6. Transforming phrasal verbs

PHRASAL VERBS

A phrasal verb is a verb that is made up of a main verb together with an adverb or a preposition, or both. Typically, their meaning is not obvious from the meanings of the individual words themselves. For example:

She has always looked down on me.

Fighting broke out among a group of 40 men.

I'll see to the animals.

Don't put me off, I'm trying to concentrate.

The report spelled out the need for more staff.

For instance, in the first example, the phrasal verb 'to look down on someone' doesn't mean that you are looking down from a higher place at someone who is below you; it means that you think that you are better than someone.

Transitivity


Phrasal verbs can be intransitive (i.e. they have no object):

We broke up two years ago.

They set off early to miss the traffic.

He pulled up outside the cottage.

or transitive (i.e. they can have an object):

The police were called to break up the fight.

When the door is opened, it sets off an alarm.

They pulled the house down and redeveloped the site.

Word order

The verb and adverb elements which make up intransitive phrasal verbs are never separated:

We broke up two years ago.

✗ We broke two years ago up.

The situation is different with transitive verbs, however. If the direct object is a noun, you can say:

They pulled the house down.
[direct object]
They pulled down the house.

If the object is a pronoun (such as it, him, her, them) , then the object always comes between the verb and the adverb:

They pulled it down.
[direct object]
They pulled down it.

Phrasal verbs are one of the most difficult aspects for learners of the English language. There are three main reasons for this:

  • In many cases the meaning of the phrasal verb cannot be deduced from its elements, i.e., it is being used idiomatically. For example: a learner who knows that to tick is to make a checkmark may have difficulty in understanding the sentence "The teacher ticked off the student for being late", in which the phrasal verb to tick off means to reprimand or to express disapproval.
  • Many phrasal verbs are polysemous; i.e., they have more than one meaning. The phrasal verb to put down has the literal meaning of putting something down on the table or floor. But it also has the idiomatic meanings: to make someone feel small, to criticize and humiliate them; to kill as in the sentence: "I had to have my cat put down"; to stop, quash, put an end to, as in the sentence "The police put down the riots with unnecessary brutality".
  • There are difficulties particularly with the position of the particles in a phrasal verb. Look at the following examples:

She put down the baby.
She put the baby down.
The teacher put the student down.
The teacher put down the student.

Here are some quizzes to test your knowledge of phrasal verbs.

Here is a pdf with extra phrasal verbs activities.

 

Sources: https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/grammar/phrasal-verbs 

               http://esl.fis.edu/vocab/phrasal/phrasal-important.htm 

PHRASAL VERBS THAT BECOME NOUNS OR ADJECTIVES

Watch the following video to learn how to turn a phrasal verb into a noun or adjective:

Video on Youtube

To sum up:

Nouns based on phrasal verbs

  • The plural is formed by adding -s to the particle, not the verb, e.g. break-ins.
  • Verb + particle noun forms are sometimes written with a hyphen, e.g. break-in, check-in, and sometimes without a particle, e.g. dropout, checkout.
  • Nouns with -out and -over are usually written as one word, e-g. dropout, lookout, changeover, leftovers.
  • Nouns with -in, -up and less common particles usually have a hyphen, e.g. mix-up, put-down, run-through.
  • In pronunciation, the stress is on the verb, not the particle.

Adjectives based on phrasal verbs

Some participle adjectives are written with a hyphen (make-up), some without a hyphen (fixed up), and some as one word (rundown). We make exceptions for phrasal adjectives beginning with -ly adverbs. These are conventionally not hyphenated.

Source: http://grammarist.com/grammar/phrasal-adjectives/ 

              

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