Phrasal Verbs

Nigel A. Caplan

Part 2: Verbs

Phrasal Verbs

AKA

two- and three-word verbs

Examples

Turn off the light!

I need to look that word up.

Many young people are afraid to come out.

You don’t have to put up with bullying.

Definition

Phrasal verbs are one of the most difficult features of English, although they look very easy! A phrasal verb has two parts: a verb and a particle (a small word like up, with, to, on, ahead). The challenge with phrasal verbs is that their meaning is often only loosely connected to the meaning of the constituent words. For example, when you look up a word in the dictionary, you are obviously looking at something, but why up? The dictionary isn’t usually above your head! There is no reason behind the words in these phrasal verbs: they are simply idiomatic (that is, fixed phrases). So, the meaning of a phrasal verb is not the sum of its parts.

The vast majority of phrasal verbs can be replaced by a one-word verb. Notice in these examples that the phrasal verb comprises smaller, higher frequency words, while the one-word alternative is less frequent, longer, more complex, and often has Greek/Latin roots:

look into > investigate

go up > increase

fall over > collapse

Discovery

Form

There are four types of phrasal verbs:

Type	Explanation	Examples	Sentences
Separable phrasal verbs	the particle (the small word like up, on, at) can be separated from the verb and move after the object	look up, put on, pick up, give away	I put on my shoes. I put my shoes on. She picked up the ball. She picked the ball up.
Inseparable phrasal verbs	the particle must stay together with the verb	check into, count on, get over, run into	They ran into their old school friend. You can count on your friends.
Intransitive phrasal verbs	the verb has no object (so the phrasal verb is inseparable by definition)	break down, get up, give up, go off	The alarm went off. He got up at 6am.
Phrasal prepositional verbs	the verb takes a preposition plus an indirect object (i.e., it makes a three-word verb)	put up with, look forward to, get out of, get along with	I don’t get along with my boss. Get out of the room!

There is no way to look at a phrasal verb and guess which type it is, so MLLs should be taught to check in a dictionary. However, some phrasal verbs are very high frequency and may be acquired from exposure (e.g., look out, get up, put on).

Separable and inseparable phrasal verbs behave differently with pronouns than other noun groups (the asterisk * indicates an ungrammatical sentence). Essentially, when the object of a separable phrasal verb is a pronoun, the verb and its particle must be separated, thus:

	Noun	Pronoun
*Separable (look up***)	I looked up the word. I looked the word up.	*I looked up it. I looked it up.
*Inseparable (come across***)	I came across this book *I came this book across.	I came across it. *I came it across.

Careful!

Some verbs look like phrasal verbs, but they are just verbs followed by a prepositional phrase. Although the difference isn’t important in practice, it’s worth knowing that prepositional verbs usually have more literal meanings, so they don’t pose the same problem for learners as phrasal verbs.

I ran up the hill (literally running up the hill, so a prepositional verb)

I ran up the bill (metaphorically means spending a lot of money, not running anywhere, so a phrasal verb)

Occasionally, the difference can cause confusion or comedy. For example:

I ran into my roommate (crash! prepositional phrase)

I ran into my roommate (phrasal verb = I saw them on the stairs)

You might be able to hear the difference in the stress pattern. Phrasal verbs are stressed a bit more heavily on the particle (I ran INTO my roommate; I ran UP the bill), whereas in a regular verb phrase, we expect the verb to attract heavier stress than the preposition (I RAN into my roommate; I RAN up the bill).

A better way to test for the difference is to try moving the object. Since the small word in a phrasal verb is a particle, it can’t be moved to the front of the sentence. Prepositional phrases, however, are more flexible. Consider these:

OK: Up the hill I ran. (prepositional verb)

NOT OK: *Up the bill I ran. (phrasal verb)

Exercises

There are groups of phrasal verbs that differ only in the particle but have very different meanings. This is especially difficult for MLLs! For example: take out, take in, take up, take over, take on, take to, etc. To practice, take two dice and roll them (or use this link). Find the corresponding words in the table below. Do they form a phrasal verb? Is it separable or inseparable, transitive or intransitive? What would be the one-word verb equivalent? Is there a prepositional verb that uses this combination?