ABSTRACT
When noun and verb phrases function together, they form clauses. The simplest types of clause consist of a noun phrase, a verb phrase and an optional third element (labelled as X):
The first noun phrase is usually the subject (the person or thing which does the verb):
The X element will either be an object/complement (O/C: in which case it will often be a noun phrase, or an adjectival phrase (AdjP)):
or it will be an adverbial (Av) element-a clause or phrase which tells us something about the how, where or when of some aspect of the clause, and which can be moved around or deleted:
XAv(For ten minutes) NP(Bond) VP(stood) NP(Bond) VP(stood) XAv(for ten minutes) NP(Bond) VP(stood)
Sometimes, X will consist of both object/complement and an adverbial:
We do not need to distinguish between the object and the complement for stylistic analysis, but the mobility of the adverbial element means that it can be useful to separate it from the object or the complement.
