Editing Verb phrase (section)

==In phrase structure grammars==
In phrase structure grammars such as [[generative grammar]], the verb [[phrase]] is one [[head (linguistics)|headed]] by a [[verb]]. It may be composed of only a single verb, but typically it consists of combinations of main and [[auxiliary verb]]s, plus optional [[Specifier (linguistics)|specifier]]s, [[Complement (linguistics)|complement]]s (not including subject complements), and [[adjunct (grammar)|adjunct]]s. For example:

:Yankee batters '''hit the ball well enough to win their first World Series since 2000'''.
:Mary '''saw the man through the window'''.
:David '''gave Mary a book'''.

The first example contains the long verb phrase ''hit the ball well enough to win their first World Series since 2000''; the second is a verb phrase composed of the main verb ''saw'', the complement phrase ''the man'' (a [[noun phrase]]), and the adjunct phrase ''through the window'' (an [[adverbial phrase]] and [[prepositional phrase]]). The third example presents three elements, the main verb ''gave'', the noun ''Mary'', and the noun phrase ''a book'', all of which comprise the verb phrase. Note, the verb phrase described here corresponds to the [[Predicate (grammar)|predicate]] of traditional grammar.

Current views vary on whether all languages have a verb phrase; some schools of generative grammar (such as [[principles and parameters]]) hold that all languages have a verb phrase, while others (such as [[lexical functional grammar]]) take the view that at least some languages lack a verb phrase constituent, including those languages with a very free word order (the so-called [[non-configurational languages]], such as Japanese, Hungarian, or Australian aboriginal languages), and some languages with a default [[verb-subject-object|VSO]] order (several Celtic and Oceanic languages).

Phrase structure grammars view both finite and nonfinite verb phrases as constituent phrases and, consequently, do not draw any key distinction between them. Dependency grammars (described below) are much different in this regard.