Difference between clause and phrase?

[teletubbies_95]

We never learnt the difference between clause and phrase at school and im getting confused by looking at wikipedia and other linguistic related websites.

What is the difference between a phrase and clause ? Can you give an example too?
sorry for the stupid question, but i really need to know the difference . thanks in advance.

[Kuchiki]

The main difference is that a clause contains a verb, whereas a phrase does not.

For example:
"The quick brown fox" -- phrase
"The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog" -- clause

[WonderBunny]

Unless it's a verb phrase!

[Kuchiki]

Oh, right, I was just thinking about your ordinary run-of-the-mill phrase, but then you have your verb/noun/adverbial/adjectival phrases (are there more? I'm not sure). That's when things get complicated, and I'm not entirely confident about them (but hey, I still managed to get through English Language, somehow). I think my main strategy was always to just follow my instinct and hope for the best.

I tried looking them up on Wikipedia, too, and it seems the definitions even vary.

[WonderBunny]

I've looked up phrase and clause on wikipedia and the definitions seem accurate. Basically, a clause in English contains a noun phrase acting as a subject and a verb phrase, which acts as a predicate. A clause can be dependant or independant.

A phrase is not a complete clause, but a group of words that go together. The type of phrase is determined by the "head" or main word in the phrase. A noun phrase has a noun as its head, a verb phrase has a verb, etc. Confusingly, a phrase can be a single word. Phrases can also contain other types of phrases.

So to demonstrate, "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog" breaks down into phrases like this:
"The quick brown fox"- Noun phrase
"jumps over the lazy dog"- Verb phrase
"over the lazy dog"- Preposition phrase
"the lazy dog"- Noun phrase
The individual adjectives are all adjective phrases.

I have just finished first year linguistics and now I'm getting horrible flashbacks!

[bluehorizon]

Very simply, a phrase is not a stand-alone sentence. A clause, conversely, is.

[WonderBunny]

Unless its a dependant clause.

Dear god, this could go on all night. Damned linguistics.

[Bhootnike]

phrases are a group of words with a key word, - 5types: noun , verb, prepositional, adjective, adverb
noun phrases are like: his brown pants
verb phrases include aux. verbs and a main verb:  he may punch you
prep. phrases are a prep and a noun phrase: on the deck
adject. phrases include adj and advs, - extremely awesome
adv phrase: -rare, but stuff like: ' as quickly as you can'

clauses contain one main verb or action, usually in S.V.O syntax