ESL General English Grammar Questions

Re: The difference between a phrase and a sentence (Chris)

Anonymous — Tue, 13 May 2008 13:15:11 GMT

i think this may be benificial

http://cc.ysu.edu/~tacopela/Phrases-and-Clauses.htm

Re: The difference between a phrase and a sentence (Chris)

Jackson6612 — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 04:14:53 GMT

Thank you, Anon.

Re: The difference between a phrase and a sentence (Chris)

Anonymous — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 16:52:21 GMT

ÂA sentence must have a subject (expressed or not), a verb, and a complete thought supplied by a variety of constructions.

Example: We are assigned a grammar presentation.

ÂA phrase is a collection or word without a subject/verb, or complete thought

Example of a Phrase:

âover the riverâ, âthrough the woodsâ, âto grandmothers house.â

Re: The difference between a phrase and a sentence (Chris)

Anonymous — Mon, 09 Jul 2007 13:03:01 GMT

Edited by Moderator in include source information: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/internet-grammar/clauses/hierarc2.htm

Please do not post information from other sites without acknowledging the source.

****

Words, phrases, clauses, and sentences constitute what is called the GRAMMATICAL HIERARCHY. We can represent this schematically as follows:

sentences
consist of one or more...

clauses
consist of one or more...

phrases
consist of one or more...

words

Sentences are at the top of the hierarchy, so they are the largest unit which we will be considering (though some grammars do look beyond the sentence). At the other end of the hierarchy, words are at the lowest level, though again, some grammars go below the word to consider morphology, the study of how words are constructed.

At the clause level and at the phrase level, two points should be noted:

1. Although clauses are higher than phrases in the hierarchy, clauses can occur within phrases:

The man who lives beside us is ill

Here we have a relative clause who lives beside us within the NP the man who lives beside us.

2. Clauses can occur within clauses, and phrases can occur within phrases.

Bearing these two points in mind, we can now illustrate the grammatical hierarchy using the following sentence:

My brother won the lottery

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Click here to see the grammatical hierarchy in this sentence') document.write ('

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This is a simple sentence (S), consisting of a matrix clause (MC):') document.write ('

[') document.write ('S/MC My brother won the lottery] ') document.write ('

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We can subdivide the clause into an NP and a VP: ') document.write ('

[') document.write ('S/MC [NP My brother] [VP won the lottery]') document.write (']

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The VP contains a further NP within it:

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[') document.write ('S/MC [NP My brother] [VP won [NP the lottery]]]') document.write ('

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So we have a total of three phrases. Each phrase consists of individual words: ') document.write ('

') document.write ('[') document.write ('S/MC [NP [Det My] [N brother]] ') document.write ('[VP [V won] [NP [Det the] [N lottery]]]]

') document.write ('

Each of the bracketed units here is a word, a phrase, or a clause. ') document.write ('We refer to these as CONSTITUENTS. ') document.write ('A constituent is defined as a word or a group of words which acts syntactically as a unit.') document.write ('

') }

This is a simple sentence (S), consisting of a matrix clause (MC):

[S/MC My brother won the lottery]

We can subdivide the clause into an NP and a VP:

[S/MC [NP My brother] [VP won the lottery]]

The VP contains a further NP within it:

[S/MC [NP My brother] [VP won [NP the lottery]]]

So we have a total of three phrases. Each phrase consists of individual words:

[S/MC [NP [Det My] [N brother]] [VP [V won] [NP [Det the] [N lottery]]]]

Each of the bracketed units here is a word, a phrase, or a clause. We refer to these as CONSTITUENTS. A constituent is defined as a word or a group of words which acts syntactically as a unit.

Re: The difference between a phrase and a sentence (Chris)

Grammar Geek — Sat, 17 Mar 2007 19:46:11 GMT

yes

Re: The difference between a phrase and a sentence (Chris)

Jackson6612 — Sat, 17 Mar 2007 19:39:38 GMT

whl626 said:

''As far as I know, 2 or a bunch of words with no subject and verb in it.

Eg. On second thought, I decided to join englishforums as a member" src="/emoticons/emotion-1.gif">. " On second though " is supposed to be a phrase, the later is the main sentence.''

Shouldn't latter be used in place of later above?

Re: The difference between a phrase and a sentence (Chris)

CalifJim — Thu, 15 Sep 2005 03:33:45 GMT

A sentence may take the form of a single clause or be formed from several clauses. The typical clause has a noun phrase for a subject and a verb phrase for a predicate. The verb phrase may have another noun phrase or two embedded within it which serves as direct object or indirect object. Noun phrases and verb phrases can also have prepositional phrases embedded within them. Adjective phrases and adverb phrases may also occur within clauses.
Clauses may be finite or non-finite. The main clause of a sentence (sometimes the only clause) has the finite form (inflected form) of a verb, so it is a finite clause. If the verb portion of a clause is not inflected for person, tense, or number, but is instead an infinitive, participle, or gerund, then it is a non-finite clause.

CJ

Re: The difference between a phrase and a sentence (Chris)

pieanne — Wed, 14 Sep 2005 08:55:48 GMT

A sentence begins with a capital and ends with a full-stop - or a question mark in the case of an interrogative sentence, an exclamation mark for an exclamative sentence -.

There can be different clauses in a sentence.

Re: The difference between a phrase and a sentence (Chris)

rishonly — Wed, 14 Sep 2005 03:44:31 GMT

A sentence has subject and predicate, and the sentence gives a complete meaning.

On the other hand, a phrase doesn't have subject and predicate, and doesn't give any meaning standing by itself.

(E-x) To the door, Going to store, To be sick.

Re: The difference between a phrase and a sentence (Chris)

Anonymous — Wed, 14 Sep 2005 01:08:13 GMT

sooo.... now I am a little confused. What is the difference between a sentence and a clause??

-Jennie

Re: The difference between a phrase and a sentence (Chris)

whl626 — Wed, 27 Aug 2003 12:50:10 GMT

As far as I know, 2 or a bunch of words with no subject and verb in it.

Eg. On second thought, I decided to join englishforums as a member. " On second though " is supposed to be a phrase, the later is the main sentence.

Re: The difference between a phrase and a sentence (Chris)

Elena — Tue, 26 Aug 2003 23:51:00 GMT

Ah ok , sure, phrase-clause-sentence, aha. Thank you.

Re: The difference between a phrase and a sentence (Chris)

kitkattail — Tue, 26 Aug 2003 20:34:01 GMT

What you call "sentences," I would call "clauses." I would put the three of them together in a single sentence.

Re: The difference between a phrase and a sentence (Chris)

Elena — Tue, 26 Aug 2003 20:32:28 GMT

I was taught a 'sentence' is a group of words to form a statement and a 'phrase' is a group of words that are part of a sentence. For instance,

'I like this forum for many reasons, first of all, it helps me with my English learning but , not only that, I enjoy a lot the discussion topics and the riddles'

'first of all' and 'not only that' are phrases.

'I like this forum for many reasons', 'it helps me with my English learning' and 'I enjoy a lot discussion topics and the riddles' are sentences.

The difference between a phrase and a sentence (Chris)

Guest — Tue, 26 Aug 2003 17:42:49 GMT

What's the difference between a phrase and a sentence (I suppose there must be one)