Phrasal Verbs

This book has three main aims: (I) to determine the usefulness of English phrasal verbs for L2 learners based on their frequency of occurrence; (II) to offer a comparative exploration of the most common phrasal verbs between spoken American and British English across the subgenre of television crime dramas, and (III) to show the crucial role that adverbial particles play in decoding the meaning of phrasal verbs.

Phrasal verbs, such as "run up" in "They always run up our electric bill," have long been of interest to researchers of English linguistics.  Scholars have been particularly focused on the definition and categorization of these multi-word items, as well as their grammatical, pragmatic, and semantic functions. Additionally, phrasal verbs have been examined historically, and recently corpus methods have been used to begin investigating phrasal verb frequency and patterns of variation across registers. But few studies have combined diachronic and register-based approaches to analyze the development of the phrasal verb in American English.

This study uses large, monitor corpora--The Corpus of Historical American English (CoHA) and The Corpus of Contemporary American English (CoCA)--to investigate diachronic trends in the development of selected phrasal verbs. Our investigation follows two lines of inquiry. In the first, we present an overview of the development of phrasal verbs in the last two hundred years. Our analysis begins with historical trends in the use of the most common adverbial particles, including their varied uses in different registers. In the second part of our investigation, we present a case study of the most frequent phrasal verb (pick up). This case study explores how the usage of a transitive phrasal verb is influenced by the histories of the nouns that function as its objects (how "phone" impacts the use of "pick up," for example). One set of data, therefore, provides a global view of developmental trends focusing on the adverbial particles, the other a close look at some of the grammatical, semantic and sociolinguistic forces that can influence the histories of specific phrasal verbs.

From these data, we discover that particular registers--fiction, most particularly--have contributed to the bulk of growth in phrasal verbs in American English.  But unlike many previous studies, we do not find unimpeded growth in phrasal verb usage: there seems to be a plateau in phrasal verb frequency after the 1940s.  We emphasize that such trends are observable only by consulting large, continuous corpora, rather than by aggregating smaller, disparate studies of different historical corpora.  Finally, we argue that changes in the frequency and semantics of phrasal verbs are due, in part, to changes in culture--especially fashion and technology--and the nouns associated with these cultural changes.

Abstract: [Verbal phrasemes and grammatical metaphor in Spanish and Chinese]. This paper analyzes the phrasemes with a verbal function from a contrastive point of view between two typologically opposed languages, in search of similarities, differences and overlaps, not only from a cross-linguistic perspective but also in relation to the neighboring subcategories within that paradigm. Taking as a starting point the English
phrasal verb, we distinguish eight subclasses of verbal phrasemes, not counting the satellite verbs, which we finally exclude from the paradigm. The first part of the paper defines and delimits these categories, the second describes them specifically for  Spanish, and the third does so for Chinese. The conclusion discusses the results
and implications of this cross-linguistic comparison.

Brazilian Phrasal Verbs The prescriptivist "lesson":-postpone for put off,-suppress for fight down,-inherit for come into,-reprimand for tell off, and so on (Dixon, 1982:4). The same situation holds in Brazilian Portuguese:-partir (go away) for ir embora, cair fora (go away),-engolir, ingerir (swallow, gobble) for mandar [comida ou bebida] pra dentro (lit. send [food or drink] inside; swallow, gobble up),-atacar, perseguir (pursue) for ir pra cima (go after). My intention is to show that there is a rich array of phrasal verbs in less formal varieties of Brazilian Portuguese (BP, henceforth). It doesn't mean, however, that the use of phrasal verbs in BP is as pervasive as it is in English. In many cases, the simple verb is still the colloquial usage:-demitir (lay off),-adiar (put off),-decepcionar (let down, disappoint).

This paper deals with the meanings of two colour terms, namely English white and black and Serbian beo and crn. A contrastive analysis of the two pairs of adjectives is based on a corpus of 35 English and Serbian phrasal and clausal idioms, like Two blacks do not make a white in English and Od dva zla ne može ispasti dobro in Serbian. The main aim of the research is to point to stylistic and semantic aspects of two colour categories, white and black, in English and Serbian idioms. More specific aims deal with the meanings these colour categories express in the process of describing human characteristics, both mental characteristics and appearance, as well as determining whether such meanings are identical or similar in two contrasted languages. The analysis shows, furthermore, there is a high degree of correspondence between the two contrasted languages in respect of the expression of meanings of white/beo and black/crn which are culturally accepted in both languages.

Predmet istraživanja u ovom radu su slikovne sheme SADRŽATELJ, SILA, RAVNOTEŽA, CENTAR–PERIFERIJA, GORE–DOLE, i PREDMET (Johnson 1987: 126) u poslovicama koje sadrže somatizme u engleskom i srpskom jeziku poput, Place one’s head in the lion’s mouth / Staviti glavu na kocku. U istraživanju je korišćen korpus sačinjen od 30 poslovica engleskog i istog broja poslovica srpskog jezika. Cilj istraživanja jeste da se definišu metaforički pojmovni obrasci kojima je motivisana upotreba somatizama u posmatranim poslovicama, kao i da se predstave slikovne sheme kroz princip utelovljenja kao univerzalne kategorije. Kognitivnolingvističkom analizom pojmovnih obrazaca stiče se uvid u stepen sličnosti načina na koji govornici engleskog i srpskog jezika konceptualizuju apstraktne pojmove polazeći od delova ljudskog tela kao izvornih domena.

El examen de los verbos sintagmáticos (o phrasal verbs) italianos, franceses, portugueses y españoles confirma que reúnen todas las condiciones que distinguen los frasemas de las combinaciones sintácticas: polilexematicidad, fijación e idiomaticidad (Mejri 2012: 141) por lo que deben considerarse como un tipo de unidad fraseológica. Una ventaja de tal enfoque es que ya no es necesario atribuir a la partícula una naturaleza adverbial o preposicional, ni distinguir entre preposiciones «completas» y «vacías» (Silué 2011: 9), puesto que los componentes fraseológicos no tienen función gramatical propia (cf. Pamies 2007; 2014; 2016; 2018a). También resulta superflua la discusión acerca de si la partícula de un VS es adverbial o preposicional, especialmente cuando la mayoría de los adverbios de lugar tienen preposiciones homónimas que derivan etimológicamente de ellos (cf, Hagège 1982: 45 apud. Buridant. 1995: 290), entre otras razones, porque, por definición, los componentes de un frasema no tienen categoría propia (Čermák 1998, Gross 1986: 11).

The paper deals with the analysis of the English phrasal verbs with the particles down and up and their Serbian translation equivalents. The general aim of the analysis is to point to the English phrasal verbs with the particles down and up and their expected Serbian translations in the form of prefixed verbs. Furthermore, more specific aims deal with the elaboration on the verbal categories of aspect and aktionsart (especially the feature of telicity) and the levels of idiomaticity of the English phrasal verbs as well as their Serbian translations. The theoretical framework used in the paper is the cognitive approach to phrasal-verb semantics. The results of the analysis show that the Serbian translation equivalents of the English phrasal verbs with the particle up are mostly perfective prefixed verbs whereas imperfective prefixed verbs are rather rare. In order to compare the English phrasal verbs and their Serbian translations, a contrastive analysis was performed on the corpus of 111 phrasal verbs with the particles down and up, collected from the second part of Hilary Mantel's novel Wolf Hall and its Serbian translation Vučje leglo (translated by Vladimir D. Janković).

Phrasal or multi-word verbs, many of them formed with the frequently-occurring irregular verbs, are a ubiquitous feature of Manx. They may be divided into the following categories: 1. verb + adverbial / adjective / prepositional phrase, e.g. çheet er y hoshiaght 2. verb + adverbial / adjective / prepositional phrase + direct object, e.g. cur magh 3. verb + adverbial + prepositional object, e.g. shassoo magh noi 4. verb + prepositional object, e.g. goaill rish 5. verb + reflexive prepositional pronoun, e.g. troggal ort, cummal ort hene 6. verb + reflexive prepositional pronoun + direct object e.g. cur lhiat 7. verb + fixed direct object e.g. goaill arrane 8. verb + fixed direct object + prepositional object, e.g. goaill baght jeh 9. verb + non-finite verb, e.g. goll dy lhie 10. verb + non-finite verb + direct object, e.g. cur dy lhie 11. verb + adjective + prepositional object e.g. çheet jesh da The phrasal verbs are listed in alphabetical order by their verbal noun, with fixed direct objects following (e.g. goaill arrane, rather than arrane y ghoaill). A second-person singular prepositional pronoun indicates that the preposition agrees with the subject. Verbs which take, or may take, a prepositional object in their primary sense, or without modification of the sense (e.g. cooney lesh 'help'), are not incuded here. Obvious literal collocations are omitted, so ceau ersooyl is listed in the sense 'wear away, perish' but not 'throw away'.

The theory of situation-type aspect based on scales (e.g. Tenny 1994; Jackendoff 1996; Rappaport Hovav 2008; Rappaport Hovav and Levin 2010) is applied in the present study to aspectual English verb particles and Slovak verbal prefixes. I argue that both particles and prefixes come in two types, non-scalar and scalar, depending on how they describe the change denoted in the verb root. Non-scalar particles and prefixes do not alter argument structure, e.g. The children walked (on) in silence. They appear in predicates without an underlying scale, which are consequently atelic. In contrast, scalar particles and prefixes appear in predicates with an underlying scale, which are potentially telic. Scalar prefixes and particles can alter argument structure because scales require an obligatory realization of the measured participant, e.g. Ally slept *(off) a headache. The study reviews manifestations of argument-structure alternations as well as factors that determine the effect of particles and prefixes on telicity.

COPULA OMISSION BY EFL ARAB LEARNERS
Copula omission is found to be one of the major and most frequent errors that
Arab EFL learners make when writing in English. Several studies have examined copula
omission by Arab EFL learners. Most of those studies have concluded that copula
omission is the result of negative transfer from Arabic to English since Arabic and
English is​ structurally far different. The present study investigates the phenomenon of
copula omission by Saudi EFL learners. It also examines whether the negative transfer
from Arabic to English leads to copula dropping by Arab learners.
Data were collected from 100 Saudi students at Qassim University in Saudi
Arabia. The participants were 100 Saudi male students of whom 50 were enrolled at the
intermediate level, or the 3rd level, at the English department at Qassim University and
the other 50 were enrolled at the advanced 7th level at the same department. The
participants were asked to write an essay describing themselves, their family members,
where they were born, the city they grew up in, how old they were, how old their parents
and siblings were, the city they lived in currently, and also about their ambitions and
plans for the future.
The results of this study revealed that the participants made errors by deleting the
English copula. The statistical analysis showed that the copula omission was more
frequent in the present and past tenses. The findings also revealed that intermediate
students make more errors than advanced students. There was a significant difference between the advanced and intermediate participants as regards the number of errors in the present and future tenses. The study ends with pedagogical implications, limitations, and suggestions and recommendations for future research.

The paper deals with the analysis of the English phrasal verbs with the particles down and up and their Serbian translation equivalents. The general aim of the analysis is to point to the English phrasal verbs with the particles down and up and their expected Serbian translations in the form of prefixed verbs. Furthermore, more specific aims deal with the elaboration on the verbal categories of aspect and aktionsart (especially the feature of telicity) and the levels of idiomaticity of the English phrasal verbs as well as their Serbian translations. The theoretical framework used in the paper is the cognitive approach to phrasal-verb semantics. The results of the analysis show that the Serbian translation equivalents of the English phrasal verbs with the particle up are mostly perfective prefixed verbs whereas imperfective prefixed verbs are rather rare. In order to compare the English phrasal verbs and their Serbian translations, a contrastive analysis was performed on the corpus o...

This paper approaches productivity by considering three case studies: compounds, blends and phrasal verbs. The aim of the paper is to encourage a discussion about the factors involved in the notion of productivity, and to show why so many of the established measures are not completely satisfactory or are interpreted in a way that is not.

The focus of the paper is on the semantics of English phrasal verbs whose constituent verb is related to the concept of PLANTS. The investigated set of verbs includes twenty-two phrasal verbs featuring the particles OUT, OFF, UP, THROUGH, IN and AWAY. The analysis is conducted in the framework of cognitive semantics, which states that the meaning of phrasal verbs can be analysed in view of their constituent particles and the interplay between the verb meaning and the particle senses. It is concluded that the general meaning of the examined phrasal verbs is a result of different spatial configurations underlying the conceptual-semantic structure of the constituent particles, while their specific meanings are motivated by different conceptual metonymies stemming from the constituent verb. Numerous abstract meanings are additionally derived via various submetaphors of the basic metaphor COMPLEX ABSTRACT SYSTEMS ARE PLANTS embedded in the conceptual framework of the constituent verbs.

This study investigates the effects of conceptual metaphors on Turkish EFL learners’ acquisition of phrasal verbs. The participants were 120 beginner, elementary, and pre-intermediate level students. The research follows a pre and post-test quasi-experimental research design. The students were assigned to proficiency levels according to their Michigan Placement Test scores. A phrasal verb completion test was used as the measurement instrument of the study. With regard to their proficiency levels, students were divided into control and experimental groups. The experimental group received cognitive linguistics inspired phrasal verb teaching (conceptual metaphors) while the control group was provided only traditional memorization method. Three paired samples t-tests were run in order to investigate the effects of conceptual metaphors in proficiency levels. In addition, a 2X3 MANOVA was conducted to investigate whether the method (traditional and conceptual metaphors) and proficiency level (beginner, elementary, pre-intermediate) have an effect on completion test of phrasal verbs (as measured by exposed and unexposed phrasal verbs). This study found evidence that conceptual metaphors have positive effects on the learning of phrasal verbs.

Phrasal verbs are an important aspect and a challenge for learners of English as a foreign language (EFL). The aim of this proposal is to identify how the implementation of communicative language teaching activities may contribute to the learning of phrasal verbs in a tenth-grade course at a school in Bogota, Colombia. This project addressed the development and the implementation of communicative activities with a set of phrasal verbs with the particles "in", “away”, "down", "up", "off", "on", "over" and "out". This pedagogical intervention included activities such as board games, picture stories, storytelling and performance based on the communicative approach (CA). This inquiry attempted to recognize how the implemented activities allowed an alternative vocabulary learning environment from the communicative perspective.

This research intends to find a more cognitive-oriented approach to the instruction of English phrasal verbs in comparison with traditional approaches.  This special group of verbal phrases displays a considerable diversity of meanings even when they contain the same adverbial particle, and accordingly leads to inevitable complexity in the EFL classroom. This paper does not only aim to organize the meanings of verbs + away constructions in a semantic network but also plans to show how EFL learners can interpret the meaning of constructed ‘online’ phrasal verbs (cf. Evans, Bergen, Zinken 2007: 28) such as ‘Bulgarize away’, used by Ashton Kutcher’s character in the American movie Valentine’s day. The overall objective of the study is to oppose the false assumption that phrasal verbs (PVs) are random and without logical principles. We would like to show that PVs’ idiomaticity is comprehensible and should not make EFL students confused and inclined to avoid using them.

This dissertation relates to the usage of cleft constructions in the English and
Portuguese languages from a comparative perspective. For English, I have chosen to
investigate two British books: The Picture of Dorian Gray and Harry Potter and the
Philosopher’s Stone. In order to compare English and Portuguese, I used the
Portuguese versions of Oscar Wilde’s and J.K. Rowling’s works: O Retrato de
Dorian Gray and Harry Potter e a Pedra Filosofal, respectively. Peculiarities
regarding the translation of the books were observed under the views of Venuti
(2005), Barbosa (1999) and Jakobson (1974). The study of the constructions was
based on the analysis of previous works from Braga (2009), Lambrecht (2001),
Prince (1978), Pinedo (2000), Delin e Oberlander (2005), amongst others. The
analysis of the phenomenon was based on the classification of the focalized
constituents in the constructions according to the following aspects: word class,
syntactic function, information status and presence of additional expression of
salience. The investigation of the phenomenon has shown that differences exist
between the two languages as far as syntax is concerned, revealing that translators
use different linguistic strategies in order to preserve the communicative functions
presented in the original texts. However, there were cases in which the pragmaticdiscursive
functions from the original text were lost in the translations. Additionally,
the number of cleft instances in the two books is different, which can be an evidence
for an existing correlation between the use of clefts and the texts.
Keywords: Clefts, Translation, Information Status.

This study aims at investigating the frequency and discourse functions of phrasal verbs of go in the selected corpus. The corpus developed for this study was based on 5 short stories and 3 novels written by Hamid. It has 21 S,677 words in total. The reason behind choosing go as compared to others i.e., carry, pull and pick is its frequent occurrence. A total of 264 concordance lines were found with the verb go through language tool WordSmith 6.0 but not all of them were hits for phrasal verbs. Therefore, the researcher used 2 more language tools for finding out possible phrasal verbs with go in the corpus and then analyzed them qualitatively with examples from the developed corpus. The comparison between the dictionary meaning and contextual usage of the found phrasal verbs within the selected corpus showed that the author, Mohsin Hamid, has used phrasal verbs of go in his writings frequently. This study is helpful in enhancing the knowledge of phrasal verbs for teachers, students and future researchers.

EFL textbooks, academic material, and language proficiency tests include phrasal verbs. However, many Lebanese high-school EFL learners reflect unfamiliarity with phrasal verbs and tend to avoid them in their language production. To this end, a twofold research was conducted. First, a corpus linguistics analysis of the Lebanese national EFL instructional material was carried out to map the occurrence of phrasal verbs and related activities. Second, an experimental research was conducted to investigate the impact of cognitive linguistics strategies on the instruction of phrasal verbs to EFL Lebanese high-school learners, through Google +. The utilized instruments were pre/post-tests, surveys, interviews, intervention tasks, anecdotal notes. In the first part, corpus analysis revealed that phrasal verbs occurred recurrently; however, related activities were seldom traced. In the second part, the results analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively highlighted the positive impact of cognitive linguistics strategies on the instruction of phrasal verbs through Google +; the experimental group outperformed the control significantly. Further research on a larger scale of participants can be done.

In all Germanic languages verb semantics can be altered by means of particles, occurring both as a prefix and as a free form. This paper expands on the situation of Scandinavian, mainly comparing Swedish and Danish, so as to cast light both on the position of these languages as a whole within the Germanic linguistic landscape and on the mutual differences between themselves.
Within the bounds of the descriptive aims of the paper, the main aspects of the interaction between the verb and its modifiers are dealt with, focusing on Swedish and Danish. Thus the major morphosyntactic, prosodic, semantic, lexical and derivational features linked to the prefixed and particle verbs are contrastively analysed and described, highlighting both the similarities and the differences between Swedish and Danish. The contrastive approach to the subject is supplied with historical-comparative considerations so as to improve the understanding of the observed phenomena and set them into a broader context.

Ce travail a pour but une analyse du passage de la codification de notions spatiales à la codification de valeurs tempo-aspectuelles dans la formation des préverbes en latin (§ 4; 6.2). Cette analyse sera liée à la présence de « verbes à particule » aussi dans beaucoup de langues indo-européennes (§ 2 ; 5) que dans des phases cruciales de l’évolution du latin (§ 3; 6.1).

Phrasal verbs (PVs) are very common in English, indicating their usefulness in everyday settings. However, it was reported that language learners generally have great difficulties in understanding and using this linguistic form. This study investigated Malaysian learners' receptive and productive knowledge of PVs, and some possible factors which may contribute to their difficulties in understanding and using this language feature. A set of PVs test was developed and distributed to 480 secondary school learners in Malaysia to identify their receptive and productive knowledge with respect to PVs. Real data from the English of Malaysian School Students (EMAS) Corpus was used to examine the actual use of PVs by Malaysian learners. Results of the PVs test indicated that in general, Malaysian learners had an average level of knowledge of PVs. Analysis of the EMAS corpus revealed that they faced a lot of problems in the production of PVs. Some possible factors are highlighted which may contribute to such difficulties.

EFL learners' difficulty in effectively learning and using phrasal verbs and lexical collocations might be attributed to the purely product-oriented teaching and assessment techniques used in public schools. This study aimed to investigate the impact of oral questions and written quizzes as two formative assessment (FA) techniques on Iranian learners' learning and retention of phrasal verbs and lexical collocations. The research sample comprised 75 male intermediate EFL high school students, in Marand, East Azarbaijan, Iran, who were selected out of 90 grade four students based on their performance on a Nelson Proficiency test. The three intact classes, each with 25 participants, were randomly assigned as experimental group 1 (EG1) for whom we employed oral questions, experimental group 2 (EG2) who received written quizzes, and the control group (CG) with no process-oriented assessment. After the eight-week treatment, the one-way ANOVA analysis of the three sets of scores obtained from the pre-test, the immediate post-test, and the delayed post-test revealed that EG1 and EG2 outperformed the CG supporting the facilitative role of process-oriented assessment. The findings offer pedagogical implications with regard to FA that will be discussed.

This study aims to investigate the avoidance behaviour of Turkish EFL learners regarding the proficiency levels of them and frequency levels of multi-word verbs. In this study, 112 participants that are currently enrolled at School of Foreign Languages Department at a state university in Turkey were given a Language History Questionnaire and Multiple-Choice Test. In this test, thirty pairs of Multi-word Verbs in single sentences were administered and the participants were instructed to fill in them choosing one of the items given. These items consisted of the expected multi-word verb, its one word verb equivalent, distractor multi-word verb and its one word verb equivalent. The results obtained from paired sample t-tests show that Turkish EFL learners avoid using multi-word verbs. Another finding of this study is that the avoidance of multi-word verbs increases as English proficiency level gets lower. Additionally, the avoidance of multi-word verbs decreases as frequency level of multi-word verbs gets higher. It can be concluded that proficiency level of learners and frequency level of multi-word verbs affect learners' avoidance of English multi-word verbs.