Pia Dave M.

Novabos ELS 106 ENGLISH SYNTAX

BA English Language 2

A. Provide 2 characteristics of verb phrases and construct 2 examples for each of

the characteristics. Provide an explanation after presenting the two sample
sentences.

Verb is a word that in syntax, conveys an action, an occurrence, or a state of being.

These are words that determine the meaning and grammatical character of the sentence.
They are the ones that completes the sentence for it establishes what the sentence is
trying to convey. Without verbs, the sentence will be meaningless and senseless. In other
words, verbs are the main part of a sentence or phrase, telling a story about what is taking
place. There are characteristics of verbs that determines what form a verb takes and how
it is used in a sentence.

1. Aspect
Aspect refers to grammatical category which reflects the way in which the action
denoted by the verb is regarded with respect to time; if it is ongoing and/or viewed
as completed or not.
Example:
a. I have taken all the medicines that the doctor has prescribed me.
The sentence above is an example of present perfective aspect. It means
that the action has already happened or the action is already done in the
present time. “Have taken” is the action acted upon in the sentence and is
directly referring to the medicine which is the receiver of the action. “I” there is
the doer of the action or the subject in the sentence.
b. Thomas is having a regular lesson in his violin class.
This is an example of a present progressive aspect. The verb is having
signifies that the action is of present time and is still currently happening over
a period of time and that the duration has not come to an end yet. “Is having”
is referring to Thomas’ regular lesson in violin class.
 2. Tensed
Tensed is the grammatical realization of time by means of verbal inflection and the
way verbs change their form to express their meaning.
Example:
a. Maria buys her own stuff.
The sentence above is an example of a present tensed verb where the action
is of present time or is currently happening. This type of present tense is a
habitual present in which it refers to events that repeatedly occur without
limitations. Maria buys her own stuff is a repetitive action wherein Maria is the
one who buys her own stuff all the time.
b. Dave borrowed books from the library.
This is an example of a past tensed verb. The action is already done or already
happened in the past. This type of past tense is the event past in which the
event may take place over an extended period or a particular point in time.
“Borrowed” denotes that the action is already done or already being acted
upon.

B. On Finding Phrases section of Chapter 6, pp. 118-122, explain the remarkable

behaviors of the phrases in the sentences and share your thoughts (as
language majors) on how this section helps in understanding the composition
of sentences and the relationships of words embedded in the sentence.

Phrase is a group of words within a sentence. These are group of words that can
be classified into noun phrase, verbal, adjectival, adverbial, prepositional, and
infinitive phrase. In identifying what type of phrase is in the sentence, there is a need
to know the phrasal categories or the behaviors of the phrases in the sentence.

In this section on Finding Phrases, it discusses how strings of words behave as

phrases. These are substitution including deletion or ellipsis, movement including
clefting and pseudo-clefting, and coordination. The substitution means that if a string
of words can be replaced by a single word and does still make sense, then that string
of words is a phrasal unit. The same goes to deletion or ellipsis. If a string of words
can be omitted, then it is very evident that the group of words that are omitted is a
phrase. The other behavior is the movement. It means that there is movement of
words within the sentence. It emphasizes that phrases have the ability to appear in a
variety of sentence positions. Meaning you can manipulate your sentence by
changing the position of the phrases and still manages to make the sentence a whole
lot meaningful. The last behavior is coordination. By coordination, it means the
process of organizing ideas to go together and form one idea. From the readings, if
a string of words can be coordinated with a word or phrase, then the string of words
is a word of the same category as the word or phrase it is coordinated with.

The three behaviors of phrases makes the composition of sentences easier and
more precise. Because you will only look after on the string of words and its
relatedness to the other words in your sentence. It is easy for you to identify and
correct the grammatical structure since the string of words are correlated with the
other words. The way you construct your sentences will be more precise because
you will focus on the phrasal unit of each sentence.