Phrases 101

I have covered phrases before on the blog, but when I was working on my writing guide Red Pens 101 I had the opportunity to refine my understanding of phrases, and I want to share with you what I have learned in that process. The following content is taken directly from Red Pens 101—if you want more like it, you can purchase the guide from my Ko-Fi shop.

As you may or may not already be aware, a phrase is a collection of one or more words that work towards the same purpose. Often, a phrase will be made up of multiple words functioning as a single noun, verb, and so on, but a phrase can also be a single word. However many words are involved, phrases largely function according to the standard guidance for the relevant part of speech.

Where phrases get especially tricky, though, is that they're very good at nesting inside other phrases, so you'll find adverb phrases inside adjective phrases, adjective phrases inside noun phrases, noun phrases inside prepositional phrases, prepositional phrases inside verb phrases... Picking apart the different phrases can become a bit like peeling an onion at times! Let's have a look at some types of phrases you will commonly see, and compare how they fit together.

Noun phrases

The two types of phrases that are required for any grammatically standard sentence are noun phrases and verb phrases. A noun phrase indicates a person, place, or thing, using primarily nouns and pronouns. You certainly can have a noun phrase that's only one word, especially if you're using a plural ("elephants can't jump"), a proper noun ("Jarvis loves to explore cupboards"), or a pronoun ("we love visiting Chicago").

However, a noun phrase will also often include a determiner (e.g. "an", "this", "my", "the") to give some context for the noun, such as whether it's singular, distinct, one of many, or belonging to or associated with someone or something else. You may also find descriptions in a noun phrase by way of nested adjective and adverb phrases, such as:

She wore a small, yellow, polka-dot bikini.

A suddenly quiet Jo left the room.

A noun phrase might even go so far as to contain multiple adjective, adverb, or prepositional phrases inside it. This means that a noun phrase could end up being quite extensive, as in the case of "this pile of pictures of Uncle John that we found in the bottom drawer of Grandma's sewing cupboard when we visited last Christmas". The key is that you know what belongs in the noun phrase because you could replace the phrase with an appropriate pronoun—in the case of this latest example, a following sentence could say "I really liked looking through them".

Verb phrases

Like noun phrases, verb phrases are an integral part of a sentence. While it is certainly possible to come across a single-word verb phrase, such as "the ominous black carriage stopped", they also have the potential to contain multitudes. As well as the action itself, a verb phrase might include any other type of phrase, and possibly multiple other phrases. See how many nested phrases you can spot in the following examples, short as they are:

Tony was very angry with Sarah.

The cow jumped over the moon.

I frantically cleaned the house.

Verb phrases frequently include noun phrases where the noun is affected by the verb. Nested prepositional phrases can position not just the noun but also the action in space or time. And, of course, adjectives and adverbs can be snuck into these nests of phrases too.

Adjective and adverb phrases

As you probably know already, adjectives and adverbs (and therefore adjective and adverb phrases) are both methods of adding description to sentences, which they do by modifying nouns and various-things-that-aren't-nouns respectively. This means that they must always be nested inside other phrases: adjectives within noun phrases, and adverbs within adjective or verb phrases.

An adjective phrase might contain a string of multiple adjectives, or an adjective modified by an adverb, or an adjective linked up to a prepositional phrase:

What a gloomy, wet, miserable day!

Naomi is an astonishingly quick runner.

The penguin is happy in the box.

Similarly, adverb phrases might (rarely) include multiple adverbs, as in "things are really, very, definitely, perfectly fine". However, because of the wide range of things adverbs can modify, they are more often used singly within other types of phrases:

The astronaut spiralled uncontrollably. (Verb phrase containing an adverb phrase)

The light was unbearably bright. (Adjective phrase containing an adverb phrase)

Prepositional phrases

The key thing to note about prepositional phrases is that they use a preposition to describe a relationship between the topic of the sentence and something else, often placing the sentence in time and space. Some examples of this are as follows:

Before the war, the kingdoms shared a bustling trade.

The penguin is in the box.

Don't forget to pack a bag for the camping trip!

It wasn't until after the party that I noticed the spinach in my teeth.

The cat under the table glowered at the one on the chair.

You can also see from the examples that the thing that the sentence's primary noun is being compared to is always included as a noun phrase within the prepositional phrase—it's mandatory phrase-nesting.

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