Inlinguistics, averb phrase (VP) is asyntactic unit composed of averb and itsarguments except thesubject of anindependent clause orcoordinate clause. Thus, in the sentenceA fat man quickly put the money into the box, the wordsquickly put the money into the box constitute a verbphrase; it consists of the verbput and its arguments, but not the subjecta fat man. A verb phrase is similar to what is considered apredicate intraditional grammars.
Verb phrases generally are divided among two types: finite, of which thehead of the phrase is afinite verb; and nonfinite, where the head is anonfinite verb, such as aninfinitive,participle orgerund.Phrase structure grammars acknowledge both types, butdependency grammars treat the subject as just another verbal dependent, and they do not recognize the finite verbal phraseconstituent. Understanding verb phrase analysis depends on knowing which theory applies in context.
In phrase structure grammars such asgenerative grammar, the verbphrase is oneheaded by averb. It may be composed of only a single verb, but typically it consists of combinations of main andauxiliary verbs, plus optionalspecifiers,complements (not including subject complements), andadjuncts. For example:
The first example contains the long verb phrasehit the ball well enough to win their first World Series since 2000; the second is a verb phrase composed of the main verbsaw, the complement phrasethe man (anoun phrase), and the adjunct phrasethrough the window (anadverbial phrase andprepositional phrase). The third example presents three elements, the main verbgave, the nounMary, and the noun phrasea book, all of which comprise the verb phrase. Note, the verb phrase described here corresponds to thepredicate of traditional grammar.
Current views vary on whether all languages have a verb phrase; some schools of generative grammar (such asprinciples and parameters) hold that all languages have a verb phrase, while others (such aslexical functional grammar) take the view that at least some languages lack a verb phrase constituent, including those languages with a veryfree word order (the so-callednon-configurational languages, such as Japanese, Hungarian, orAustralian aboriginal languages), and some languages with a defaultVSO 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.
Whilephrase structure grammars (constituency grammars) acknowledge bothfinite andnon-finite VPs asconstituents (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:
Sincehas finished the work contains the finite verbhas, it is a finite VP, and sincefinished the work contains the non-finite verbfinished but lacks a finite verb, it is a non-finite VP. Similar examples:
These examples illustrate well that many clauses can contain more than one non-finite VP, but they generally contain only one finite VP. Starting withLucien Tesnière 1959,[1] dependency grammars challenge the validity of the initial binary division of the clause intosubject (NP) andpredicate (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 VPhas 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 tohas finished the work. Note that the analyses agree concerning the non-finite VPfinished the work; both see it as a constituent (complete subtree).
Dependency grammars point to the results of many standardconstituency tests to back up their stance.[2] For instance,topicalization, pseudoclefting, andanswer ellipsis suggest that non-finite VP does, but finite VP does not, exist as a constituent:
The * indicates that the sentence is bad. These data must be compared to the results for non-finite VP:
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 are sometimes defined more narrowly in scope, in effect counting only those elements considered strictly verbal in verb phrases. That would limit the definition to only main andauxiliary verbs, plusinfinitive orparticiple constructions.[4] For example, in the following sentences only the words in bold form the verb phrase:
This more narrow definition is often applied infunctionalist 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 withdependency grammars and other grammars that view the verbcatena (verb chain) as the fundamental unit of syntactic structure, as opposed to theconstituent.
