Basic English Grammar with Exercises

Exercise 4

m) In the sentence Jim took off his shoes we also find the phrasal verb take off,
but here the preposition off precedes the DP his shoes. The structure of the sentence
can be derived from the structure in (13). The only difference between the two
derivations is that the preposition adjoins to the main verb before it moves to the v
head. The rest of the derivation is the same as in (13).

(14) CP

C'

C IP

DP 1 I'

Jim I vP

took3+4 off 2 v'

v vP

t 3 +t 4 +t 2 t 1 v'

v VP

t 3 +t 2 DP V'

his shoesV PP

t 3 +t 2 P'

P

t 2