Building Phrases
A phrase is a group of two or more grammatically linked words without a subject and predicate -- a group of grammatically-linked words with a subject and predicate is called a clause.
The group "teacher both students and" is not a phrase because the words have no grammatical relationship to one another. Similarly, the group "bay the across" is not a phrase.
In both cases, the words need to be rearranged in order to create phrases. The group "both teachers and students" and the group "across the bay" are both phrases.
You use a phrase to add information to a sentence and it can perform the functions of a subject, an object, a subject complement or object complement, a verb, an adjective, or an adverb.
The highlighted words in each of the following sentences make up a phrase:
- She bought some spinach when she went to the corner store.
- Lightning flashed brightly in the night sky.
- They heard high pitched cries in the middle of the night.
- In early October, Giselle planted twenty tulip bulbs; unfortunately, squirrels ate the bulbs and none bloomed.
- Small children often insist that they can do it by themselves.
Written by Heather MacFadyen