Verb Phrases

Verb phrases atau frase verba adalah frase yang tersusun dari verba utama ditambah dengan auxiliaries, adverbs, adverb phrases (or clauses), prepositional phrases, atau object. Dalam kalimat, frase verba berfungsi sebagai predikat.

Contoh:
- He was smoking.
- After she had learned to drive, Alice felt more independent.
- We will meet at the library at 3:30 p.m.
- Henry made my coach very proud.

Dalam frase verba, verb selalu menjadi head, yang dapat disertai pre-modifiers dan/atau post-modifier.

Jika terdapat pre-modifiers, bisa berupa kata negative (not/never) atau adverb phrase. Contoh :
- not say what he is doing.
- never needs money.
- He deliberately broke the window.

Kebanyakan head verba harus diikuti oleh post-modifiers. Contoh :
- My son [made a cake].
- We [keep pigeons].
- I [recommend the fish].

Verba yang memerlukan post-modifiers biasa disebut transitive verbs. Post-modifiers pada contoh diatas disebut juga objek langsung (direct object) atau komplemen (complement of the head).

Sebaliknya, beberapa verba (intransitive verbs) digunakan tanpa objek langsung:
- Susan smiled.
- The professor yawned.

Tetapi, banyak juga verba sebagai transitive dan intransitive, tergantung cara pemakaiannya dalam kalimat. Berikut adalah contoh penggunaan kedua bentuk verba tersebut:
- Mark smokes. (Intransitive)
- Mark smokes cigars. (Transitive)

Objek atau komplemen yang melengkapi frase verba tidak hanya objek langsung (direct object) tetapi juga dapat berupa objek tak langsung (indirect object). Contoh :
- We [gave James a present].

Perhatikan juga contoh berikut yang menggunakan verba to be sebagai head:
- David [is a musician]
- Amy [is clever]
- Our car [is in the car park]


Verb phrase

In 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, consider the following sentences:

a. Yankee batters hit the ball to win their first World Series since 2000.
b. Mary saw the man through the window.
c. John gave Mary a book.

Example (a) contains the verb phrase hit the ball to win their first World Series since 2000. Example (b) contains the main verb see, the noun phrase (NP) complement the man, and the prepositional phrase (PP) adjunct through the window. Additionally, example (c) contains the main verb gave, and two noun phrases Mary and a book, both selected by the verb in this case.

Note that according to this definition, the verb phrase corresponds to what is commonly called the predicate.

Up to the mid/late 1980s, it was 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.

Verb Phrases narrowly defined

Verb phrases are sometimes defined more narrowly in scope to allow for only those sentence elements that are strictly considered verbal elements to form verb phrases. According to such a definition, verb phrases consist only of main verbs, auxiliary verbs, and other infinitive or participle constructions. For example, in the following sentences only the bolded words would be considered to form the verb phrase for each sentence:

a. John gave Mary a book.
b. They were being eaten alive.
c. She kept screaming like a maniac.
d. Thou shalt not kill.

This more narrow definition is often applied in functionalist frameworks and traditional European reference grammars. It is incompatible with the generative theory of the verb phrase, since the bolded strings are not constituents under standard analyses.