Question

The president of the company was attending the mandatory sales meeting. Which type of phrase or clause is underlined in the sentence

Answer 1

I looked this question up and found out that the underlined phrase should be "was attending". The answer choices for this question are the following:

A. noun clause

B. verb phrase

C. adjectival phrase

D. adverbial clause

Answer:

The underlined phrase is a:

B. verb phrase

Explanation:

A verb phrase consists of a main verb or of a main verb and the auxiliary or modal verbs that accompany it. Take a look at the examples below:

- Joshua sang beautifully last night. --> verb phrase is "sang"

- Eileen has gone to Ireland. --> verb phrase is "has gone"

Thus, we can easily see that "was attending" is also a verb phrase. The main verb is "attending" and the auxiliary is "was".