PHRASE

In everyday speech, a phrase may refer to any group of words. In linguistics, a phrase is a group of words which form a constituent and so function as a single unit in the syntax of a sentence. A phrase is lower on the grammatical hierarchy than a clause.[1]
For example, the house at the end of the street is a phrase. It acts like a noun. It can further be broken down into two shorter phrases functioning as adjectives: at the end and of the street, a shorter prepositional phrase within the longer prepositional phrase. At the end of the street could be replaced by an adjective such as nearby: the nearby house or even the house nearby. The end of the street could also be replaced by another noun, such as the crossroads to produce the house at the crossroads.
Most phrases have an important word defining the type and linguistic features of the phrase. This word is the head of the phrase and gives its name to the phrase category.[2] For example the phrase the massive dinosaur is a noun phrase because its head word (dinosaur) is a noun. The head can be distinguished from its dependents (the rest of the phrase other than the head) because the head of the phrase determines many of the grammatical features of the phrase as a whole.



Categories of phrases
Phrases may be classified by the type of head taken by them:

• Prepositional phrase (PP) with a preposition as head (e.g. in love, over the rainbow). Languages using postpositions instead have postpositional phrases. The two types are sometimes commonly referred to as appositional phrases.
• Noun phrase (NP) with a noun as head (e.g. the black cat, a cat on the mat)
• Verb phrase (VP) with a verb as head (e.g. eat cheese, jump up and down)
• Appositive It renames noun as a pronoun and is always placed between commas (e.g. "Bob, my annoying neighbor, is short")
• Absolute Modifies the entire sentence and is linked with commas. (e.g. "Mike threw the book, his eyes are red")

Complexity
A complex phrase consists of several words, whereas a simple phrase consists of only one word. This terminology is especially often used with verb phrases:

• simple past and present are simple phrases, which require just one verb
• complex verbs have one or two aspects added and hence require additional two or three words

"Complex," which is phrase-level, is often confused with "compound", which is word-level. However, there are certain phenomena that formally seem to be phrases but semantically are more like compounds, such as "women's magazines," which has the form of a possessive noun phrase, but which refers (just like a compound) to one specific lexeme (i.e. a magazine for women and not a magazine owned by a woman). it described people,things, places, events etc.


Semiotic approaches to the concept of "phrase"
In more semiotic approaches to language, such as the more cognitivist versions of construction grammar, a phrasal structure is not only a certain formal combination of word types whose features are inherited from the head. Here each phrasal structure also expresses some type of conceptual content, be it specific or abstract.
THE TYPES OF PHRASES

A phrase is a group of words without both a subject and predicate. Phrases combine words into a larger unit that can function as a sentence element. For example, a participial phrase can include adjectives, nouns, prepositions and adverbs; as a single unit, however, it functions as one big adjective modifying a noun (or noun phrase). See this overview of phrases for more.

• Noun Phrase - “The crazy old lady in the park feeds the pigeons every day.” A noun phrase consists of a noun and all of its modifiers, which can include other phrases (like the prepositional phrase in the park). More examples.
  • Appositive Phrase – “Bob, my best friend, works here” or “My best friend Bob works here.” An appositive (single word, phrase, or clause) renames another noun, not technically modifying it. See this page from the Armchair Grammarian for everything you ever wanted to know about appositives.
  • Gerund Phrase - “I love baking cakes.” A gerund phrase is just a noun phrase with a gerund as its head.
  • Infinitive Phrase – “I love to bake cakes.” An infinitive phrase is a noun phrase with an infinitive as its head. Unlike the other noun phrases, however, an infinitive phrase can also function as an adjective or an adverb. More examples.
• Verb Phrase – The verb phrase can refer to the whole predicate of a sentence (I was watching my favorite show yesterday) or just the verb or verb group (was watching).

• Adverbial Phrase – The adverbial phrase also has two definitions; some say it’s a group of adverbs (very quickly), while others say it’s any phrase (usually a prepositional phrase) that acts as an adverb — see this second definition.

• Adjectival Phrase – As with adverbial phrases, adjectival phrases can either refer to a group of adjectives (full of toys) or any phrase (like a participial or prepositional phrase) that acts as an adjective – see this second definition.

• Participial Phrase – “Crushed to pieces by a sledgehammer, the computer no longer worked” or “I think the guy sitting over there likes you.”  A participial phrase has a past or present participle as its head. Participial phrases always function as adjectives.

• Prepositional Phrase – “The food on the table looked delicious.” A prepositional phrase, which has a preposition as its head, can function as an adjective, adverb, or even as a noun.

• Absolute Phrase – “My cake finally baking in the oven, I was free to rest for thirty minutes.” Unlike participial phrases, absolute phrases have subjects and modify the entire sentence, not one noun. Almost a clause, the absolute phrase can include every sentence element except a finite verb. For example, “My cake finally baking in the oven” would be its own sentence if you just added one finite verb: “My cake was finally baking in the oven.” See Absolute Phrase for more.