Phrase

A phrase (Greek ?????, sentence, expression, see also strophe) is a group of words that functions as a single unit in the syntax of a sentence.

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:

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• simple past and present are simple verb, which require just one verb
• complex verb have one or two aspects added, 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, like "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 some magazine owned by a woman).

Related Topics:
Compound - Word

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