phrasal verbn
a verbal construction consisting of a verb plus an adverb particle. A dis-
tinction may be made between phrasal verbs, prepositional verbs, and
phrasal-prepositional verbs, according to the different grammatical patterns
in which they occur. For example:
phrasal verb prepositional verb
Particle Turn OFFthe Verb may I’ll APPLY forthe
may be light. be stressed job.
stressed
Particle can Turn the light off. Particle (I’ll applythe job
occur after cannot for)
the object occur after
the object
Short pronouns Turnit off Pronouns occur I’ll apply forit.
occur between (Turn offit) after the verb+ (*I’ll applyit for)
the verb and particle
the particle
A phrasal-prepositional verb consists of a verb, an adverb particle, and
a preposition:
We must cut down onexpenses.
They puttheir failure down tobad advice.
The meaning of some of these verbal constructions can be guessed from the
meanings of their parts (e.g.cut down on). But the meaning of others is
idiomatic (e.g. put down to).
Nowadays the term “phrasal verb” is often used to include phrasal verbs,
prepositional verbs, and phrasal-prepositional verbs.
see alsoidiom
phrasen
seeclause
phrase-markern
also P-marker
a representation of the structure of a phrase or sentence.
see also tree diagram
phrase structuren
also constituent structure, syntactic structure
a representation of the set of constituents that an expression contains. For
example, the constituents of the English noun phrase this big houseare the
demonstrative this+the adjective big+the noun house. Phrase structure is
usually represented in terms of a labelled bracketing or a tree-diagram.
phrasal verb