Phrasal verbs

English has some hundreds of phrasal verbs, each a combination of verb plus preposition(s) that has a meaning not inferrable from the individual meanings of verb and preposition(s), so that it must be regarded as an independent lexical item, and accorded a dictionary entry of its own.

There are six varieties of phrasal verb. Their structures can be abbreviated, using ‘p’ for preposition and ‘N’ for a noun phrase or functionally equivalent constituent:

1. verb-plus-p, e.g. set in, come to, pass out
2. verb-plus-pN, e.g. set about X, come by X, pick on X
3. verb-plus-Np, e.g. put X off, take X on, bring X down
4. verb-plus-NpN, e.g. see X through Y, hold X against Y
5. verb-plus-ppN, e.g. take up with X, go in for X, scrape by on X
6. verb-plus-NppN, e.g. put X down to Y, let X in for Y, take X up on Y

The difference between (ii) and (iii) is particularly important. A p can move to the left over a noun (but not over an unstressed personal pronoun) in (iii), e.g. put the meeting off, put off the meeting and put it off but not *put off it.

The p cannot move in (ii), e.g. pick on Mary, not *pick Mary on. Some verbs of set (vi) may also move the first p to the left over a preceding noun (but not over a pronoun), e.g. He played John off against Mary, He played off John against Mary.

There is an explanation for why a preposition can move to the left over a full NP but not over a pronoun. Object pronouns are clitics, phonologically attached to the preceding verb. And a preposition cannot be moved to intrude into the middle of a verb-plus-clitic pronoun sequence. The phonological form of put the meeting off is /pu´t  and this can be rearranged, by leftwards movement of the preposition, to be  . The phonological form of put it off is /  (where ‘=’ indicates a clitic boundary) and here the  cannot be moved into the middle of .

The vast majority of phrasal verbs are based on monosyllabic roots of Germanic origin, almost all belonging to the types MOTION (e.g. bring, carry), REST (sit, stand), AFFECT (cut, kick, scrape), GIVE (give, get, have), MAKING (make, let), or the grammatical verbs be and do. The resulting phrasal verbs are distributed over a wider range of types; some of them have quite abstract and specialized meanings, for which there is no mono-morphemic synonym, e.g. let X in for Y, see X through Y, take up with X. Nevertheless, only a small proportion of them allow a complement clause in one of the slots designated ‘N’ in the formulas above.

The transitivity of phrasal verbs is a fascinating and not altogether easy question. Firstly, an N which immediately follows the verbal element, as in (iii), (iv) and (vi), is clearly a direct object; it may become passive subject, e.g. The meeting was put off, John’s political opinions were held against him, Her failure was put down to nerves. In these phrasal verb types the lexical unit is effectively discontinuous—we should write put—off, hold—against, and put—down to, the dash showing that a direct object intervenes between the elements of what is in each case a single semantic unit.

It would be reasonable to expect the N in a phrasal verb of type (ii) to behave like the NP following an inherent preposition verb such as refer to or decide on. In fact, it does not do so. Whereas the object constituent after refer to, decide on and similar verbs may freely passivize, the N in a phrasal verb of type (ii) may only occasionally become subject of a passive construction—it may for pick on (e.g. Mary is always being picked on by the new teacher), but it does not for set about and it does not very easily for come by, for instance. The N in type (ii) behaves syntactically like a prepositional object (as in He sat on the river bank), although it follows a verb-plus-preposition that makes up a single semantic unit. The N in type (v) shows even less tendency to passivize—a passive is barely possible with just a few phrasal verbs from this set, e.g. put up with, look down on, make up for (but not with rub off on, come round to, pull out of or many others).

We noted that the ‘inherent preposition’ from a verb like hope for, decide on or think about is dropped before a that, for or to complementiser. How do prepositions from phrasal verbs behave in these circumstances? In answering this question it will be useful to discuss the varieties one or two at a time.

Structure (ii), verb-plus-pN. Out of a sample of about a hundred phrasal verbs of this kind I have found none that may take a THAT clause in the N slot. There are a few that allow ING clauses (e.g. He set about picking the grapes, She couldn’t deal with her husband’s making passes at all the maids) and one or two that may take an NP which includes a THAT clause, but not a THAT complement alone (e.g. She played upon the fact that he was frightened of the dark, He fell for the suggestion that he should nominate Mary). It seems as if a THAT clause is never used with a phrasal verb of this type because that cannot normally follow a preposition with which its clause has a close syntactic connection, and to omit the preposition would destroy the phrasal verb (either changing the meaning of the sentence, or rendering it unintelligible).

The same argument should apply in the case of (FOR) TO complements; the preposition of a phrasal verb would have to drop before for or to, destroying the lexical form of the phrasal verb. In fact, (FOR) TO complements do not generally occur with phrasal verbs of type (ii). But there is an exception: press for, as in She pressed for a recount. Since this verb ends in for it can perfectly well be followed by a Modal (FOR) TO complement clause, e.g. She pressed for the returning officer to recount the votes or She pressed for the votes to be recounted. (In underlying structure there are two occurrences of for, and one is omitted.) If the complement clause subject is coreferential with main clause subject then it should be omitted, together with complementiser for. Here the for of the phrasal verb would immediately precede complementiser to and must be omitted; this is why a sentence like? She pressed to recount the votes is at best dubiously acceptable.

Structure (iii), verb-plus-Np (where the p may be moved to the left over a preceding non-pronominal constituent). There are a small number of phrasal verbs of this type where the N may be (i) an NP, or (ii) an NP in apposition with a THAT clause:

(6a) He put the news about

(6b) He put about the news

(7a) He put the news that I had resigned about

(7b) He put about the news that I had resigned

There are further possibilities:

(7c) He put the news about that I had resigned

(7d) He put it about that I had resigned

We could say that in (7c) the THAT clause from the complex appositional constituent the news that I had resigned has been extraposed to the end of the sentence (parallel to the extraposition in The news angered me that we are to have a new secretary). In (7d) there must be—for most speakers—an it between put and about, effectively marking the fact that this is a phrasal verb of type ‘verb-plus-Np’. (We cannot have *He put that I had resigned about, and scarcely? He put about that I had resigned, where the news has been omitted without trace.)

It appears that an extraposed THAT clause can follow the ‘p’ element of a phrasal verb of type ‘verb-plus-Np’ only when there is some constituent filling the N slot.

Other phrasal verbs of type (iii) which occur in constructions (6a)–(7d) include bring—about, give—out, put—across. There are also just a few for which—at least in some dialects—the it may be omitted from a construction like (7d), e.g. let—out ‘disclose’, work—out ‘deduce’, lay—down ‘stipulate’.

Since a preposition does not drop before an ING complement, it is possible to have an ING clause in the N slot for phrasal verbs of type (iii), e.g. She’ll never live down her husband’s being sent to jail. Note that here leftward movement of the preposition is almost obligatory, both to put the ‘heavy constituent’ at the end of its clause and to ensure that the two words making up the phrasal verb are not too far apart.

Structures (iv), verb-plus-NpN, and (vi), verb-plus-NppN. There are relatively few phrasal verbs with these structures. A handful of them may take a complex NP including a THAT clause in the first N slot (i.e. as direct object) and then behave exactly like type (iii), with an it following the verbal root, and the THAT clause coming at the end of the main clause, e.g. He held it against me that I didn’t vote for him, I took it up with Mary that she didn’t vote at all and I put it down to laziness that he never writes.

The second N slot in structure (vi) may take NP-including-THAT-clause, e.g. I played the fact that he can’t cook off against the fact that I hate washing up, but not a complement clause alone.

Structure (v), verb-plus-ppN. Here, the first preposition is like that in a phrasal verb of types (i)–(iv) and the second resembles an ‘inherent preposition’ (as in decide on, hope for). That is, the second preposition is omitted before a THAT clause in N slot—compare He didn’t let on about the accident and He didn’t let on about Mary’s being injured with He didn’t let on (*about) that Mary had been injured. Another phrasal verb that omits the second preposition before that is catch on to.

In conclusion, we can state firstly that an N which comes immediately after the verbal part of a phrasal verb (syntactically intruding into the middle of a single semantic unit) in types (iii), (iv) and (vi) is clearly a direct object, and those phrasal verbs are transitive. The final N in types (iv) and (vi) is a core semantic role, but it is not in object syntactic relation.

The N in type (ii) has weak object status, since it may occasionally become passive subject; this object status is weaker than that of an NP which follows an inherent preposition, as in hope for, refer to. The N in type (v) has similar syntactic status—there are limited passivisation possibilities, and when N is a THAT complement clause the second of the two prepositions will drop before it.

Only phrasal verbs of structure (i) are fully intransitive.