both houses and big
houses are N-bars, but big houses also functions as a noun phrase (in this case without an explicit
determiner).

In some modern theories of syntax, however, what are called "noun phrases" above are no longer
considered to be headed by a noun, but by the determiner (which may be null), and they are thus
called determiner phrases (DP) instead of noun phrases. (In some accounts that take this
approach, the constituent lacking the determiner – that called N-bar above – may be referred to
as a noun phrase.)

This analysis of noun phrases is widely referred to as the DP hypothesis. It has been the preferred
analysis of noun phrases in the minimalist program from its start (since the early 1990s), though
the arguments in its favor tend to be theory-internal. By taking the determiner, a function word,
to be head over the noun, a structure is established that is analogous to the structure of the finite
clause, with a complementizer. Apart from the minimalist program, however, the DP hypothesis
is rejected by most other modern theories of syntax and grammar, in part because these theories
lack the relevant functional categories.[4] Dependency grammars, for instance, almost all assume
the traditional NP analysis of noun phrases.

For illustrations of different analyses of noun phrases depending on whether the DP hypothesis is
rejected or accepted, see the next section.

Tree representations of noun phrases[edit]

The representation of noun phrases using parse trees depends on the basic approach to syntactic
structure adopted. The layered trees of many phrase structure grammars grant noun phrases an
intricate structure that acknowledges a hierarchy of functional projections. Dependency
grammars, in contrast, since the basic architecture of dependency places a major limitation on the
amount of structure that the theory can assume, produce simple, relatively flat structures for noun
phrases.
The representation also depends on whether the noun or the determiner is taken to be the head of
the phrase (see the discussion of the DP hypothesis in the previous section).

Below are some possible trees for the two noun phrases the big house and big houses (as in the
sentences Here is the big house and I like big houses).

1. Phrase-structure trees, first using the original X-bar theory, then using the modern DP
approach:

NP NP | DP DP
/ \ | | / \ |
det N' N' | det NP NP
| / \ / \ | | / \ / \
the adj N' adj N' | the adj NP adj NP
| | | | | | | | |
big N big N | big N big N
| | | | |
house houses | house houses

2. Dependency trees, first using the traditional NP approach, then using the DP approach:

house houses | the (null)

// / | \ \
/ / big | house houses
the big | / /
| big big

The following trees represent a more complex phrase. For simplicity, only dependency-based
trees are given.[5]

The first tree is based on the traditional assumption that nouns, rather than determiners, are the
heads of phrases.
The head noun picture has the four dependents the, old, of Fred, and that I found in the drawer.
The tree shows how the lighter dependents appear as pre-dependents (preceding their head) and
the heavier ones as post-dependents (following their head).

The second tree assumes the DP hypothesis, namely that determiners rather than nouns serve as
phrase heads.

The determiner the is now depicted as the head of the entire phrase, thus making the phrase a
determiner phrase. Note that there is still a noun phrase present (old picture of Fred that I found
in the drawer) but this phrase is below the determiner.
T HE N OUN
P HRASE
Recognize a noun phrase
when you see one.
A noun phrase includes a noun—a person, place, or thing—and
the modifiers which distinguish it.

You can find the noun dog in a sentence, for example, but you
don't know which canine the writer means until you consider the
entire noun phrase: that dog, Aunt Audrey's dog, the dog
on the sofa, the neighbor's dog that chases our cat, the
dog digging in the new flower bed.
Modifiers can come before or after the noun. Ones that come
before might include articles, possessive nouns, possessive
pronouns, adjectives, and/or participles.

Articles: a dog, the dog

Possessive nouns: Aunt Audrey's dog, the neighbor's dog, the

police officer's dog

Possessive pronouns: our dog, her dog, their dog

Adjectives: that dog, the big dog, the spotted dog

Participles: the drooling dog, the barking dog, the well trained
dog

Modifiers that come after the noun might include prepositional

phrases, adjective clauses, participle phrases, and/or
infinitives.

Prepositional phrases: a dog on the loose, the dog in the front

seat, the dog behind the fence

Adjective clauses: the dog that chases cats, the dog that looks
lost, the dog that won the championship

Participle phrases: the dog whining for a treat, the dog clipped
at the grooming salon, the dog walked daily

Infinitives: the dog to catch, the dog to train, the dog to adopt
 Less frequently, a noun phrase will have a pronoun as its base—a
word like we, everybody, etc.—and the modifiers which
distinguish it. Read these examples:

We who were green with envy

We = subject pronoun; who were green with envy =

modifier.

Someone intelligent

Someone = indefinite pronoun; intelligent = modifier.

No one important

No one = indefinite pronoun; important = modifier.

 What is a noun phrase?

 The structure of noun phrases

 Noun phrases in class

 Conclusion

What is a noun phrase?

Before we go any further, let's remind ourselves of what a noun phrase is. My definition is:

A noun phrase is either a pronoun or any group of words that can be replaced by a pronoun. For example,
'they', 'cars', and 'the cars' are noun phrases, but 'car' is just a noun, as you can see in these sentences (in which
the noun phrases are all in bold)

Q: Do you like cars?

A: Yes, I like them.
Q: Do you like the cars over there?
 A: Yes, they are nice.
Q: Do you like the car I bought last week?
A: Yes, I like it. (Note: 'It' refers to 'the car', not 'car')

If you are a little puzzled at this point, try and think of some further examples of noun phrases using the
definition above, and compare your examples with simple nouns.

The structure of noun phrases

As I said, noun phrases can be infinite in length, but they would sound absurd if they got too long. So let's take
the following noun phrase as our working model:

 "The very tall education consultant with the roving eye"

The structure of this noun phrase contains three sections:

 Pre-modification
o The =determiner
o very =adverb (intensifying)
o tall = adjective
o education = pre-modifying noun

 Head noun
o consultant

 Post-modification
o with the roving eye = preposition phrase

Of course, each and every part of the noun phrase can be changed, but here is a summary of some fundamental
changes in which it could changed:

 A relative clause could replace the preposition phrase. 'The man with the hat' becomes 'The man who
is wearing the hat'.

 There could be a string of adjectives (and pre-modifying nouns) instead of just one. Both of these
systems have their own structural rules. 'The big brown wooden box.' Or 'The world cup football competition.'

 A numeral or cardinal could be inserted after the determiner. 'Do you remember the time I bumped
into you in the park?' can become 'Do you remember the first time I bumped into you in the park?'

 There can be 'embedding' (e.g. 'the roving eye' is also a noun phrase and can be made more complex in
the same way as 'the…consultant'!) 'The roving eye which he had cultivated for so many years'.

 Any part of the noun phrase can simply be stripped away (apart from the word 'The' here, as
'consultant' is not a noun phrase in itself). So 'The very tall education consultant with the roving eye' can
become 'The tall education consultant with the roving eye' (here 'very' has been deleted).
  

To sum up, noun phrases are very simple ideas in themselves, but they can be extremely complex in how they
manifest themselves in actual language.

Noun phrases in class

But how can a teacher help students use noun phrases in a more accurate way? And how can a teacher help
students to use them in a way that is more appropriate to the register of the target discourse? I have four
suggestions to make, all of which I constantly use with my students:

 I encourage students to understand what a noun phrase is.

To reinforce this understanding, I ask my students to study texts and answer such questions as "What pronoun
could this noun phrase be replaced by?" and "What noun phrase does this pronoun refer to?"

 I provide interesting prompts to encourage students to use noun phrases.

For example, I sometimes show my students a picture of a boy with brown eyes, and then I show exactly the
same boy, but this time with big brown eyes. This keeps students on their toes and gets them to practise the
grammar in an entertaining way. If you have no pictures, you can use visual information about the students in
your class as verbal prompts! You might expect your students to say: "The boy with the big brown eyes is
looking out of the window."

 I sometimes write a long noun phrase down on a piece of paper.

I then cut up the sentence into the different words of the noun phrase. I then give each word to different
individual students. The students with a bit of paper then stand up and have to rearrange themselves so that the
noun phrase makes sense. I tell them where the front of the noun phrase should be - and the end. I also tell the
students only to show their word to one student at a time. This makes the activity more demanding and more
fun. One example is: "The / very / tall / blonde / girl / who / has got / a small pink case"

 I encourage students to write noun phrases which are appropriate to the register they're aiming for.
For example, for an ESP class who need to give papers / presentations, I use a lot of authentic and contrastive
reading input so that the students can formulate appropriate language. If you're teaching a general English
class, you can use input that focuses on formal, neutral, and informal register, such as 'Thanks for your email'
(neutral), 'Ta' (informal, where the noun phrase can be elided), and 'We thank you for your correspondence'
(formal, where there is a full sentence and the lexical item is more abstract).

Conclusion
In conclusion, noun phrases and verb phrases are equally important. So noun phrases really shouldn't be
ignored by coursebook / syllabus writers or teachers. All these people can help students understand how noun
phrases fit into the syntax of a sentence, produce more complex noun phrases (as they become more
advanced), and become aware of how noun phrases operate differently in different registers.

Noun Phrases
Noun-a word that names a person, place, thing, or idea
Noun Phrase-a noun and any words in the sentence that modify it; words that
can modify nouns include articles (a, an, the); adjectives; participles; and
possessive pronouns
A noun phrase can be a single word-just the noun-or more than one word.
Noun phrases can function in several different ways in a sentence. Some of the
most common functions of noun phrases are listed below.
1. A noun phrase can be a subject:
2. A noun phrase can be a direct object:
3. A noun phrase can be the object of a preposition:
4. A noun phrase can be an indirect object:
Examples of Noun Phrases:
a yellow house a skate board the glistening snow
Each of these phrases contains a noun (house, board, snow). The other words
modify the noun.
Examples of noun phrase as subject: The yellow house is for sale.
The glistening snow covered the field.
Examples of noun phrase as direct object: I want a skate board.
Should we buy the yellow house?
Examples of noun phrase as object of preposition: Jeff rode on a skate
board.
Karen lives in the yellow house.
Example of noun phrase as indirect object: Lisa gave the little boy a candy.
Verb phrase
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Not to be confused with phrasal verb.

In linguistics, a verb phrase (VP) is a syntactic unit composed of at least one verb and its
dependents—objects, complements and other modifiers—but not always including the subject.
Thus in the sentence A fat man put the money quickly in the box, the words put the money
quickly in the box are a verb phrase; it consists of the verb put and its dependents, but not the
subject a fat man. A verb phrase is similar to what is considered a predicate in more traditional
grammars.

Verb phrases generally are divided among two types: finite, of which the head of the phrase is a
finite verb; and nonfinite, where the head is a nonfinite verb, such as an infinitive, participle or
gerund. Phrase structure grammars acknowledge both types, but dependency grammars treat the
subject as just another verbal dependent, and they do not recognize the finite verbal phrase
constituent. Understanding verb phrase analysis depends upon knowing which theory obtains in
context.

Contents
 [hide] 

 1Verb phrases in phrase structure grammars

 2Verb phrases in dependency grammars
 3Verb phrases narrowly defined
 4See also
 5Notes
 6References

Verb phrases in phrase structure grammars[edit]

In phrase structure grammars such as generative grammar, the verb phrase is one headed by a
verb. It may be composed of only a single verb, but typically it consists of combinations of main
and auxiliary verbs, plus optional specifiers, complements (not including subject complements),
and adjuncts. For example:
 Yankee batters hit the ball well enough to win their first World Series since 2000.
Mary saw the man through the window.
David gave Mary a book.

The first example contains the long verb phrase hit the ball well enough to win their first World
Series since 2000; the second is a verb phrase composed of the main verb saw, the complement
phrase the man (a noun phrase), and the adjunct phrase through the window (a prepositional
phrase). The third example presents three elements, the main verb gave, the noun Mary, and the
noun phrase a book, all which comprise the verb phrase. Note, the verb phrase described here
corresponds to the predicate of traditional grammar.

Current views vary on whether all languages have a verb phrase; some schools of generative
grammar (such as Principles and Parameters) hold that all languages have a verb phrase, while
others (such as Lexical Functional Grammar) take the view that at least some languages lack a
verb phrase constituent, including those languages with a very free word order (the so-called
non-configurational languages, such as Japanese, Hungarian, or Australian aboriginal
languages), and some languages with a default VSO order (several Celtic and Oceanic
languages).

Phrase structure grammars view both finite and nonfinite verb phrases as constituent phrases and,
consequently, do not draw any key distinction between them. Dependency grammars (described
below) are much different in this regard.

Verb phrases in dependency grammars[edit]

While phrase structure grammars (constituency grammars) acknowledge both finite and non-
finite VPs as constituents (complete subtrees), dependency grammars reject the former. That is,
dependency grammars acknowledge only non-finite VPs as constituents; finite VPs do not
qualify as constituents in dependency grammars. For example:

John has finished the work. – Finite VP in bold

John has finished the work. – Non-finite VP in bold

Since has finished the work contains the finite verb has, it is a finite VP, and since finished the
work contains the non-finite verb finished but lacks a finite verb, it is a non-finite VP. Similar
examples:

They do not want to try that. – Finite VP in bold

They do not want to try that. – One non-finite VP in bold
They do not want to try that. – Another non-finite VP in bold

These examples illustrate well that many clauses can contain more than one non-finite VP, but
they generally contain only one finite VP. Starting with Lucien Tesnière 1959,[1] dependency
grammars challenge the validity of the initial binary division of the clause into subject (NP) and
predicate (VP), which means they reject the notion that the second half of this binary division,
i.e. the finite VP, is a constituent. They do, however, readily acknowledge the existence of non-
finite VPs as constituents. The two competing views of verb phrases are visible in the following
trees:

The constituency tree on the left shows the finite VP has finished the work as a constituent, since
it corresponds to a complete subtree. The dependency tree on the right, in contrast, does not
acknowledge a finite VP constituent, since there is no complete subtree there that corresponds to
has finished the work. Note that the analyses agree concerning the non-finite VP finished the
work; both see it as a constituent (complete subtree).

Dependency grammars point to the results of many standard constituency tests to back up their
stance.[2] For instance, topicalization, pseudoclefting, and answer ellipsis suggest that non-finite
VP does, but finite VP does not, exist as a constituent:

*...and has finished the work, John. – Topicalization

*What John has done is has finished the work. – Pseudoclefting
What has John done? – *Has finished the work. – Answer ellipsis

The * indicates that the sentence is bad. These data must be compared to the results for non-finite
VP:

...and finished the work, John (certainly) has. – Topicalization

What John has done is finished the work. – Pseudoclefting
What has John done? – Finished the work. – Answer ellipsis

The strings in bold are the ones in focus. Attempts to in some sense isolate the finite VP fail, but
the same attempts with the non-finite VP succeed.[3]

Verb phrases narrowly defined[edit]

Verb phrases are sometimes defined more narrowly in scope, in effect admitting only those
elements considered as strictly verbal to compose verb phrases, which, accordingly, would
consist only of main and auxiliary verbs, plus infinitive or participle constructions.[4] For
example, in the following sentences only the words in bold would be used in forming the verb
phrase:

John has given Mary a book.

The picnickers were being eaten alive by mosquitos.
She kept screaming like a football maniac.
Thou shalt not kill.

This more narrow definition is often applied in functionalist frameworks and traditional
European reference grammars. It is incompatible with the phrase structure model, because the
strings in bold are not constituents under that analysis. It is, however, compatible with
dependency grammars and other grammars that view the verb catena (verb chain) as the
fundamental unit of syntactic structure, as opposed to the constituent. Furthermore, the verbal
elements in bold are syntactic units consistent with the understanding of predicates in the
tradition of predicate calculus.

The verb phrase in English has the following forms:

1) a main verb:

  Verb  

We are here.
I like it
Everybody saw. the accident
We laughed.  

The verb may be in the present tense (are, like) or the past tense (saw, laughed). A verb phrase with only a
main verb expresses simple aspect

2) an auxiliary verb ("be") and a main verb in –ing form:

  Auxiliary "be" Verb (-ing)

Everybod is watching
y were laughing
   Auxiliary "be" Verb (-ing)

We

A verb phrase with "be" and –ing expresses continuous aspect.

3) an auxiliary verb ("have") and a main verb with past participle:

  Auxiliary "have" Verb (past participle)  

They
have enjoyed themselves.
Everybod
has worked hard.
y
had finished work.
He

A verb with "have" and the past participle expresses perfect aspect. A verb with have/has expresses present
perfect, and a verb with had expresses past perfect.

4) an auxiliary verb ("have" + "been") and a main verb in the –ing form:

Auxiliary "have" +
  Verb (-ing)  
"been"

Everybody has been working hard

He had been singing  

A verb with "have" and "been" and the present participle expresses perfect continuous aspect. A verb with
have/has expresses present perfect continuous, and a verb with had expresses past perfect continuous.

5) a modal verb (can, could, may, might, must, shall, should, will, would) and a main verb:

 
 Modal
  Main verb
Verb

They will come.

He might come.

6) We can use modal verbs with the auxiliaries "be", "have", and "have been":

  Modal Auxiliary  Verb

They will be listening

He might have arrived
She must have been listening

Verb Phrase
6th grade7th grade8th grade9th grade10th grade11th grade12th gradeMiddle SchoolHigh SchoolCollege

If you want to understand what a verb phrase is, you need to understand verbs and phrases first.
Phrases will be explained, as well as sentence structure, and examples will be offered for all of them.

Defining a Verb Phrase

A verb phrase can be the predicate of a sentence or a clause. In this case, there will usually be a
helping verb in addition to the verb. Here are some examples of a verb phrase as a predicate:

 The author is writing a new book.

 I must make an “A” in this class.
 The dog might eat the cake.
 He was walking to work today.
 We grew apart after high school.
A verb phrase can also be a phrase that functions as an adverb or adjective that has a verb and its
complements, objects, or modifiers. Some examples are: 

 Running on the wet floor, she slipped and broke her arm.
 Fill up the gas tank to help it run better.
 To bake a cake, you need flour and sugar.
 Finally, I have saved enough to buy a car.

Defining a Sentence
A sentence is a group of words that has a subject and a predicate, which is a verb or verb phrase. It
expresses a complete thought; so therefore, it is called an independent clause.

 The subject is the star of the sentence, what or who the sentence is about. It can be a noun or
a pronoun.
 The predicate is the action, or what the subject is doing. It can also tell the subject’s state of
being. It contains a verb, verb phrase, or linking verb. Simple sentence examples are: Sally ran.
Jose slept.
Most verbs show action, like run, taste, fly, jump, crawl, or hit. Verbs link a word to the subject and
are called linking verbs. These do not refer to an action, they express a state of being. For example:
am, are, was, were, has been, etc. Other linking verbs are: seem, appear, become, taste, stay, and feel.

Some verbs can pull double duty, and be active or linking depending on their use.  Here is an
example:

 Active - Would you like to stay the night?  Linking - I want you to stay sweet forever.
 Active - I can taste the salt in this.  Linking - This tastes gross.

Defining a Phrase
A phrase is a group of words that have a function in a sentence, but do not have a subject and verb. If
it had a subject and a verb, it would be a clause.

Phrases can function in the sentence like nouns, adverbs, or adjectives.

Four of the main kinds of phrases are infinitive, participle, prepositional, and gerund. Here are
definitions and examples.
 Infinitive: These phrases start with an infinitive plus a simple form of a verb. They can act
like a noun, adjective, or adverb. Here is an example: She wanted to show off her new dress. The
whole phrase is what she wanted, so it is acting like a noun. 
 Participle - This phrase will act as an adjective and begins with a participle. A participle is an
adjective that has been made from a verb, like talked or swimming. Here’s an example: We have
to replace the window broken by the hail. The phrase modifies the noun “window”, so it is
functioning like an adjective.
 Prepositional - These phrases start with a preposition and have an object of that preposition.
They function as adjectives or adverbs. Example: The plane will fly over the clouds. The phrase
tells where the plane will fly, so it is acting like an adverb.    
 Gerund - These phrases act like a noun and start with a verb ending with an “ing”. They can
be subjects or objects. An example is: Lying to the IRS is never a good idea. The phrase acts as
the subject in this sentence.