Unit 9: Phrasal Verbs
A. Introduction
Multiword verbs are expressions made up of a verb and one or two particles. Sometimes the meaning of the multiword verb is not very different from the meaning of the original verb. The verb “point” for example means to "indicate with the finger", while the multiword verb “to point out" can mean to “indicate something linguistically”. Sometimes the particle is used with more or less the same meaning with several verbs, for example "out” is used with a number of verbs to indicate the general meaning of discovery:
I found out the answer yesterday
He managed to work out a solution to the problem
I couldn't figure out the answer
The particle "on" is the general English preposition of depending:
You can rely on him
Everything depends on her
You can count on me
We are banking on your help
Similarly the particle "down" is often used to indicate “failure":
The car broke down
The computer went down
He !et us down
Usually however the meaning of a multiword verb is not easily deducible from the verb and the particle: "Look for" is “to seek", "look after" is “to take care of" and "look up” is “to search in a dictionary or list”. Given the enormous amount of multiword verbs that exist in English, this is simply a short introduction to the different grammatical types. In your "real world” contact with English it is necessary to rely on a good dictionary to solve problems with multiword verbs. An excellent specialist dictionary is the “Dictionary of Phrasal Verbs” edited by Collins Cobuild.
A. Introduction
Multiword verbs are expressions made up of a verb and one or two particles. Sometimes the meaning of the multiword verb is not very different from the meaning of the original verb. The verb “point” for example means to "indicate with the finger", while the multiword verb “to point out" can mean to “indicate something linguistically”. Sometimes the particle is used with more or less the same meaning with several verbs, for example "out” is used with a number of verbs to indicate the general meaning of discovery:
I found out the answer yesterday
He managed to work out a solution to the problem
I couldn't figure out the answer
The particle "on" is the general English preposition of depending:
You can rely on him
Everything depends on her
You can count on me
We are banking on your help
Similarly the particle "down" is often used to indicate “failure":
The car broke down
The computer went down
He !et us down
Usually however the meaning of a multiword verb is not easily deducible from the verb and the particle: "Look for" is “to seek", "look after" is “to take care of" and "look up” is “to search in a dictionary or list”. Given the enormous amount of multiword verbs that exist in English, this is simply a short introduction to the different grammatical types. In your "real world” contact with English it is necessary to rely on a good dictionary to solve problems with multiword verbs. An excellent specialist dictionary is the “Dictionary of Phrasal Verbs” edited by Collins Cobuild.
Phrasal verbs
Phrasal verbs may be intransitive (i.e. without a complement) or transitive. With transitive phrasal verbs the complement may come before or after the adverb if the complement is a noun:
He picked up the glass
He picked the glass up
However if the complement is a personal pronoun ("me", “you”, "him", "her", "it", "us", "them") , it comes between the verb and the particle:
He picked it up
Phrasal verbs may be intransitive (i.e. without a complement) or transitive. With transitive phrasal verbs the complement may come before or after the adverb if the complement is a noun:
He picked up the glass
He picked the glass up
However if the complement is a personal pronoun ("me", “you”, "him", "her", "it", "us", "them") , it comes between the verb and the particle:
He picked it up
Prepositional verbs
The complement always comes after the preposition:
You can rely on your sister
You can rely on her
Phrasal prepositional verbs
The complement always comes after the two particles
I won't put up with your behaviour
I won't put up with it
