Phrasal Verbs

What are Phrasal Verbs?

Phrasal verbs are just one category of multi-word verbs. Others are prepositional verbs, phrasal-prepositional verbs, and multi-word verb constructions.

Phrasal verbs consist of a verb plus an adverbial particle (e.g. make up, point out).

There is often some confusion about distinguishing particles from prepositions and you will often see lists of phrasal verbs (often without contextualizing examples) which contain prepositional verbs as well as phrasal verbs. There are a few ways of deciding if a word is a particle (and therefore part of a phrasal verb) or a preposition (and therefore part of a prepositional verb). First of all, particles have a connection to the preceding verb (having a type of adverbial function; in fact they are often called adverbial particles) whereas prepositions have a stronger connection to the following noun phrase (forming prepositional phrases, such as on the shelf, in the cupboard). Secondly, there is a fairly restricted set of words which are used as particles in phrasal verbs. The most commonly used particles are in, out, up, down, on, off. Others are about, across, around, away, back, over, through. Furthermore, the meaning of phrasal verbs cannot always be guessed by examining the meaning of the verb and the particle (rule out, turn up), whereas prepositional verbs are much more transparent.

Other methods of distinguishing particles from prepositions are:

With adverbs

Adverbs are not usually found between a verb and a particle but they may be between a verb and a preposition.

• "If you flip off the lights, your pupil will immediately open up" (Fairchild 2019). (Phrasal verb; we can't write open immediately up)
• "Darwin looked closely at the beaks of finches on the Galápagos Islands." (Graves 2019). (Prepositional verb; look up can have an adverb between the verb and the preposition)

With pronouns

Pronouns as objects are placed before a particle but after a preposition.

• "Here, the hemoglobin in red blood cells grabs oxygen and takes it back to the heart" (Sekeres 2022). (Phrasal verb; pronoun it before the participle back )
• "If a virus does sneak past the B cells and get into our cells, T cells can deal with it — they are the ninjas of our immune system!" (Quinn and Mehta 2020). (Prepositional verb; pronoun it after the preposition)

With prepositions

Prepositions can be placed before wh-words in questions and relative clauses. Particles cannot be placed in these positions.

• "“From each according to ability; To each according to need,” is a phrase derived from where?" (Bovens 2020). (prepositional verb; derive from. You could rewrite this question as "Where does this phrase derive from?")
• "Tuesday is named for the god Tiw, about whom relatively little is known" (Ross 2018). (prepositional verb; know about. Active: We know relatively little about the god Tiw. Passive: Relatively little is known about the god Tiw. In a relative clause: Tuesday is named for the god Tiw, about whom relatively little is known.)

By stress

In spoken language, particles are stressed but prepositions are not.

Classification of Phrasal Verbs: Transitivity and Separability

Transitive verbs require a direct object. The direct object normally comes after the verb. But with phrasal verbs we have a verb plus a particle. Where does the object go? In this case there are three possible types:

Non-separable (verb + particle + object): We are not separating the verb from its particle.

• "We carried out this research as part of the University of Oxford’s Reuters Institute annual Digital News Reports." (Painter and Andı 2020). (We can't write "we carried this research out"). Carry out in this context means "conduct, perform".
• "While economic democracy tends to focus on levels of trade union influence and the extent of cooperative ownership in a country, we wanted to take in other relevant factors" (Cumbers 2017). (We can't write "take other relevant factors in"). Take in in this context means "include".
• "If the world were mapped according to how many scientific research papers each country produced, it would take on a rather bizarre, uneven appearance" (Czerniewicz 2015). (We can't write "take a rather bizarre, uneven appearance on"). Take on in this context means "to change in appearance, meaning, form etc.".

Separable (verb + object + particle): We are separating the verb from its particle with the object. This form is quite rare.

• "Despite this, Nasa assesses there is “high confidence” the station will see it through to the end of 2030" (Muir 2022). See through in this context means "to ensure that something reaches the desired conclusion; to survive". (We can't write see through it because this has a completely different meaning; i.e. to understand the true meaning or nature of something).
• "I moved from play to analysis, finding myself fascinated by the ways to approach assignments that got the point across, but ideally in an innovative fashion" (Mason and de Condé). (We can't write "got across the point"). Get across in this context means "to make something clear, communicate well".

Optionally separable (verb + particle + object) OR (verb + object + particle): We can choose which form to use. This is the most common type.

• "They hope to settle in a good place to bring up their children" (Collins 2019). Bring up in this context means "to raise (children)". (We CAN also write bring their children up.
• "If AI text generation does our writing for us, we diminish opportunities to think out problems for ourselves" (Baron 2023). (We CAN also write "think problems out for ourselves" ).

Distribution of Phrasal Verbs

Most phrasal verbs (such as sit down, stand up, come on) are used in conversation or in fiction. Relatively few are used in non-fiction or academic writing. But there are a few important ones which are listed below.

See also prepositional verbs, phrasal-prepositional verbs and multi-word verbs.