 Phrases and clauses are both groups of words. The essential difference between them is their level of completeness. A phrase is pretty incomplete. It's a group of words that functions as a unit but lacks a subject or a predicate. There are noun phrases, for example. A goat, the fainting goat. Sophia's short spotted fainting goat. In each case, the noun is the main idea, goat, and all the other words describe it, telling us which goat or what kind of goat. But there's no predicating verb to go with it, so we know it's only a phrase. There are also verb phrases, fainted. Fainting suddenly has suddenly and hilariously fainted. A verb is the main idea, faint, and all the other words describe it or complete its construction. But there's no subject to go with it, so it's a phrase. Finally, there are prepositional phrases, which are a preposition followed by a noun or a noun phrase in the pasture to the ground after a loud noise. Prepositional phrases offer additional commentary and they can do it for both nouns, the goat in the pasture, and verbs, fainted in the pasture. They function kind of like adjectives and adverbs, and for that reason we call them adjectival phrases when they modify the noun and adverbial phrases when they modify the verb. And actually, that's the way the elements within a phrase operate. All those extra words clump around the main idea to comment on it, adjectivally or adverbially. That's what prevents the phrase from ever becoming something more complete, even when there are nouns or verbs together in a phrase. Take the fainting goat, for example. We have a verb, fainting, and a noun, goat. The verb here isn't acting like a verb, at least not like a predicating one. It's functioning adjectivally, describing the noun rather than signaling any kind of action taking place. And so we know that that clump of words, the fainting goat, is only a phrase. There's no predicate. That middleness, that cohesion without completeness, is what really defines a phrase. For that reason, it can never stand up on its own as a complete sentence. Like we string together relevant words to form a phrase, we also string together relevant phrases to form a full clause or sentence. A goat has fainted. That's a noun phrase and a verb phrase, a subject and a predicate, working together to form something more complete. And we can keep piling them up. Sophia's short spotted fainting goat in the pasture has suddenly and hilariously fainted after a loud noise. Here we've got one phrase of every kind, a noun phrase, a verb phrase, and two prepositional phrases, one that's adjectival and one that's adverbial. Let us know in the comments if you can identify them all.