These are extremely common, present in countless birdsongs. Phrases are basically the short parts of a vocalization, usually two- or three-syllabled. They are often very easy to pick out, as are the phrases in the American Robin song: cheerup, cheerily, tearup, teary, chirt, cheediro, chirry, chirrup, chirry, chirrup... In this case, each word is a seperate phrase. Occasionally, individual phrases may be difficult to distinguish from one another because several species will slur them together.

are closely related words with no subject or predicate, and may be used as nouns, verbs, adjectives, or adverbs, e.g., Waiting for Technical Support has kept me at my desk all afternoon (noun). The typing could have been done earlier (verb). The person with the bleary eyes is a computer nerd (adjective). Buy memory chips now, since the price will go up soon (adverb).

useful in searching for databases. Essentially the same as requesting that your words appear immediately adjacent to one another, in the exact order you type them. See: Search Techniques.