Phrasal verbs and prepositions
The base verbs are mainly monosyllabic and may underlie a range of phrasal verbs: for example, get underlying get up, get down, get in, get out, get on, get off, get away, and get back. The combinations are used both literally and figuratively, and are often idioms or elements in idioms: to get away with murder, to get on like a house on fire, to get back at someone, to get up to mischief.
The use of phrasal verbs are often informal, emotive, and slangy, and may contrast with Latinate verbs, as in They used up/consumed all the fuel; they gathered together/assembled/congregated in the hall; the soldiers moved forward/advanced. Putting off a meeting parallels postponing it; driving back enemy forces repels them; putting out a fire extinguishers it; bringing back the death penalty restores it. However, such pairing often depends on context and collocation. In some cases, one phrasal verb may match several Latinate verbs: bring back = restore (the death penalty), return (money to someone), and retrieve (a shot bird or animal from where it has fallen). In other cases, one Latinate verb may match several phrasal verbs: demolish matching knock down, tear down, and blow up as variants in destructive style. It is sometimes possible to match the elements of phrasal verbs and Latinate verbs: climb up with a/scene; climb down with scent verbs and prepositions is a continuum between the phrasal verb as described above and verbs followed by phrases in which the preposition may or may not be part of the phrase. A phrasal verb can be formed elliptically from a verb plus prepositional phrase (like He took the box up from He took the box up the stairs). A transitive usage may not be separable (like pick up the book/pick the book up), but may have distinct meanings depending on where the particle is placed (get round someone, get someone round). Particles may not be clearly either adverbial or prepositional, as with off the bus. Some prepositions may be attached to verbs preceding them, usually for figurative reasons: where the sentence He came across the street is analyzable as (He came) (across the street), the sentence He came across an old friend makes more sense as a phrasal form: (He came across) (an old friend), come across glossed as meet by chance. Some grammarians and lexicologists call a usage like come across a prepositional verb, because the particle is not adverbial but prepositional. Such a terminology, if extended, should turn phrasal verbs proper into adverbial verbs, but has not yet done so. Other commentators call the usage a fused or non-separable phrasal verb, because the preposition has been stolen from its own phrase and fused with the preceding verb in an idiom. Others still consider some particles so equivocal that they are neither adverbs as such nor prepositions as such, but ad preps. Usages include: act for represent, bargain for expect, call for demand, come by obtain, get at imply, go for attack. The issue is further complicated by occasions when the fusion occurs between a phrasal verb proper and a following preposition, as with look down on hold in contempt, check up on investigate, go along with accept, face up to confront, look back on recall, look forward to have good expectations of, look up to admire, meet up with encounter. Phrasal verb is a combination of a verb and a preposition, a verb and an adverb, or a verb with both an adverb and a preposition, any of which are part of the syntax of the sentence, and so is a complete semantic unit. Sentences, however, may contain direct and indirect objects in addition to the phrasal verb. Phrasal verbs are particularly frequent in the English Language. A phrasal verb often has a meaning which is different from the original verb. According to Tom McArthur: the term phrasal verb was first used by Logan Pearsall Smith, in "Words and Idioms, in which he states that the Editor Henry Bradley suggested the term to him. Alternative terms for phrasal verb are compound verb, verb-adverb combination, verb-particle construction "two-part word/verb and three-part word/verb (depending on the number of particles), and multi-word verb. [21, p. 147] Phrasal verbs are usually used informally in everyday speech as opposed to the more formal Latinate verbs, such as "to get together" rather than "to congregate", "to put off" rather than "to postpone", or "to get out" rather than "to exit".
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Learning a new language is hard, there is no doubt about that. Second language students who study where that second language is spoken can pick up about 2,500 words per year if they are motivated to do so. There are a couple different strategies that can be used when it comes to unknown phrasal verbs. Dictionaries come in handy from time to time, many phrasal verbs can be guessed from context. Looking up words in the dictionary, called "stopper words," break the readers’ concentration.
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There are a couple of different things that can be done to help guess the meaning of these stopper words. First, as I previously mentioned, is context. By using surrounding words and sentences, many phrasal verbs can be correctly defined or come close enough that the meaning of the text is still understood. Another strategy is to look at the structure of the word. By learning the students try to guess what the word means. Students can also learn "high frequency" vocabulary. How important are phrasal verbs? Researchers have observed that a significant amount of the English language is made up of lexical phrases, which range from phrasal verbs (two or three words) to longer institutionalized expressions. Because lexical phrases can often be learned as single units, the authors believe that the following principles apply to them as well as to individual words" (Hunt). Because English is so rife with prepositions and many of these prepositions seem to pop up with verbs, thus making them phrasal verbs, it only makes sense that they should be learned together, especially since on their own, they won't have the same meaning. For example, if you ask someone "What's up?" If you were to take these words individually, a person not familiar with this word might answer by saying "the sky" because, well, that is what is up, directly above us (assuming you're outside of course). Used together though, we know that the words "what's up" mean "how's it going". There is really no other way to learn these phrasal verbs since they many times they don't follow any sort of logical order, at least not anymore. A long time ago these phrases probably made more sense but over time, the original meaning is lost. I mentioned above if we will learn phrasal verbs in context and look at the structure of the words, it will help us to guess the meaning of phrasal verbs.
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The second reason why phrasal verbs are important – especially in the spoken language – is because they’re less formal, easier to understand and everyone uses them. Of course it won’t do you any harm if you know the formal synonyms of those phrasal verbs but why try to sound very smart and use them when chatting with friends and word colleagues? Just listen to some native English speakers chatting with each other and you’ll realize most of action words that they use in their conversations are phrasal verbs. Now I’m going to give you two versions of the same conversation so that you can see how different the end result can be depending on what you use more – formal English or phrasal verbs.
First of all – a normal, friendly conversation packed with phrasal verbs.
– Hi, how are you John, what were you up to during the weekend?
– Hello Matt, I’m great, thanks for asking! I made up with Emma and she moved back in on Saturday night!
– Really? That’s cool man! Great to hear things are looking up for you again!
And now the same conversation but I’ll just replace the phrasal verbs with more formal words – ones that are normally taught at school as part of standard English curriculum.
– Hi, how are you John, what were you doing during the weekend?
– Hello Matt, I’m great, thanks for asking! I resolved the argument with Emma and she relocated into my apartment again on Saturday night!
– Really? That’s cool man! Great to hear things have started to improve for you again!
Now do you see the difference? While the second version of the dialogue is still in normal English, it sounds more formal, it takes a bit longer to tell the same thing, and it doesn’t sound as friendly as the first version of the dialogue. And on top of that using phrasal verbs will actually make your English more fluent. If you’re among those foreign English speakers who’re struggling with speaking English fluently, it’s of a particular importance to you, so I suggest you look into this and learn at least a few phrasal verbs to make your life easier.
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In terms of advantages, first of all, a phrasal verb is the combination of a standard verb such as make or put with one or two particles. In some cases the particle is an adverb such as away, together; in others it is a preposition such as through, in. Here are a few examples of the many hundreds of English phrasal verbs: pass away, pull together, fall through, make do with, put down to. Phrasal verbs are important because they are extremely common in informal English, and unless you are familiar with their meanings, understanding informal language will be difficult. In addition, learning to use phrasal verbs correctly will help you sound natural in casual conversation. When you are writing for a formal audience, keep in mind that phrasal verbs sound informal. Instead of writing something like, “The patient had her tonsils taken out when she was ten years old,” you may want to write “The patient had her tonsils removed when she was ten years old.” It will sound more appropriate. Phrasal verbs of English more than 12 thousand, but for sure possession of oral speech are enough to know several hundreds. They are used very often, any daily dialogue doesn't do without them. Of course, it is colloquial style of the speech. It is a lot of phrasal verbs in movies and series. On them it is very convenient to study as phrasal verbs in life what values are paramount are used. However in formal style of the speech of phrasal verbs avoid, selecting him the corresponding synonyms. The correct application of phrasal verbs - a necessary condition of full development and successful use of English. The knowledge of phrasal verbs and ability to use them enrich the speech. [22, p. 654]
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