PHRASES
Modern syntactic theory can be a very technical affair. We shall try to keep things relativel y simple here, but some abstract analysis is unavoidable. In particular it will be assumed that the words of a sentence form natural groupings or phrases. This is the basic insight behind what is known as phrase structure grammar, which is a method of syntactic analysis that has been popular for the last half century.
A phrase is classified according to the word that is its principal item (normally called the head) and which determines how the phrase functions in the containing sentence. Thus a noun phrase (NP for short), for example, can be defined as a noun together with any adjacent determiners, adjectives or prepositional phrases, as in el chico the boy, mi casa my house, el vestido azul the blue dress, un caf con leche a white coffee.
In the same spirit, a prepositional phrase (PP for short) normally comprises a preposition and a following noun or NP (or some item functioning as such); e.g. con leche in un caf con leche a white coffee or de tu padre in Hablaron de tu padre They spoke about your father.
An adjectival phrase (AP) is made up of an adjective and any adjacent adverbs or PPs; e.g. sumamente inepto exceedingly inept, igual a ti identical to you.
Finally, a verb phrase (VP) consists typically of a verb together with any associated NPs (excluding the NP that supplies the verbs subject), PPs or adverbs. For example, the VP in sentence (1) below is bebi el vino(verb + NP), while in (2) it is comi el huevo con un tenedor (verb + NP + PP):
(1)El chico bebi el vino.
The boy drank the wine.
(2)El chico comi el huevo con un tenedor.
The boy ate the egg with a fork.
There are other phrasal categories, but NPs, PPs, APs and VPs are the ones that will be mentioned most frequently in this book.
Now that we have rough definitions of some of the main phrasal categories, a few illustrations can be given of how to analyse sentences. In doing this, a common notational technique will be used that involves enclosing the constituents of a sentence between labelled brackets. For example, sentence (1) can be analysed, at one level, in the following way:
[NP El chico] [VP bebi el vino]
The verb phrase bebi el vino can in turn be split up into a verb (denoted by V) and an NP:
[V bebi] [NP elvino]
Finally, the NP el
[D el] [
To take another example,
sentence (2) can be analysed first into the NP El
[NP El chico][VP comi el huevocon un tenedor]
The VP comi el huevoconun tenedor can then be split up into a verb, an NP and a PP:
[V comi] [NP elhuevo][PP con un tenedor]
The PP con un tenedor can in turn by analysed into the preposition con and the NP un tenedor:
[P con] [NP untenedor]
Finally, as before, the NPs break down into a determiner and a noun:
[D el] [N huevo]
[D un] [N tenedor]
Our third and final example illustrates the use of an AP:
(3)Este destornillador es completamente intil.
This screwdriver is completely useless.
The sentence above splits up, in the first place, into the NP este destornilladorand the VP es completamente intil:
[NP Este destornillador] [VP es completamente intil]
The NP obviously has the structure [D este] [N destornillador], while the structure of the VP is as follows:
[V es] [AP completamenteintil]
The AP completamente intil can itself be broken up into the adverb completamente and the adjective intil:
[ADVB completamente] [Aintil]
Words Used as Phrases
As the preceding remarks suggest, the concept of a phrase is crucial to syntactic analysis. In normal usage, the term phrase refers to a sequence of two or more words. But in the technical sense in which it is used in modern syntax, phrase can also be applied to a single word if it has the function of a phrase in a sentence. For example, the noun casas houses in (4) below has an identical role in its sentence to the full NP muchas casa in (5). Accordingly, though casas is a single word, in sentence (4) it counts as an NP for the purpose of syntactic analysis.
(4)Compraron [NPcasas].
They bought houses.
(5)Compraron [NPmuchas casas].
They bought many houses.
Similarly, a proper name
such as Pedro or
(6)[NP Madrid/La capital de Espaa] tiene 5 millones de habitantes.
Madrid/The capital of
(7)Me gusta ir a [NP Madrid/la capital de Espaa].
I like going to Madrid/the
capital of
Finally it is worth noting that a pronoun can have phrasal status also. Thus l he in (8) below functions as the subject NP of the verb vive:
(8)[NP l] [VP vive muy bien].
He lives very well.
