Editing Verb phrase (section)

==Narrowly defined==
Verb phrases are sometimes defined more narrowly in scope, in effect counting only those elements considered strictly verbal in verb phrases. That would limit the definition to only main and [[auxiliary verbs]], plus [[infinitive]] or [[participle]] constructions.<ref>Klammer and Schulz (1996:157ff.), for instance, pursue this narrow understanding of verb phrases.</ref> For example, in the following sentences only the words in bold form the verb phrase:

:John '''has given''' Mary a book.
:The picnickers '''were being eaten''' alive by mosquitos.
:She '''kept screaming''' like a football maniac.
:Thou '''shalt''' not '''kill'''.

This more narrow definition is often applied in [[functionalism (linguistics)|functionalist]] frameworks and traditional European reference grammars. It is incompatible with the phrase structure model, because the strings in bold are not constituents under that analysis. It is, however, compatible with [[dependency grammar]]s and other grammars that view the verb [[catena (linguistics)|catena]] (verb chain) as the fundamental unit of syntactic structure, as opposed to the [[constituent (linguistics)|constituent]].