Phrase

A phrase is a meaningful collection of words in a sentence.

Characteristics

 * Some of the simplest phrases contain only one word.
 * Each phrase contains a word that is the head of the phrase. The head is the word that carries the main meaning of the phrase.
 * Phrases can contain modifiers, which are the words in the phrase that are not the head of the phrase. Modifiers help to give more information about the head.
 * The word class of a phrase is determined by the word class of the head in the phrase.
 * Phrases of the same word class can be joined.
 * Phrases can contain other phrases.

Example
Look at this sentence:

Below, this sentence is divided into phrases, and labelled according to the head of each phrase.


 * The man with the blue shirt drank his coffee slowly in Starbucks.

Types
Different types of phrases exist:
 * Noun phrase (NP)
 * Adjectival phrase (AP)
 * Prepositional phrase (PP)
 * Verb phrase (VP)
 * Adverbial phrase (AdvP)

Joining Phrases
Phrases with the same word classes can be joined with a conjunction. In this example, two noun phrases ( NP 1 and NP 2 ) are joined. This joined phrase "cheese and lettuce" is also a noun phrase. This rule can be written as a phrase-structure rule: NP -> NP 1 C NP 2