The group is one of the five units on the grammatical rank scale. On the rank scale, this unit (i.e., the group) is immediately below the clause and immediately above the word. A group is any combination of words that has a headword. A headword (H) is defined as the obligatory or indispensable word in a group. This means that every group must have a headword. As will be shown shortly, a group may consist of just one word, or it may have more than one word (Biber et al., 1999: 94).
A group that consists of just one word is called a simple group, while a group is complex if it comprises more than one word. In this work, the term group is used as a synonym for phrase. Thus, the two terms are interchangeable in this chapter. Biber et al. (1999: 96) note that every lexical word has a phrase or a group that corresponds to it. A lexical word is one which not only has inherent meaning but can also be inflected. Nouns, adjectives, verbs, and adverbs are lexical words. This can be illustrated as follows:
The Nominal Group in English
A nominal group has a noun or a pronoun as its headword. The structure of the nominal group consists of the modifier (m), which is the element that appears before the headword, the headword (h) itself, which is usually a noun, and the qualifier (q), which is the element that occurs after the headword (Halliday, 1994; Muir, 1972). Of these three constituents, both the modifier and the qualifier are optional, while the headword is obligatory. This is often illustrated with the formula:
————–>
(m) h (q)
The arrow suggests an unidirectional structure, which means that the m-element cannot come after the headword, nor can the q-element come before the headword in English. The modifier slot of the English noun phrases can be occupied by determiners, ordinals, epithets, and nouns. It is possible to have more than one member of each of these classes of modifiers in English. When there is more than one adjective, second-language users of English tend to become confused as to how to arrange them (Akande, 2009). The four structural possibilities of the English nominal group are:
a) The unmodified head type consisting of only the headword (the h type):
- [Boys] are wicked.
- [Ladies] are nice.
- [Students] could be funny sometimes.
b) The premodified head type consisting of the modifier plus the headword (the mh type):
- The two young [boys] are brilliant.
- Some university [students] went on a rampage.
- The two beautiful university [girls] came here yesterday.
c) The postmodified head type consisting of the headword plus the qualifier (the hq type):
- [He] himself supported the idea.
- [Something] delicious is what I need.
- [Students] who are brilliant will naturally excel in the examination.
d) The pre and postmodified head type consisting of the modifier plus the headword and then, plus the qualifier (the mhq type):
- The [man] in the room is my friend.
- The [car] I bought was very expensive.
- The [women] themselves attended the party.
In the examples under (a) to (d), the headwords are enclosed in square brackets. The headword in the unmodified head type can be realized as proper nouns (Joseph, London, David, Ibadan, as in Joseph came), pronouns (e.g., she, he, it, they, as in She did it), plural count nouns (e.g., boys, cars, children, as in Boys are nice to have), abstract nouns (e.g., wisdom, experience, death, as in Wisdom is a gift), or deverbalized nouns (e.g., singing, thinking, dancing, as in Singing is my hobby). The modifier in the premodified head type can be realized as determiners (i.e., a, an, the, as in A pen has dropped), numerals (e.g., two, second, three, third, as in Two pens have dropped), epithets (e.g., handsome, brilliant, expensive, as in Handsome boys came to the party), or the nominal (e.g., university, bookshop, Mathematics, as in University girls are expensive to maintain).
The headword in the mh type can be a singular or plural count noun, an adjective but not a proper noun. When an adjective is used, it must be followed by a plural verb, as in: The rich are wicked or The poor are many. Specificity is involved when the article ‘a’ versus ‘the’ is used; ‘a’ is used when referring to something not previously mentioned, while ‘the’ is used for something previously mentioned or identified. The article ‘a’ always precedes a word that starts with a consonant, while ‘an’ appears before adjectives that start with a vowel. As the examples above show, epithets are:
Syntactic Functions of Noun Phrases
Noun phrases perform several syntactic functions, some of which include the following:
Subject
- The women went on a rampage.
Subject complement
2. The youngest boy in my family has traveled to London.
3. He is a good lawyer.
4. The teacher was a nice man.
Direct Object
5. Akande has bought an expensive car.
6. They have seen the stupid guy.
Indirect Object
7. My brother gave the man a shirt.
8. They presented the lady with many lovely gifts.
Object complement
9. We elected the woman our chairperson.
10. The students considered him a genius among his colleagues.
Apposition
11. Kayode, a lecturer in Foreign Languages, visited me last week.
12. Professor Agbe, the only professor of Linguistics in my department, taught me acoustic phonetics.
Complement within a prepositional phrase
13. The pen is under the table.
14. We shall be in the room.
Adverbial
15. They came last year.
16. Our examination starts next week.
Premodifier in adjective or adverbial phrases
17. We had seen him a week before he left. (a noun phrase before an adverbial phrase)
18. The boy is a year old. (a noun phrase before an adjectival phrase)
Object of prepositional verb phrase
19. The man relies on those young boys.
20. The teacher cashed in on the problems.
The Verbal Group
The verb phrase can consist of just a lexical verb or a lexical verb preceded by at least one auxiliary verb. A verb phrase must have a verb as its headword. When a verbal group has only one verbal item, it is a simple verb phrase, while a verb phrase is complex when it has an auxiliary and a lexical verb (see Table 1). The structure of the VP is, therefore, (a)l, where a, which is optional, stands for the auxiliary verb(s) and / stands for the lexical verb.
21.The man came yesterday.
22.I dance every day.
23. I will dance tomorrow.
24. I should have been dancing by now.
Each of the verb; came and danced in 21 and 22 is a simple verb phrase, while in 23 and 24, each of will dance and should have been dancing is a complex verb phrase.
Lexical versus Auxiliary Verbs
The distinction between a lexical and an auxiliary verb is simple. A lexical verb usually has inherent meaning, while an auxiliary verb does not. Whereas the verb coming in will be coming (Table 1) has an inherent meaning, the auxiliary verbs will and be have no inherent meaning. Similarly, an auxiliary verb cannot appear alone without a lexical verb unless the lexical verb that should have occurred after it is ellipted, while a lexical verb does not have to be preceded by an auxiliary verb. Finally, while we can have two or more auxiliaries within a verb phrase, we often have just one lexical verb within a verb phrase.
Types of Lexical Verbs
There are different types of lexical verbs, but for convenience’s sake, in this chapter, English lexical verbs are grouped into the following:
a) Regular versus irregular verbs
b) Intransitive versus transitive verbs
c) Stative versus dynamic verbs
d) Finite versus non-finite verbs
Regular versus Irregular Verbs
Regular verbs take -ed inflection in both the past tense and the past participle forms, while irregular verbs take different, unpredictable past tense and past participle forms. In Table 2, the forms of both regular and irregular verbs are illustrated:
| Types | Base Form | Past Tense Form | Past Participle Form |
|---|---|---|---|
| Regular | dance | danced | danced |
| talk | talked | talked | |
| beg | begged | begged | |
| Irregular | break | broke | broken |
| come | came | come | |
| eat | ate | eaten | |
| take | took | taken |
Forms of Lexical Verbs Associated with Auxiliary Verbs
Intransitive versus Transitive Verbs
Intransitive verbs are verbs that do not require any object. Examples of intransitive verbs are found in the following sentences:
25. Peter wept bitterly.
26. The boy came yesterday.
27. Birds fly.
There is no object in each of sentences 25 to 27. However, it must be noted that “bitterly” and “yesterday” in sentences 25 and 26 are adverbs. This means that intransitive verbs can be followed by adverbs or adverbials. Transitive verbs must have objects. Without an object, a sentence with a transitive verb is incomplete. There are three types of transitive verbs. The first is called monotransitive verbs. A monotransitive verb takes only one object as in:
28. I need money.
29. We have discussed the matter.
30. She killed a goat.
In each of sentences 28 to 30, there is only one object. The object in 28 is “money,” the one in 29 is “the matter,” while “a goat” is the object in 30. This means that the verbs “need,” “have discussed,” and “killed” are monotransitive. The second type of transitive verbs is called ditransitive verbs. A ditransitive verb requires two objects: a direct object and an indirect object as in:
31.The boy gave me a pen.
32. We have sent them some money.
33. My dad bought Ade a bus.
In sentence 31, there are two objects (i.e., “me” and “a pen”), while in 32, we have “them” and “some money” as the objects. “Ade” and “a bus” are the objects in 33. So, the verbs “gave,” “have sent,” and “bought” in these sentences are ditransitive.
Whenever there are two objects in a sentence, one is direct while the other is indirect. Then, how does one recognize a direct and an indirect object? Apart from the fact that a direct object is one that directly suffers first from the action depicted by the verb in a sentence, there are two tests through which one can identify a direct object in a sentence with a ditransitive verb. These tests are: (a) passive transformation and (b) to or for transformation. When a sentence that has two objects is passivized, the direct object comes first to function as the subject, while the indirect object may function within a “to” or “for” prepositional phrase. Here, the passivized forms of sentences 31, 32, and 33 above are used as illustrations:
34. A pen was given to me by the boy.
35. Some money has been sent to them by us.
36. A bus was bought for Ade by my dad.
As we can see, “a pen,” which is the direct object in sentence 31, now occupies the subject position in sentence 34, while the indirect object “them” in 31 functions as the complement of “to” in 35. Similarly, “a bus,” which is the direct object in 33, is now the subject in sentence 36, while “Ade,” the indirect object in 33, now occurs as the complement of “for” in sentence 36. The second test is a “to” or “for” transformation. When a sentence that has two objects undergoes a “to” or “for” transformation, the direct object comes immediately after the verb, while the indirect object comes after the preposition “to” or “for.” Again, let us use examples 31 to 33 above to illustrate this:
37. The boy gave a pen to me.
38. We have sent some money to them.
39. My dad bought a bus for Ade.
In examples 37 to 39, “a pen,” “some money,” and “a bus” are direct objects because they are the immediate recipients of the actions depicted in these sentences.
The third type of transitive verbs is complex transitive verbs. A complex transitive verb occurs in a sentence where there is an object complement. Here are some examples to illustrate this:
40. The drivers elected Garuba their chairman.
41. We made the man our king.
42. The students rated their teacher a genius.
43. They consider her foolish.
The underlined items in sentences 40 to 43 are object complements. In 40, the subject is “the drivers,” “elected” is the predicator, “Garuba” is the object, while “their chairman” is the object complement. Their chairman is the object complement because it refers to Garuba, which occupies the object position. This means that what we have in the object position and the item that comes immediately after it refer to the same entity. If we ask the question: “Who is Garuba?” in respect of sentence 40, the answer will be “their chairman.” Again, if we ask the question: “Who is their chairman?” the answer will be Garuba. Since Garuba is in the object position, it means that “their chairman,” which follows it, complements it. The same explanation applies to sentences 41 to 43, except that in sentence 43, the object complement is an adjective (i.e., “foolish”), while in each of sentences 40 to 42, the object complements are noun phrases.
Stative versus Dynamic Verbs
A stative verb can express emotion or depict a state of being. Stative verbs are usually verbs of perception or cognition and they may also be relation verbs (Quirk & Greenbaum, 1973: 47). Examples of stative verbs include: astonish, love, intend, know, prefer, hear, understand, concern, include, lack, depend, etc. A dynamic verb is a verb that depicts an action, shows a process, or indicates a transitional event. Examples of dynamic verbs are: help, drive, beat, feel, arrive, leave, kick, etc. In some varieties of Standard English (such as British Standard English), stative verbs are seldom used (Quirk et al., 1972: 93-94). However, Akande (2008: 154) and Alo Mesthrie (2004: 815) have pointed out that stative verbs can be used with the progressive aspect in Nigerian English.
Finite versus Non-finite Verbs
A finite verb is one that shows tense, number, person, or mood, while a non-finite verb does not show any of these. If we apply this to verb phrases, a finite verb phrase shows tense, number, person, or mood, but a non-finite verb phrase does not.
44. She loves the boy.
45. She loved the boy.
46. She may love the boy.
47. I love dancing.
48. Having broken the cup, he ran away.
In example 44, the verb “loves” is in present tense form (which means it shows tense). It also shows person in that it agrees with the 3rd person singular pronoun subject before it. It means then that “loves” is finite. Also, the verb “loved” in example 45 is in past tense form and, for this reason, it is finite, while the verb phrase “may love” in sentence 46 shows mood, indicating probability. This also means that “may” is finite. However, “dancing” in 47 is non-finite because it does not reflect tense, number, person, or mood. “Having broken” in 48 is a non-finite verb phrase. When a complex verb phrase is finite, the first verbal item is the carrier of finiteness. Thus, in “may love” example 46, “may” is the carrier of finiteness.
Auxiliary Verbs in Standard English
Auxiliary verbs are helping verbs and they belong to a closed system that cannot be extended. Like lexical verbs, they carry tense in Standard English (Huddleston, 2002: 102). Auxiliary verbs always appear before lexical verbs in English complex verb phrases. The first auxiliary verb can precede a negator. The negator within a complex verb phrase may appear in full form or contracted form (e.g., The boys were not singing/The boys weren’t singing). Auxiliary verbs can be divided into primary auxiliaries, modal auxiliaries, and semi-modal auxiliaries.
Primary Auxiliaries
The three primary auxiliaries in English are BE, HAVE, and DO. Primary auxiliaries are different from modal ones in two major respects. First, they have more inflectional variation than modal and semi-modal auxiliaries. Second, they do not show the speaker’s stance in a conversation as modals do.
The auxiliary BE is unique in one respect. It has the highest number of forms in English.
Forms of BE
Finite
am
is
are
was
were
Non-Finite
be
being
been
The finite forms of BE are 5 (i.e., am, is, are, was, were), while the non-finite forms of BE are 3 (i.e., be, being, been). In examples 49 and 50, the auxiliary verbs “is” and “are” are in present form, while in examples 51 and 52, “was” and “were” are in past form. Similarly, while “is” and “was” in examples 49 and 51 indicate that the subjects in the two sentences are singular, “are” and “were” show that the subjects in 50 and 52 are plural. This means that each of the auxiliaries in examples 49 to 52 is finite.
49. The teacher is dancing.
50. The teachers are dancing.
51. The teacher was dancing.
52. The teachers were dancing.
DO as an auxiliary is always finite and it has three forms: present tense (do, does) and past (did). The auxiliary DO follows the grammar of modality in that:
- It is followed by the base form of lexical verbs; and
- It cannot be used in a verb phrase with a modal in Standard English.
The auxiliary DO can function as DO-support in negative and interrogative sentences where there are no other auxiliaries as in example 53.
53. I did not kill the snake.
54. Why did you kill the snake?
DO in 53 and 54 functions as DO-support and appears in negative and interrogative contexts. DO-support can also indicate emphasis in sentences (cf. Biber et al., 1999: 433) as DO in example 55 shows.
55. We do listen to our leaders.
Lastly, DO can be used as a pro-verb as in:
56. Speaker A: Did you see the man? Speaker B: Yes, I did.
In example 56, the word “did” used by Speaker B is a pro-verb which stands for “saw the man.”
The auxiliary HAVE has three finite forms (i.e., have, has, had) and one non-finite form (i.e., having). HAVE always indicates a perfective verb phrase as in:
57. I/You/We have eaten my food.
58. She/He/It has eaten my food.
59. She/He/They had eaten their food.
60. Having eaten their food, they left.
As shown in 57, “have” always follows first-person and second-person singular and plural pronouns as well as third person plural pronoun “they” (i.e., I, you, we, they), while “has” always follows third-person singular pronouns “she,” “it,” “he” as example 58 shows. The past tense form (i.e., “had”) can follow both singular and plural subjects.
Modal Auxiliaries
The nine modal auxiliaries in English are will/would, can/could, may/might, shall/should, and must. They are different from other auxiliaries in that they express a speaker’s stance relating to such meanings as ability, permission, obligation, and deduction. Besides this, they have no non-finite forms (Biber et al., 1999: 485) as the following examples show:
61. He can do the job. (Ability)
62. It must be raining there now. (Prediction)
63. I might go tomorrow. (Remote possibility)
For a detailed discussion of the meanings of modal auxiliaries, see Quirk & Greenbaum (1972: 97-104). Modal auxiliaries do not show a system of subject-verb concord, and two modals cannot co-occur in the same verb phrase in Standard English.
Apart from the nine true modals, there are semi-modals like “ought to,” “want to,” “have to,” “be able to,” “be supposed to,” etc., as in:
64. We need to go there.
65. I want to buy it.
66. You ought to know better.
The only syntactic function that verb phrases play is ‘to serve as a central clause element‘ (Biber et al., 1999: 100). The centrality of the verb can also be demonstrated by the fact that it has the capacity to select its arguments (Allerton, 1982). The capacity of the verb to select its arguments is technically called valency.
Adjectival Phrases
An adjective is usually used to qualify a noun. Examples of adjectives are young, old, wise, stupid, etc. As Biber et al. (1999) have noted, inflectional morphemes (i.e., -er and -est) can be added to many adjectives in order to show degrees of comparison. These adjectives, often referred to as gradable adjectives, are:
- big
- bigger
- biggest
- slow
- slower
- slowest
- small
- smaller
- smallest
- fast
- faster
- fastest
- thin
- thinner
- thinnest
Most adjectives can be used attributively by occurring before the headword of a noun phrase as in:
67. The young boy came.
68. We bought a nice car.
The adjective “young” appears before the noun “boy” within the noun phrase “the young boy,” while “nice” occurs before the noun “car” in the noun phrase “a nice car.”
Adjectives can also be used predicatively. An adjective is used predicatively when it occurs after a copula verb as in:
69. The man is stupid.
70. That lady was rich.
71. They were all happy.
Adjectives that are used attributively are called attributive adjectives, while those that are used predicatively are known as predicative adjectives. It is possible for the same adjective to be used both attributively and predicatively as in:
72. A foolish man slapped the girl. (attributive adjective)
73. The man was foolish. (predicative adjective)
An adjectival phrase is a group of words that has an adjective as its headword. Examples of adjectival phrases are: very beautiful, extremely important, too boring, so disappointing, more worried, etc., as in:
74. That is extremely important.
75. She is very fast.
Syntactic Functions of Adjectival Phrases
Adjectival phrases can perform the syntactic functions listed below:
- Subject predictive
- 76. The topic became disappointingly boring.
- 77. The man is exceptionally nice.
- Object complement
- 78. We considered that action very dangerous.
- 79. The senators rated him extraordinarily dubious.
- Modifier of noun
- 80. The beautiful young Scandinavian girl has just left.
- 81. I know a pretty young black American.
- Postmodifier of noun
- 82. I was given something more delicious than I thought.
- 83. That is something very gorgeous.
Adverb Phrases
Adverbs generally supply more details about how the actions in sentences are performed. This means that, in most cases, adverbs give circumstantial details about the actions depicted by verbs in sentences. For instance, the difference between examples 84 and 85 is in respect of the adverbs in them.
84. He came slowly.
85. He came very quickly.
86. Fortunately enough, he married her.
87. She sang quite melodiously.
Adverbs and adverbial phrases are the most mobile elements within the English clause. They can appear initially, as in example 86, or finally, as in examples 84 and 85. They can also appear in the medial position, as in:
88. She always comes late.
89. The lady is moderately dressed.
Syntactic Functions of Adverb Phrases
Adverb phrases perform the following syntactic roles:
Modifier in Adjective
90. He was exceptionally nice.
91. The woman is extraordinarily wicked.
92. I became totally confused.
Adverbials on the Clause Level
93. Ade ate very gluttonously.
94. She recited the poem almost humorously.
95. Unfortunately, his party did not win the election.
Pre- and Postmodifier in Noun Phrase
96. The then President of Nigeria was a dictator.
97. Our way home was not known. (postmodifier)
Complement of Preposition
98. The students had no Mathematics teacher until recently.
99. She came from overseas just last year.
Prepositional Phrases
A prepositional phrase consists of a group of words that has a preposition as its headword and a noun, a pronoun, or a noun phrase as its object. The structure of a prepositional phrase is prepend plus completive. The prepend is always a preposition, while the noun, the pronoun, or the noun phrase that follows the prepend is known as the completive. The prepends, which are prepositions, therefore serve as links that introduce prepositional phrases (Biber et al., 1999: 74).
Thus, in prepositional phrases like in the room, outside the class, from Lagos, etc., in, outside, and from are the headwords and, as such, they are prepends, while the room, the class, and Lagos are completives. Generally speaking, we can classify prepositions into two broad types: simple prepositions and complex prepositions. A simple preposition consists of only one word, while a complex preposition consists of more than one word. Here are examples taken from Biber et al. (1999: 75) to illustrate this:
Simple Prepositions
– on
– of
– from
– with
– for
– to
Complex Prepositions
– depending on
– by means of
– ahead of
– devoid of
– instead of
– apart from
– aside from
– as from
– away from
– along with
– together with
– in accordance with
– except for
– as for
– save for
– but for
– according to
– contrary to
– in addition to
– in relation to
– such as
– as far as
– as well as
Syntactic Functions of Prepositional Phrases
Here are the major functions that prepositional phrases can perform in English:
Adverbials
100. The girl was in the parlor.
101. She went to Lagos.
Qualifier of Nouns
102. The boy in the room is my friend.
103. I saw the baby of the year.
Adjective Complements
104. The lady is afraid of the snake.
105. Your father was kind to those people.
A distinction can be made between stranded and non-stranded prepositions. A preposition is stranded if it is not followed by its completive (i.e., by a noun, a noun phrase, or a pronoun). Examples of stranded prepositions are found in the following sentences:
106. This is the guy whom I gave the money to.
107. What pencil do you want to work with?
108. In which place did this happen?
109. That’s the car you want to drive out.
Non-stranded prepositions are always followed by their completives, as the examples under syntactic functions of prepositional phrases above indicate.
Conclusion
In this chapter, we have explained the term “group” and its different types. The grammatical functions of each of the identified groups have also been explained. The chapter has shown that each group has its own structure and roles, although there may be some overlaps. For instance, both the nominal group and the adjectival group can function as subject or object complements. However, whenever there is an overlap, the structure clearly distinguishes one group from another. There is no doubt that a good knowledge of the grammar of groups can enhance learners’ proficiency in English, and students of English are generally encouraged to master this aspect of English grammar.
See also
Types of Comprehension
All You Need to Know About Function Words
A COMPREHENSIVE GUIDE ABOUT AGREEMENT BETWEEN SUBJECT AND VERB
DICTIONARY: Important Things You should Know
MORPHOLOGY IN ENGLISH
