A group of words without a subject and a predicate, used as a single part of speech, is called a phrase. Phrases are used as nouns, adjectives, or adverbs, and according to their use are named noun phrases, adjective phrases, or adverbial phrases.1 According to their composition phrases are prepositional, infinitive, or participial.

1. Noun phrases occur in these sentences:

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a well-known institution. (Subject).

Did you ever learn the Declaration of Independence ? (Direct Object.) "Evangeline" is a well-known poem. (Subjective complement.) The meeting was called to order by Mr. Murchie, the president of the club. (Apposition).

Noun phrases are frequently infinitive phrases.

To err is human. (Subject).

He likes to read Scott. (Direct Object).

2. Adjective phrases occur in these sentences:

A basket of apples stood on the table. The house on the corner is built of cement. The boy in the first seat knows his lesson. Youth is the time to learn.

Adjective phrases may be prepositional, participial, or infinitive phrases.

1 For the term verb phrase see section 82.

I know the captain of the eleven. (Prepositional.) We saw John resting on the bank. (Participial.) Have you patience to wait? (Infinitive).

3. Adverbial phrases occur in these sentences:

The boy came into the room. (Place.) The teacher dismissed the class at noon. (Time.) He left the room in haste. (Manner.) Having finished his work, he felt contented. (Time or reason).

Adverbial phrases are frequently prepositional, sometimes infinitive.

He is in the house.

They went at once.

He stopped to listen.

Exercises

292. Show whether the noun phrases in these sentences are used as subject, direct object, or subjective complement:

1. To make a misstep would be sure death.

2. You need to spend at least an hour on this lesson.

3. The difficulty was, to get a practical solution of the problem.

298. Show whether the adjective phrases in these sentences are prepositional, participial, or infinitive, and tell what words they modify:

1. I saw your advertisement for an office boy in last night's paper.

2. He heard the bells ringing in the distant steeple.

3. No one had courage to enter.

294. Show whether the adverbial phrases in these sentences indicate time, place, or manner, and state what words they modify:

1. The squad left at ten o'clock.

2. The paper is in the second drawer.

3. They marched in good order.

295. Give the syntax of each of the following phrases;

1. They planned to catch the train for New York.

2. We found the president sitting in his office.

3. The pupils were dismissed at noon on the day before Thanksgiving.

4. A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.

5. I do not fear to face the consequences of my act.

6. About, about, in reel and rout The death fires danced at night.

7. He had thin silver bracelets upon his arms, and on his neck a collar of the same metal, bearing the inscription, "Wamba, the son of Witless, is the thrall of Cedric of Rotherwood."

296. In the following paragraph tell whether the phrases are noun, adjective, or adverbial phrases:

In Dickens's early life we see a stern but unrecognized preparation for the work that he was to do. Never was there a better illustration of the fact that a boy's early hardship and suffering are sometimes only divine messengers disguised, and that circumstances which seem only evil are often the source of a man's strength and of the influence which he is to wield in the world. He was the second of eight poor children, and was born at Landport in 1812. His father, who is supposed to be the original of Mr. Micawber, was a clerk in a navy office. He could never make both ends meet, and after struggling with debts in his* native town for many years, moved to London when Dickens was nine years old. - W. J. Long, "English Literature."

297. Give the syntax of the infinitive, prepositional, and adverbial phrases in the following selection:

When I strolled around the pond in misty weather, I was sometimes amused by the primitive mode which some ruder fisherman had adopted. He would perhaps have placed alder branches over the narrow holes in the ice, which were four or five rods apart and an equal distance from the shore, and having fastened the end of the line to a stick to prevent its being pulled through, have passed the slack line over a twig of the alder, a foot or more above the ice, and tied a dry oak leaf to it, which, being pulled down, would show when he had a bite. These alders loomed through the mist at regular intervals as you walked halfway round the pond. - Thoreau, "Walden."