Verb Phrase

Here are two senses for verb phrase:

1. In traditional terminology, a verb phrase is a phrase that

• has the syntactic role of a simple verb, and
• is composed of a main verb and auxiliary verbs or verbal particles related syntactically to the verb.

2. In generative grammar, a verb phrase is a syntactic unit that corresponds to the predicate. In addition to the verb, this includes auxiliaries, objects, object complements, and other constituents apart from the subject.