Hjulmand & Schwarz (2009:32, 2012:33) (and many others) assume that
has concluded constitutes a verb phrase (VP) in the example The British
car industry has concluded a deal with the Japanese government. I want
to defend a different analysis, namely that concluded constitutes a VP
together with the object, i.e. The British car industry has concluded a deal
with the Japanese government. One advantage is that VPs are less different
from other phrases, in that VPs may now contain more than just verbs, just
like NPs may contain more than nouns and PPs more than prepositions.
Another advantage of this analysis is a better account of examples like
Saved many a life at sea, they have. The VP-internal structural difference
between arguments (e.g. objects) and adjuncts (e.g. adverbials) will also be
discussed, as well as discontinuous VPs. Finally, the appendix will discuss
the analysis of Danish.