To classify the phrase “a team of horses” grammatically, we first break it down into its components. The main structure can be identified as follows:
- Determiner: ‘a’
- Noun: ‘team’
- Prepositional Phrase: ‘of horses’
In this phrase, “a” serves as a determiner that indicates a singular noun, which is “team.” The noun “team” is the head of the phrase and represents a collective noun, suggesting a group that acts as a single entity.
The prepositional phrase “of horses” modifies the noun “team” by specifying the members that make up this team. Here, “of” is the preposition and “horses” is the object of the preposition.
Thus, the overall grammatical classification can be seen as follows:
- The phrase as a whole functions as a noun phrase.
- It consists of a determiner (a), a head noun (team), and a modifying prepositional phrase (of horses).