Research Problems Problem Limitation

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CHAPTER II REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

This chapter discusses two major sections. The first is the theoretical description of the study outlined in Chapter 1. The second is the presentation of theoretical framework. 2.1. Theoretical Description 2.1.1 English Phrases Traditionally, phrase is a term used in grammatical analysis which refers to a single element of linguistic structure containing more than one word, lacking of subject and predicate Crystal, 1950, p. 170. Mas’ud 2005, p. 171 also mentions a similar statement that a phrase is a group of words forming a meaning, but it does not have any subject or predicate. Based on Delahunty and Garvey 2010, p. 274, the definitions above entail three characteristics as follows. 1 it specifies that only a group of words can constitute a phrase, implying that a single word cannot; 2 it distinguishes phrases from clauses; and 3 it requires that the groups of words believed to be a phrase constitute a single grammatical unit. However, they reject the first characteristic that single words cannot constitute phrases. A word and a phrase may play identical grammatical roles in a clause, meaning that “a single word may be a phrase when it is the head of that phrase” Delahunty Garvey, 2010, p. 274. Stated by Delahunty and Garvey, “the head of a phrase is the phrase’s central element; any other words or phrases in the phrase orient to it, either by modifying it or complementing it” 2010, p. 275. As it has been classified by some experts, there are five major types of phrase. Those are: noun phrase, verb phrase, adjective phrase, prepositional phrase and adverbial phrase. As the head of the phrase determines the phrase’s category Delahunty Garvey, 2010, p. 275, it is clear that a phrase which head is a noun is categorized as noun phrase Leech, 1994, p. 315 which is considered as the most frequently occurring phrase. A group of words which its head is typically verb and it can consist of just the main verb is called verb phrase Leech, 1994, p. 396. Meanwhile, a group of words which head is adjective and it is used to modify a noun or pronoun is called adjective phrase Mas’ud, 2005, p. 171. At last, it is obvious that adverbial phrase is a phrase which head is adverb and prepositional phrase is a phrase which head is a preposition Delahunty Garvey, 2010, p. 275.

2.1.2 Theory of Syntax

Syntax is a study of the structure of sentences, “uncovering the underlying principles or rules, for constructing well-formed sentences if a particular language” McManis, Stollenwerk and Zheng Seng, 1987, p. 153. As a subdivision of the study of grammar, not only concerning with the ways in which words can be combined together to form and sentences, syntax is also concerned with the interpretation of phrases and sentences Radford, 1997, p. 1. There are two types of rules in studying sentence structures, those are: 1 phrase structure rules or