For too long now the verb phrase has been the dominant focus of attention in course books, syllabuses, and teacher training programmes.
Any teacher worth his/her salt will be able to tell you everything there is to know about base verbs, infinitives, progressives, perfectives, passives, and modals.
But, please, let's not forget the noun phrase! Why? Because the noun phrase is a quintessential part of every sentence (even if it doesn't appear in the surface structure of a sentence as in "stop!"), it is potentially infinite in length, and it can include any number of other phrases (e.g. noun, adjective, adverb) within its structure.