Grammar for Everyone - Barbara Dykes 2007
25 Phrases - Adjectival phrases
Introduction
Part II The parts of speech
Definition: The word ’phrase’ comes, via Latin, from the Greek phrazein meaning ’to tell’. A phrase provides additional information to a statement. It is a group of words without a finite verb which forms a grammatical unit that can do the work of an adjective, an adverb or a noun (or pronoun, less commonly).
Before studying phrases, students should be able to:
• recognise and understand the function of all eight parts of speech
• understand the formation of the present and past participles (participles, especially the present participle are common in phrases)
Phrases and clauses are both word groups which, with the exception of noun phrases and clauses, act as appendages to one or another word in a simple sentence. They both have the function of expanding information but they differ in construction, so we deal with them separately, beginning with phrases, which are simpler, but enjoyable to work with.
Note that some modern grammar texts allow the application of the term ’phrase’ to any group of two or more words - or even one word - as in Glass is breakable/The glass is breakable. This use of the word ’phrase’ is not only totally confusing, as the words marked already have defining terminology, but also renders not only the function but the category and the word ’phrase’ itself as quite meaningless.
In the traditional sense, being an appendage, an adjectival or an adverbial phrase can be removed from a sentence, leaving the remainder grammatically whole. Thus it possesses a clear and valuable function.
Adjectival phrases
This is a group of words forming a unit and doing the work of an adjective. Therefore, it tells more about a noun or pronoun.
For example:
You can remove the phrase and the remainder is still a complete sentence.
A man wearing army boots robbed the bank.