VPs in Phrase Structure Grammars
In phrase structure grammars such as generative grammar, the VP is a phrase that is headed by a verb. A verb phrase may be constructed from a single verb; often, however, the verb phrase will consist of various combinations of the main verb and any auxiliary verbs, plus optional specifiers, complements, and adjuncts. For example:
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- Yankee batters hit the ball to win their first World Series since 2000.
- Mary saw the man through the window.
- David gave Mary a book.
The first example contains the verb phrase hit the ball to win their first World Series since 2000. The second example contains the main verb saw, the noun phrase (NP) complement the man, and the prepositional phrase (PP) adjunct through the window, which together form the verb phrase. Additionally, the third example contains the main verb gave, and two noun phrases Mary and a book, both selected by the verb in this case. All three together form the verb phrase. Note that according to this definition, the verb phrase corresponds to the predicate of traditional grammar.
Up to the mid/late 1980s, some work in phrase structure grammars thought that some languages lacked a verb phrase. These included languages with extremely free word order (so-called non-configurational languages, such as Japanese, Hungarian, or Australian aboriginal languages), and languages with a default VSO order (several Celtic and Oceanic languages). The current view in some varieties of generative grammar (such as Principles and Parameters) is that all languages have a verb phrase, while others (such as Lexical Functional Grammar) take the view that at least some of these languages do lack a verb phrase constituent.
Finally, phrase structure grammars do not draw the key distinction between finite verb phrases and non-finite verb phrases, since they view both as constituent phrases. Dependency grammars are much different in this regard!
Read more about this topic: Verb Phrase
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