Cambridge Grammar of English Hardback with cd-rom a comprehensive Guide

O

prepositional phrase

She put 

the book | on the shelf.

A predicative complement is a phrase which completes a clause with verbs such

as be, become, look, taste:

She’

s 

away

.

He 

became 

a teacher

.

That 

looks 

very nice

.

Û

Transitive complementation

Complex verb phrase A phrase which includes a combination of different

elements with the lexical verb:

I 

do like pizza. 

(auxiliary + lexical verb)

We

’ve talked about that.

(perfect + lexical verb)

We

’re being fooled.

(progressive + passive + lexical verb)

I 

might be seeing Bob. 

(modal + progressive + lexical verb)

It

’s been being repaired for ages. 

(perfect + passive + progressive + lexical verb)

A complex verb phrase indicates person, number, tense (except in modal

verbs), aspect, voice and mood. 

Û

Verb phrase

896 | Glossary

Cambridge Grammar of English

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Compound Compounding is a word-formation process which refers to two or

more words linking together to produce a form which creates a new, single unit

of meaning. Compounds are found in all word classes: Nouns (pop-group, car

park

), adjectives (heartbreaking, homesick), verbs (babysit, dry-clean),

prepositions (into, onto).

Compound sentences are sentences with two or more main clauses: 

He should have been here at five and he’s not here yet, but he’ll come.

Concord (or agreement) Subject-verb concord refers to the agreement between

the verb and subject in a finite clause with respect to number and person: 

It takes ages to get there.

(present tense, plus third person singular subject requires -s on a lexical verb)

Concordance A computer technique that allows searches to be conducted in a

corpus for specific target words or phrases in their original textual

environments. The most standard concordance type is called KWIC display

(Key Word in Context), which highlights the chosen keyword in the centre of a

line of words with its surrounding context on each side (