This paper investigates the notion of phrase in non phrase structure grammars. Following Tesnire and Mel'cuk, we defend the idea that the word order must be separated from the syntactic representation proper and that phrases only intervene when word order is at play. We try to characterize a new notion we call topological phrase (partially inherited from the classical topological model for German) and distinguish it from the classical notion of phrase in X-bar Syntax. Our discussion is illustrated by the puzzling case of German word order for which we propose a simple and powerful grammar giving us all the possible word orders and topological phrase structures of verbal syntax. This discussion of the notion of phrase opens a new perspective for the comparison of the entire architectures of Chomskyan and Mel'cukian linguistic models.