Talk:Verb phrase

Verb Phrase
Sir/Madam, Whatever has been said about Verb Phrase is thoroughly wrong. The writer is not well acquainted with what he has written. Verb Phrase means merely the verb element of a clause. It comprises merely the main verb and the auxiliary that may be up-to four in number at most. The main verb is the obligatory element of the verb phrase and auxiliary is it's optional element. She could have been being taught English then. Here "could have been being taught" is the verb phrase. Ref. : Geoffery Leech: English Grammar for Today. Birbal Kumawat (talk) 04:09, 9 September 2017 (UTC) → Problematic, perhaps, but "thoroughly" wrong? See hyperbole. Kent Dominic 02:49, 6 December 2019 (UTC)

→ "Ref. : Geoffery Leech: English Grammar for Today  1982 ." (Date added for emphasis.) Theories change. Older ones are especially subject to being emended, superseded, or supplanted. Kent Dominic 02:49, 6 December 2019 (UTC)

→ A readily comprehensible explanation of what is meant by "main verb" would be appreciated. Kent Dominic 02:49, 6 December 2019 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kent Dominic (talk • contribs)

False description of Verb Phrase
Here Verb Phrase is surely being misled. A grammar that does not give a clear-cut essence of a content is not worth following. Definitely a Verb Phrase consists a main verb compulsorily and one to four auxiliaries optionally. It has been best clarified by Geoffery Leech etc. in their prestigious work 'English Grammar for Today' published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2010. Why isn't this Grammar is being followed? If a verb phrase has object, complement, adverbial, why not subject then? Birbal Kumawat (talk) 17:24, 15 October 2017 (UTC)


 * Some questions and comments for you, Birbal Kumawat. 1. Precisely what in the description is false? &para; 2. The title of the article is not "Verb phrase (English)" or similar. The article is not limited to English. &para; 3. Which book are you referring to? Is it perhaps the 2nd edition (2005) of Geoffrey Leech et al, English Grammar for Today: A New Introduction? I don't know this, but I can find the blurb for it. Let me quote: Both the subtitle and the blurb suggest that it's introductory. It's clear from this earlier edit that you have an extraordinarily high regard for this book. Leech is indeed an authority; but even if we set aside all languages other than English, why should this particular book be followed? &para; 4. You ask why the subject isn't included within the verb phrase. That's a good question, but the place to ask it is Reference desk/Language. -- Hoary (talk) 00:30, 16 October 2017 (UTC)


 * I'm still waiting for someone, anyone, to provide me with an intelligible explanation of what a "main verb" is supposed to be. Here's the rub:
 * ESL Instructor: Are you a new student?
 *  *Student: Yes, I am.
 * ESL Instructor: Please use a full sentence.
 *  *Student: Yes, I am a new student.
 * ESL Instructor: Did you receive a copy of the course textbook?
 *  *Student: Yes, I did.
 * ESL Instructor: Please use a full sentence.
 *  *Student: Yes, I did receive a copy of the course textbook.
 * ESL Instructor: That's great. Do you have any questions before we get started?
 *  *Student: Yes, isn't "Yes, I did" a full sentence? It has a finite verb, so it's not a fragment.
 * ESL Instructor: It has a finite verb but it doesn't have a main verb. The main verb is "receive."
 *  *Student: So, I should reply, "Yes, I received"?
 * ESL Instructor: But, "receive" is a transitive verb, so it needs an object.
 *  *Student: In other words, when you ask, "Did you receive a copy of the course textbook?" I should reply "Yes, I received a copy of the course textbook," right?
 * ESL Instructor: Well, you don't have to repeat the object noun. You can substitute an object pronoun.
 *  *Student: Ah. I can say, "Yes, I received that.
 * ESL Instructor: Sorry, but in this case we normally would say, "Yes, I received it."
 *  *Student: Oops. "It" is an object pronoun. "That" is a demonstrative pronoun," isn't it?
 * ESL Instructor: Yes, it is.
 *  *Student: Please use a full sentence.
 * ESL Instructor: Should I presume you're going to be a trouble-making student?
 *  *Student: Yes, you should. Definitely. Pardon the pun. And the fragment.
 * ESL Instructor: No problem.
 *  *Student: I have a question. If you use a sentence like, "Yes it is," then why can't I?
 * ESL Instructor: I want to make sure you can use a complete verb phrase including a finite verb and a collocated infinitive verb.
 *  *Student: But that's not how native English speakers talk when they reply conversationally, is it?
 * ESL Instructor: Well, you've got a point.
 *  *Student: Plus, you mentioned a verb phrase as something that comprises a finite verb and a collocated infinitive verb. That definition wasn't included in the Wikipedia article for verb phrase.
 * ESL Instructor: You're right. That's why last week I added the following items as cross-linked categories in the Wikipedia verb phrase article:
 * causative verb phrase
 * double-modal verb phrase
 * finite verb phrase
 * intransitive verb phrase
 * modal verb phrase
 * nonfinite verb phrase
 * phrasal verb
 * stative verb phrase
 * to-infinitive phrase
 * transitive verb phrase
 * verb catena
 *  *Student: Really? I didn't see any of that in the verb phrase article.
 * ESL Instructor: Some Deletionist undid my edits.

Kent Dominic 04:45, 6 December 2019 (UTC)

Isn't a "phrasal verb" a subset of the "verb phrase" set?
I'm asking from an axiomatic set theory angle as this article indicates that a verb phrase is not to be confused with phrasal verb. Fundamentally speaking, I believe misguided attempts at pedantics generally demonstrate a disregard for semantics, or, in this case, the neglect of practical linguistic entailments. Kent Dominic 05:18, 6 December 2019 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kent Dominic (talk • contribs)

A paradigmatic approach to defining "verb phrase"
I'm loathe to offer negative criticisms without proffering at least one prospective solution. Accordingly, I think the Verb phrase article contains some shortcomings that can be remedied under an approach that deviates from the article's definitional premise. In my book (figuratively speaking and literally speaking with regard to my soon-to-be-published compendium of English grammar terms), the notions that underlie a term such as verb phrase are too vast to properly explain within the purview of a single sense of the term. As it currently stands, I think this article's introductory paragraph is overly ambitious in its attempt to capture the various senses of what a verb phrase entails. The paragraph cobbles numerous ideas gleaned from divergent linguistic theories and aggregates them into an introductory sentence whose "but not always" caveat is defensible from a linguistic perspective but likely unhelpful to readers who are unfamiliar with distinctions between dependency grammars, phrase structure grammars, and the old school grammatical notion of predicate.

In my preferred approach to phraseology, each word in a phrase should have one or more sets of axiomatic meanings so that a combination of words into a phrase is limited to the exact set of senses that the combination entails. Thus, various senses of the word, verb, correspond uniquely to their sets of given meanings; various senses of the word phrase corresponds to their own sets of given meanings; verb phrase can have no other meaning than the aggregate meanings implied by the union of sets that respectively comprise the verb set and phrase set. My own paradigmatic approach includes fundamental terms such as noun, verb, preposition, phrase, etc. and collocations such as noun phrase, verb phrase, prepositional phrase, etc. My definition for verb phrase entails my one and only sense given for verb and one of eight senses given for phrase. The resulting meaning is:
 * verb phrase (grammar) -
 * 1. a catena or phrase that constitutes a verb. See:
 * causative verb phrase (e.g. have someone help)
 * double-modal verb phrase (e.g. this might could work; nonstandard)
 * finite verb phrase (e.g. go see a doctor)
 * elliptical verb phrase (e.g. They haven't yet, but I think they have to.)
 * intransitive verb phrase (e.g. please stop)
 * modal verb phrase (e.g. this could work)
 * nonfinite verb phrase (e.g. begging for a raise is pointless)
 * phrasal verb (e.g. keep off the grass)
 * predicate verb phrase (e.g. I shall never see a poem as lovely as a tree)
 * stative verb phrase (e.g. She is leaving tomorrow)
 * split to-infinitive phrase (e.g. I want to always try my hardest)
 * split verb phrase (e.g. We had never seen such a thing)
 * to-infinitive phrase (e.g. It's time to rock.)
 * transitive verb phrase (e.g. I adore you.)
 * verb catena (e.g. He could not have avoided seeing it)
 * 2. a phrase comprised of a verb that entails one or more dependent words . See:
 * adverb (e.g. I would never do such a thing_
 * adverbial phrase (e.g. I would hardly ever do such things)
 * dative object (e.g. Please give me a hint) [Note: My compendium defines but doesn't paradigmatically employ the term, indirect object.]
 * noun phrase (e.g. Do you like French Creole music?)
 * transitive object (e.g. Yes, I love it! It's the first kind that I played as a child.) [Note 1 : This a tricky sentence to parse as "the first kind is both a stative object re. "it's" and a transitive object re. "played;" Note 2 : My compendium defines the term, subject complement but uses the term, stative object as one of several lexical categories that can complement a stative verb, which I've defined more narrowly than the ways that are discussed in the stative verb article.]
 * See generally verb and phrase (wherein verb entails 1 meaning with 151 collocations and phrase entails one applicable meaning with 1,422 collocations.

In short, when I read an article like Verb phrase, I credit everyone's attempts to synopsize the term, I sympathize with readers who don't recognize the undependability of definitions that are unwittingly rooted on a naive set theory basis, and I shake my head at Talkers who are quick to criticize the flaws in articles such as these but neither invest nor endure the time and effort required to improve them or to rationally refute whatever ails them. Kent Dominic 16:00, 6 December 2019 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kent Dominic (talk • contribs)

Verb phrase nexus to content clause
This article doesn't suffice to explain how the subject of so-called content clause is embedded within the verb phrase of an independent clause, e.g., in "He told her (that) she was smart," she is the subject of the "she was smart" content clause which, in its entirety, is the object of the verb phrase, told her (that) she was smart (i.e., where "told" is part of the he told her independent clause). Traditional grammar terms have limitations for which modern terms provide mere band-aid remedies. --Kent Dominic·(talk) 19:35, 14 May 2022 (UTC)