Great responses Craig and Herb. But a follow up question for Craig.
Martha's test for verb particles is whether they can be moved to the
front of the sentence to form a question.
"I looked up the chimney" can be transformed into "Up what did I look?"
However, "He looked up a phone number" cannot be transformed into
"*Up what did he look?" It has to be "What did he look up?"
Craig's test is whether the word in question can be moved to the end
of the sentence.
"*I looked the chimney up" doesn't work, but "I looked the word up"
does.
So, by either test, "up" is a preposition in the chimney sentence,
but it is a particle in the phone number sentence.
Applying these tests to "I think about many things," I can say "About
what do I think?" And I can't say, "I think many things about." By
both tests, "about" doesn't seem to be a verb particle.
So I am wondering . . . can a phrasal verb, in Craig's sense, be
formed with a word that is not a verb particle? If so, what is "about"?
Peter Adams
On Oct 9, 2007, at 8:55 AM, Craig Hancock wrote:
> Peter,
> Great questions. I think "must" in "I think too much" is an
> adverbial of extent. "Too" tends to qualify "much" by putting it
> over the top. Same with "too tall", "too lazy", "too quietly" and
> so on.
> In "I think about many things," it's mostly a question of whether
> "think about" is a phrasal verb. It tends to feel that way for me,
> maybe because we use the two together so often. "What do you think
> about?" "I think about many things." But I wouldn't argue with
> anyone who feels it's an intransitive "think" followed by a
> prepositional phrase.
> Because I'm reading about construction grammar, I'm beginning to
> see how often grammatical constructions are more "local" than
> abstract. If /think /and /about/ or /too /and /much/ go together
> often enough, they begin to feel like a single construction. "Think
> about" gives us a way to express the content of our thoughts. "Too
> much" helps us say when things have gone too far. So we use them
> over and over.
> I suspect you found that most direct objects for "think" are
> whole clauses, not just noun phrases. "Evil thoughts" would be an
> exception. The content of a mental process is generally a process
> in its own right. "I think you are a wonderful teacher." They seem
> to resist being passive.
>
> Craig
>
>
> Peter Adams wrote:
>> I asked my students to try to come up with sentences in which
>> "think" is used as a transitive verb. Did they ever.
>>
>> After "I think evil thoughts" and "I think it will rain," both of
>> which seem to qualify, they came up with several that are puzzling
>> me:
>>
>> I think too much.
>>
>> Martha Kolln says "much" can be an indefinite pronoun, so perhaps
>> it is a direct object, but what about "too"? Can a qualifier like
>> "too" modify an indefinite pronoun? Martha says qualifiers (some
>> call 'em intensifiers) can modify adjectives and adverbs. So is
>> "much" an adverb? Of manner? Help?
>>
>> And what about this one:
>>
>> I think about many things.
>>
>> Martha suggests a prepositional phrase can function as a subject
>> complement, as in "the fighter seems out of shape," but can it
>> also function as a direct object?
>>
>> Aren't students wonderful? I told them I would post these to the
>> list and report back with your responses.
>>
>> Peter Adams
>>
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