PHRASAL VERBS

Note: This post is all about what we have discussed in class for one day, since we only had reporting last Monday. We weren't able to meet this Thursday because of the preparation for the Metrowide Shake Drill, I supposed. Well, it is good to be ready and informed on what we have to do in case the "Big One" occur (hopefully, it will not occur *let's keep our  fingers crossed*)


PHRASAL VERB is a verb plus a preposition or adverb which create a meaning different from the original. It can be:

Phrase is a set of incomplete thought

• Transitive Verb

Example: I made up the story.

• Intransitive Verb

Example: He suddenly showed up.

Phrasal verbs can be distinguished through the two (2) formulas below:

Formula (1) Verb + Participle

fill up -    complete a form

V   P

                   

fill out -    fill to capacity

 V   P

Other examples:

come in - to enter

come to - regain consciousness

come back - return to a place

come over - to visit

  Formula (2)  Verb + Noun + Participle

 Example:   She gave the money back.

                             V            N              P

                 (In the example above, gave back is the phrasal verb, consisting of the verb and the participle, separated by the noun the money.)

3 TYPES OF PHRASAL VERBS

1. SEPARABLE

The object may come after the following phrasal verb or it may separate the two parts

Examples:

giving away - give something to someone for free

take off - remove clothing

turned off - switched off electricity

turn on - switch on electricity

2. INSEPARABLE

With the following phrasal verb, the lexical part of the verb (the part of phrasal verb that carries the "verb" meaning) cannot be separated from the preposition that accompany it.

Example:

called on - ask to recite

ran into - meet

take after -  resemble

ran across - find by chance

3. THREE-WORD PHRASAL VERB

Examples:

get through with - to finish

run out of - exhaust supply

think back on - to recall

walked out on - abandon

PHRASAL VERB VS PREPOSITIONAL VERB  

Two-word verbs can be phrasal verbs or prepositional verb. 

So, how do we know that a certain two-word verb is a phrasal or prepositional verb? Let us consider the following examples:

1. He looked up the word.
2. He looked at the word.

In the example sentences above, both have the same verb "looked", and both have participles or particles following them. However, the have different stressed. Sentence 1 is stressed at the participle up making it "looked up" as a phrasal verb, while Sentence 2 is stressed at the verb "looked" making the rest of the sentence "at the word" a prepositional phrase. Therefore, the word "looked" in sentence 2 is a prepositional verb.

Sentence 1 is searching for a particular word, while in sentence two, the subject "He" is looking at a word that is already present and which the subject is already seeing.

Let us look at the structure of each verb:

• Structure of phrasal verbs

A phrasal verb can be made of:

a verb + adverb                                            looked up, broke down

a verb + adverb + preposition                     put up with

With a phrasal verb (verb + adverb), the position of the object (a noun) is flexible, meaning, it can sit either between the verb and the adverb or after the adverb:

Example:     The man looked over  the accounts.

(In the given example above, the "looked over" is the phrasal verb, and the "the accounts" is the noun.)

• Structure of prepositional verbs

A prepositional verb is made up of:

a verb + preposition                                    think about, complain about

With prepositional verbs (verb + preposition), the position of the object --- regardless of whether it's a noun or pronoun --- is not flexible. The object must sit after the preposition.

Example:      The man looked over the gate.    

(In the example given above, "over is a preposition ans is used with the object "the gate". Prepositions always have objects.)