Ron et al.:
I brought up the separable/nonseparable distinction partly *because* I
taught ESL for years -- it's the kind of thing that you tend not to
think about until a non-native speaker asks you to explain it (and at
that point, you feel very ...er... uninformed). Ron's mention of
adverbial particles raises a third issue, though -- some texts use the
term to refer to what is specifically *not* a phrasal verb:
I looked [up the chimney] prepositional phrase
I [looked up] the word phrasal verb
I looked [up] adverbial particle
In this kind of scheme, prepositions as adverbial particles are
frequently paraphrasable with "-wards" forms (upwards, downwards, etc.).
I suppose "aboutwards" is a bit problematic, though....
Bill Spruiell
Dept. of English
Central Michigan University
-----Original Message-----
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of STAHLKE, HERBERT F
Sent: Tuesday, October 09, 2007 2:38 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Help for a puzzled teacher
The phrasal verb phenomenon in English hides remarkable complexity, most
of which never comes up in grammar classes. The only college English
grammar text I know of that deals with them in the depth they deserve is
Mark Lester's excellent Grammar in the Classroom. My copy of that is
still packed away from moving, but I have my Greenbaum Oxford English
Grammar handy, and here's what he says about them (pp. 277ff).
There are seven types of multi-word verbs with particles:
1. intransitive phrasal verbs, e.g. "give in" (surrender)
2. transitive phrasal verbs, e.g. "find" something "out" (discover)
3. monotransitive prepositional verbs, e.g. "look after" (take care of)
4. doubly transitive prepositional verbs, e.g. "blame" something "on"
someone
5. copular prepositional verbs, e.g. "serve as"
6. monotransitive phrasal-prepositional verbs, e.g. "look up to"
(respect)
7. doubly transitive phrasal-prepositional verbs, e.g. "put" something
"down to" (attribute to)
One of the common tests for a phrasal or prepositional verb is
passivization. If the second NP (DO or OP) can be made subject of a
corresponding passive sentence, then we have a phrasal or prepositional
verb. That means that the verb plus particle/preposition together is a
lexical entry. A sentence of type 3 illustrates this:
The child care center looked after our children during the day.
Our children were looked after by the child care center during the day.
Notice that usually you can't do this with objects of prepositions:
Jack put the keys in his pocket.
The keys were put in Jack's pocket.
*Jack's pocket was put the keys in.
Probably the reason why this test doesn't work with "think about" is
that "think" is not a prototypical transitive verb. That is, its
subject is not an agent and it does not name a unitary action with a
recipient that is affected by the action.
Herb
Bill's suggestion that "Think about" could be classed as a nonseparable
phrasal verb seems to me to not take into account the essence of a
phrasal
verb which is a combination of a verb and a word with the form of a
preposition but which functions as an adverbial particle. 'about' does
not
qualify in any way 'think' and is, therefore, not adverbial. 'Think
about'
cannot, therefore, be a phrasal verb.
On the other hand, I seem to remember seeing a book which used the
separable-nonseparable criterion as a means of teaching ESL students
about
'phrasal verbs'. However, if I remember rightly, this entails ignoring
the
grammatical function of the preposition/adverbial particle.
It seems to me that there are two important considerations here. On the
one
hand, with ESL classes, the prime consideration should probably be the
most
effective teaching approach in order to enable students to know when
they
can 'separate' and when they cannot. On the other hand, in first
language
situations, as this is not a problem, the prime consideration might be
the
grammatical functions of the preposition-like words in different
combinations.
Ron Sheen
----- Original Message -----
From: "Spruiell, William C" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, October 09, 2007 9:21 AM
Subject: Re: Help for a puzzled teacher
Peter, Craig, et al. --
There's an extra distinction that may be at work here -- separable vs.
nonseparable phrasal verbs. You can look up a word, or you can look up a
word; you can put up with something, but you can't put up something
with. "Think about" could be classed as a nonseparable phrasal verb.
Bill Spruiell
Dept. of English
Central Michigan University
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