The type “noun in the common case + noun” may be used to denote one idea as
modified by another, in the widest sense, eg. speech sound, silver watch, army
unit, The first component may be a proper name - a Beethoven symphony or
London Bridge.
2) “adjective + noun” is used to express all possible kinds of things with their
properties, a beautiful girl, a big house, etc.
3) “verb + noun” may correspond to two different types of relation between an
action and a thing: 1. denotes an object of the action expressed by the verb, take a
book, bring a chair; 2. denotes a measure, walk a mile, sleep an hour, wait a
minute, etc.
In a similar way other types of phrases should be set down and analyzed.
Among them will be the types, “verb + adverb”, “adverb + adjective”, “adverb +
adverb”, “noun + preposition + noun”, “adjective + preposition + noun”, “verb +
preposition + noun”, etc.
An important question arises concerning the pattern “noun + verb”. In our
linguistic theory different opinions have been put forward on this issue. One view
is that the phrase type “noun + verb” (which is sometimes called “predicative
phrase”) exists and ought to be studied just like any other phrase type such as we
have enumerated above. The other view is that no such type as “noun + verb”
exists, as the combination “noun + verb” constitutes a sentence rather than a
phrase. This objection, however, is not convincing. If we take, for instance, the
group a man writes on the phrase level, this means that each of the components can
be changed in accordance with its paradigm in any way so long as the connection
with the other component does not prevent this. In the given case, the first
component, man, can be changed according to number, that is, it can appear in the
plural form, and the second component, writes, can be changed according to the
verbal categories of aspect, tense, correlation, and mood (change of person is
impossible due to the first component, change of number is predetermined by the
number of the first component, and change of voice is made impossible by its
meaning). Thus, the groups, a man writes, men write, a man wrote, men are
writing, men have written, a man would have been writing, etc., are all variants of
the same phrase, just as man and men are forms of the same noun, while writes,
wrote, has written, etc. are forms of the same verb. It is also important to note that
a phrase as such has no intonation of its own, no more than a word as such has one.
On the sentence level things are different. A man writes, even if we could take it as
a sentence at all, which is not certain, is not the same sentence as Men have been
writing, but a different sentence.
This example is sufficient to show the difference between a phrase of the
pattern “noun + verb” and a sentence. The existence of phrases of this type is
therefore certain. The phrase pattern “noun + verb” has very ample possibilities of
expressing actions as performed by any kind of subject, whether living, material, or
abstract.
Syntactical relations b/w the components of a phrase
These fall under two main heads: (1) agreement or concord, (2) government.