Major Functions of Verbs and Verb Phrases Of the twelve possible functions, verbs and verb phrases perform six majorfunctions: four verbal, one adjectival, and one adverbial. The six major functions are: Ve rb phr ase hea d, Pre dic ate, Noun phr ase mod ifi er, Adj ect ive phr ase complement, Verb phrase complement, Adverbial Verb Phrase Head Verbs first function as the heads of verb phrases. The followinitalici!ed verbs are examples of heads of verb phrases: readeatthe coo"ies tostudy listento the music wakeup V e rbs alwa#s function as the heads of verb phrases. Nominal Functio ns of Verbs and Ve rb Phrases V e rbs and verb phrase s also perform six nominal functions. Nominal functio ns are functions protot#picall# performed b# nouns and noun phrases. The six nominal functions of verbs and verb phrases are: $ubject, $ubject complement, %irect object, Object complement, &ndirect object Prepositional complement The Copulative Predication A. 'opulative Predication is characteri!ed b# the followinfeatures: it is a discontinuous, binary structure made up of two constituents: - The Copula( a meaninless or )uasi(meaninless intransitive V, li"e *+ and other 'opula(li"e Vs which carries out the formal tas"s of predication - The Predicative( reali!ed b# an adjectiv al or nomi nal phrase which conve#s the meaninof the predicate, thus performinthe lexical t as"s of predication Consider: The show was quite successful. The show was a great success. The Predicative ma# be reali!ed b# one of the followinPhrases: Adjectival Phrase AP- Noun Phrase NP- simplenon(clausal constituents Prepositional Phrase PP- 'omplementi!er Phrase 'P- clausal constituents finite or non(finite- Examples: a- This teacher is absent-minded. - AP b- This teacher is the ead of the English !epartment. -NP c- This teacher is in need of money. - PP d- The problem is that this teacher has n ot attended refre shment courses. ( 'P 1