Clause - Clauses Vs. Phrases

Clauses Vs. Phrases

There has been confusion about the distinction between clauses and phrases. This confusion is due in part to how these concepts are employed in the phrase structure grammars of the chomskyan tradition. In the 1970s, chomskyan grammars began labeling many clauses as CPs (= complementizer phrases) or as IPs (= inflection phrases), and then later as TPs (= tense phrases), etc. The choice of labels was influenced by the theory-internal desire to use the labels consistently. The X-bar schema acknowledged at least three projection levels for every lexical head: a minimal projection (e.g. N, V, P, etc.), an intermediate projection (e.g. N', V', P', etc.), and a phrase level projection (e.g. NP, VP, PP, etc.). Extending this convention to the clausal categories occurred in the interest of the consistent use of labels.

This use of labels should not, however, be confused with the actual status of the syntactic units to which the labels are attached. A more traditional understanding of clauses and phrases maintains that phrases are not clauses, and clauses are not phrases. There is a progression in the size and status of syntactic units: words < phrases < clauses. The characteristic trait of clauses, i.e. the presence of a subject and a (finite) verb, is absent from phrases. Clauses can be, however, embedded inside phrases.