L6 Grammar: Phrasal Verbs

Kaleigh Newton | UniNorte

What is a phrasal verb?
Yep! It’s as cool as it sounds! :)
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.
Oxford Dictionary

In English, a phrasal verb is a phrase such as turn down or ran into

which combines two or three words from different grammatical
categories: a verb and a particle and/or a preposition together form a
single semantic unit.
Wikipedia
 4 Types of Phrasal
Verbs
-Intransitive
-Nonseparable transitive
-Optionally separable transitive
-Obligatorily separable transitive
 Types of Phrasal Verbs

Intransitive

-Doesn’t take an object

Examples: So in example 1, you can see that the

1) My car broke down on the sentence “my car broke down” makes total
interstate. (malfunction, stopped sense on its own- it doesn’t need “on the
working) interstate” but the extra info is nice.

2) What time did you get up today? In ex 2, same thing. The sentence “what
(arise, wake up, get out of bed) time did you get up” makes sense and the
“today” isn’t necessary.
 Types of Phrasal Verbs

Nonseperable Transative

So in these examples you can see that

-Requires direct objects and may also take
the sentence doesn’t make sense
indirect objects
without the extra information. “He
came across” and “I really look forward
Examples:
to” are both mostly definitely huge
1) He came across some old photos when
fragments.
he was cleaning out the attic. (found by
chance)
Note in ex1, you just need “some old
photos” to make sense. “When he was
2) I really look forward to Christmas.
cleaning out the attic” is just extra.
(happily anticipate)
 Types of Phrasal Verbs
Optionally Seperable
Transative

-Require objects, BUT the preposition functioning as a particle can follow either the
verb or the direct object

Examples:
1a) She called off the party because she got sick. (cancel)
1b) She called the party off because she got sick.

2a) People who live in neighborhoods get to hand out candy to children on Halloween.
(give, distribute)
2b) People who live in neighborhoods get to hand candy out to children on Halloween.
 Types of Phrasal Verbs
Obligatorily Seperable
-Optionally separable transitive
phrasal verbs become obligatorily
separable phrasal verbs when the
direct object is in the form of a pronoun
meaning the preposition functioning
as a particle must follow the pronoun
functioning as the direct object.
Examples:
1a) The student looked up the word in the
dictionary. (researched)
1b) The student looked the word up in the
dictionary.
1c) The student looked it up in the
dictionary.

-*The student looked up it in the

dictionary. (incorrect)
http://guidetogrammar.org/gramma
r/phrasals.htm