Background of the Analysis

CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background of the Analysis

Language is a tool or primary means that used to communicate by human. Beside we often use spoken language, it also often used in writing or written language. Language has relationship with the sentence. Sentence is a group of words that expresses a statement or expression. A sentence is a group of words which is usually a grammatically complete statement tied together and conveys an idea, event or description. Radford 1988 stated that all sentences have a categorical constituent structure, all sentences are hierarchically structured out of word and phrases, and each the component words and phrases in a sentence belong to a specific category. There are two level categories; they are word level categories and phrasal categories. Words belong to the various categories of different types that are Noun, Verb, Adjective, Adverb and Preposition. Meanwhile, the phrasal categories are Noun Phrases, Verb Pharases, Adjectival Phrases, Adverbial Phrases, and Preposiotional Phrases. In this thesis, I only focus on phrase, that is verb phrase. Unlike a sentence, or clause, a phrase does not contain both a subject and a finite conjugated verb. When building sentences, we use many types of phrases. A phrase is a group of words that forms a unit simpler than a sentence. In grammar, a phrase is a group of words that function as a single unit in the syntax of sentence. Wren and Martin 1985:39 say, a Universitas Sumatera Utara phrase is a group of words that makes sense but not complete sense. Sometimes, a phrase may consist of a single word or a group of words. Most phrases have a central word which defines the types of phrase; the central word is called the “head”. Phrase always has head in each word, it can be analyzed, if knows about types of phrase and knows how to form it. Verb phrase or VP is a syntax structure composed of predicative element of a sentence and function in providing information about the subject of the sentence. All verbs that function as a predicate is verb phrase. The head of phrase is a verb and constructed from a single verb, however, the verb phrase will consist of various combinations of the main verb and any auxiliary verb, plus optionally specifier, complement, and adjunct. Douglas 2002:42 says, verb phrase is a phrase with a verb as its head. Verb phrase has a lexical verb or primary verb as their head i.e. their main verb. It is also called as predicate. Verbs can be grouped into three major classes according to their ability to function as main verbs or auxiliary verbs. • Lexical verbs e.g. run, eat, think have function as main verbs full verbs ex: Children and dog ran from side to side. He barely ate or slept that night • Primary verbs Primary verbs be, have, and do have function as both auxiliary and main verbs Primary verbs as main verbs function: Ex : He does my washing. Universitas Sumatera Utara His dad was an art professor. Every atom has a dense nucleus Primary verbs as auxiliary function Ex : He doesn’t look at the numbers. He was wearing a dark ski mask. A particular combination of result has occurred • Modal verbs can, could, shall, should, will, would, may, might, must have function only as auxiliary verbs Ex : He should be angry for all that. He would probably like it softer. The main verb can stand alone or be preceded by one or more auxiliary verbs. The auxiliaries further define the action, state, or process denoted by the main verbs. Verb phrases are the essential part of clause, referring to a type of state or action. According to Douglas 2002:149 there are six major kinds of variation in the structure of verb phrase. They are tenses, aspect, voice, modality, negation, and finite clause. In this thesis, the analysis is limited and only focuses on tense, aspect, and voice. I choose the title for my thesis “An analysis of verb phrase found in the selected articles of Tempo Magazine” because verb phrase is one of the most important component in constructing a sentence. Without verb phrases, there would be many ideas that unable to be expressed. The writer also want to know what kinds of verb phrase that used by Tempo`s writer in the magazine. That`s why I am Universitas Sumatera Utara interested in analyzing it. It is also hoped that all the readers can be helped to understand about verb phrase well by this thesis. In helping me doing the analysis, I have chosen a magazine. I chosen Tempo magazine that published in April, 21 st 2013 as the source of my data. Magazine is one of literary works and also a written language. In this thesis, I use some of the selected articles Tempo Magazine. The magazine was selected because there are different kinds of verb phrase inside that can help me in writing this thesis.

1.2 Problem of the Study