[PLUG-TALK] Linguistics and the steamroller of English adoption

John Jason Jordan johnxj at gmx.com
Wed Apr 28 22:45:33 UTC 2021


On Wed, 28 Apr 2021 12:18:00 -0700
Michael Rasmussen <michael at jamhome.us> dijo:

>On 2021-04-28 10:47, John Jason Jordan wrote:
>> One of the biggest problems for foreigners is phrasal verbs, where we
>> stick a preposition or adverb (called a verb particle) after the
>> verb's complement, instead of right after the verb where it belongs.
>> The particle changes the meaning of the verb, and some verbs can
>> take more than one particle. Phrasal verbs are massively complex, so
>> much so that they have never been thoroughly analyzed by linguists.  
>
>Could you provide an example, please?

From (Cambridge, 2006):

"This phrasal verb is intransitive, it does not take an object:
	drift off, to gradually start to sleep
This phrasal verb is transitive. The object can be placed after the
phrasal verb or between the two parts of the phrasal verb:
	flag down something or flag something down
This phrasal verb is transitive. The object can only be placed after
the phrasal verb:
	see to something"

Note how, in the last example, 'to see something' does not mean the
same as 'to see to something'; the particle 'to' changes the meaning of
'see.' And notice that when the verb has an object the location for the
particle is usually either before or after the object, but in 'see to'
the particle must come between the verb and its object.

Phrasal verbs began as a verb prefix repeated at the end of the verb
phrase for emphasis, thus when used with a transitive verb they always
appeared after the object (post-position removed). However, considering
that the particle changes the meaning of the verb, the constituency of
the particle is with the verb, not with its object. Over numerous
centuries more and more prepositions and adverbs developed a new life
as verb particles, today close to 50 of them, and many are now
sometimes placed directly after the verb, sometimes optionally and
sometimes obligatorily.

Note that the expression 'phrasal verb' only refers to a verb +
particle construction; it does not refer to a verb + modal or verb +
auxiliary construction.

The Cambridge dictionary referenced above claims to include 'around
6,000 phrasal verbs,' but after reviewing some of its pages I disagree
that the majority are really phrasal verbs. And there are plenty of
other debates about how phrasal verbs work - consider, for example
'cozy up to.' I think that 'cozy up' the phrasal verb, with 'to' as the
beginning preposition of an obligatory prepositional phrase, yet
Cambridge lists 'cozy up to' as a phrasal verb without mentioning that
'to' is separate.

References

Cambridge University Press. (2006). Cambridge Phrasal Verbs Dictionary.
Cambridge University Press.



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