Australian Journal of Linguistics Volume 2 Issue 1 1982 (Doi 10.1080/07268608208599280) Dixon, R. M. W. - The Grammar of English Phrasal Verbs

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The grammar of English

phrasal verbs
a
R. M. W. Dixon
a
Department of Linguistics, Faculty of
Arts , ANU , PO Box 4, Canberra, ACT, 2600
Published online: 14 Aug 2008.
To cite this article: R. M. W. Dixon (1982) The grammar of English

phrasal verbs, Australian Journal of Linguistics, 2:1, 1-42, DOI:
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THE GRAMMAR OF
ENGLISH PHRASAL VERBS
R. M. W. Dixon
This paper is an attempt to investigate some of the syntactic properties

of English phrasal verbs, that is, combinations of a verb with one (or
more) preposition(s) which have a more or less idiosyncratic meaning —
like the unbracketed portions of: [A heavy storm] set in; [They] take
after [their father] ; [She] put [the meeting] off/[She] put off [the
meeting] ; [Those tranquillisers should] see [me] through [the crisis] ;
[He'd] take up with [a new girlfriend]; [She] put [his nervousness]
down to [inexperience].1
1.TERMS
A verb-preposition combination will be referred to as a 'phrasal verb'
if its semantic properties cannot be inferred from the separate 'norm'
semantic characterisations of the simple verb and of the preposition(s).
In some cases the meaning of the phrasal verb is similar to that of the
constituent simple verb, it being the preposition that is used in a non-
norm manner: thus eat up is plainly related to eat and slow down to
slow, but in these combinations up and down clearly do not refer to
vertical displacement away from or towards the centre of the earth.
In other cases the preposition appears in its normal meaning but the
verb takes on a non-central sense, e.g. knock about/around (the world).
Finally, the meaning of many phrasal verbs does not relate directly to
the normal meaning of either simple verb or prepositions — examples
include take off 'imitate' and put up with 'tolerate'.
Phrasal verbs contrast with constructions that involve a simple verb
and a preposition (with or without a following noun phrase) where the
meaning of the complete sentence can be inferred from the meanings of
the individual words and the grammatical relations involved; we refer to
these as 'literal constructions'. Compare the literal sentences John sat on
the bucket, Mary jumped over the stile with phrasal verbs in John picked
on Fred and Mary's company took Fred's firm over/Mary's company took
[1] For helpful comments on earlier oral and written versions of this paper I am
most grateful to Dwight Bolinger, Ray Cattell, Rodney Huddleston, Leonhard
Lipka, Peter Matthews, Frank Palmer, Tim Shopen, Irene Warburton and Anna
Wierzbicka.
© Australian Journal of Linguistics AJL 2 (1982) 1-42 1
2 R.M.W. DIXON
over Fred's firm. Or, with exactly the same verb and preposition, compare
literal He took the cat in(to the house)/He took in the cat with non-
literal He quite took Mary in (with his sweet line ofjive)/He quite took in
Mary (with . . .). Section 2 surveys non-semantic criteria that have been
put forward to distinguish literal combinations from phrasal verbs. I con-
clude that there is in fact a literal/non-literal continuum (rather than a
dichotomy), with clear polar extremes connected by a cline.
The main thesis of this paper is that phrasal verbs (the non-literal
combinations) have essentially the same syntax as literal co-occurrences of
verb and preposition; the difference is almost entirely semantic.
The present study deals exclusively with verb-plus-preposition(s)
where the verbal element occurs freely outside the phrasal combination.
It excludes idioms where the verbal component never (or scarcely ever)
occurs as a simple verb — such as eke out, coop up, crow over, hive off,
wolf down, tide over, fork out, horn in on, worm out of and fob off with
(cf. Kennedy 1920:29, Live 1965:432). Also excluded are fully-fledged
idioms that involve something beyond verb and preposition, e.g. look
down [one's] nose at, take [someone] in hand, win hands down. These
are both semantically and syntactically bizarre. I shall attempt to show
that phrasal verbs (as the term is used here) are idiosyncratic only at the
semantic level; their syntactic behaviour can be predicted from general
grammatical statements and rules that apply to all combinations of verb
and preposition, both literal and non-literal.
The term 'phrasal verb' appears to have been first used in print by
Logan Pearsall Smith (1925:72), following a suggestion from Henry
Bradley. Many alternatives have been employed — 'two word verb' (Meyer
1975), 'discontinuous verb' (Live 1965), 'verb-adverb combination'
(Kennedy 1920), 'verb-particle combination'(Fraser 1974), among others
(a fuller list is in Sroka 1972:13). Mitchell (1958:103-6) called take to
a 'prepositional verb', put up a 'non-prepositional phrasal verb' and put
up with a 'prepositional phrasal verb' — he did not name types like set in,
[They should] see [me] through [the crisis] and [She] put [it] down to
[inexperience]. These names have been taken up by Palmer 1965, Quirk
et al. 1972 and Quirk & Greenbaum 1973. I prefer here to retain the
term 'phrasal verb' for any combination of verb and preposition(s) that
does not have a literal meaning, and then to distinguish the six sub-types
(see section 5).
There has been a great deal of worry over what to call the non-verbal
components of phrasal verbs. They have sometimes been called preposit-
ions in literal constructions but adverbs when part of phrasal verbs, a
distinction that prejudges some of the questions I investigate below.
Almost all the 'second components' do function as prepositions in literal
constructions — about, across, after, against, along, (a)round, at, behind,
by, down, for, in, off, on, out, over, through, to, under, up and with.
We also encounter, as the second element in phrasal verbs, a few words
that appear to function only as adverbs in literal constructions — apart,
THE GRAMMAR OF ENGLISH PHRASAL VERBS 3
ahead, aside, away, back, forth, forward (these account for no more than
5% of the more than 800 phrasal verbs I have surveyed); their grammatic-
al status is discussed in sections 10.5-6. I shall simply use 'preposition'
for the second (and third) element(s) of a phrasal verb. It is useful to have
a single label, and this is certainly the most appropriate one; furthermore,
it brings out the close parallel between phrasal and literal constructions
(cf. Jespersen 1924:88, Jackendoff 1973).
There are considerable differences between the various dialects of
English in the phrasal verbs that are used, and the meanings they have
(Bolinger 1971:17, Live 1965:430-1). Thus, Americans 'fill out' but
British speakers 'fill in' a form (Palmer 1965:187). This does seem to be
one area in which diachronic change has recently been quite rapid (see
Fraser 1974:65-6, commenting on Poutsma 1926, and Traugott 1972:
172-3). All judgements below are those of the dialect of British English
which I speak; however, the generalisations put forward do appear to
cover other dialects.
2. PREVIOUS STUDIES
Kennedy 1920 (republished 1967) provided what is perhaps the most
thorough and insightful discussion of phrasal verbs. Further information
has been given in the five separate books on the topic published between
1971 and 1975. I have nothing to add here to the accounts of the de-
velopment of this type of construction, and the reasons for its popularity
and increasing productiveness despite the condemnation of prescriptiv-
ists, given in Kennedy 1920:11-18, 33-9, Meyer 1975:5-8, Konishi 1958
and Spasov 1966; or to the discussion of the various metaphorical senses
of the main prepositions, in Kennedy 1920:19-25; Bolinger 1971:85-110,
Meyer 1975:17-20, Whorf 1956:70-1, Lipka 1972, Mitchell 1979 and
Hill 1968. Extensive lists of phrasal verb instances, taken from written
sources, are in van Dongen 1919, Sroka 1972, Spasov 1966 and Cowie
& Mackin 1975. Some discussion of what leading grammarians have said
about phrasal verbs is in Fraser 1974:63-9, van Dongen 1919:322-4
and Sroka 1972:105-79. The present paper attempts a systematic invest-
igation of the syntactic behaviour of phrasal verbs, which has, I feel, not
been adequately dealt with in previous studies.
A number of explicit non-semantic criteria have been suggested to
distinguish phrasal verbs from literal verb-preposition combinations. I
shall consider these in turn.
2.1 Substitution. It is well known that phrasal verbs are almost exclusive-
ly based on monosyllabic verbs of Germanic origin — the most productive
are be, bear, bring, come, cut, do, fall, get, give, go, hand, hang, have,
hold, keep, kick, knock, lay, leave, let, make, pass, pick, pull, push, put,
run, scrape, set, slip, snap, stand, start, take, throw, turn, wear (just two
non-Germanic forms belong with this list, carry and round). Correspond-
ing to many phrasal verbs there is a polysyllabic verb of Romance origin,
4 R.M.W. DIXON
with very similar meaning (and self-appointed arbiters of usage have

frequently said that these should be preferred to the uncouth phrasal
combinations); thus, postpone for put off, suppress for fight down,
inherit for come into, reprimand for tell off, and so on.
Substitutability by a single-word synonym has been quoted as a test
for phrasal verbs (e.g. Live 1965:428). But there are in fact a fair number
of single-word synonyms for literal combinations of verb and preposition,
e.g. enter = go in, extract = take out, cross = go across. There are many
phrasal verbs for which only approximate single-word synonyms exist,
e.g. set in 'commence (and seem likely to continue)', let out 'disclose
(something that should be kept secret)'. And there are very many phrasal
verbs for which no single-word synonym or partial synonym exists, e.g.
keep in with, or hold against in He held against me the fact that I voted
for the other candidate, or grow on in Music tends to grow on one (see
also Bolinger 1971:6).
2.2 Position of preposition. It is noteworthy that a preposition can
often occur either before or after a non-pronominal postverbal noun
phrase. But this is not criterial. Some phrasal verbs allow such altern-
ation:
(1) Mary took on new responsibilities/Mary took new responsibilities
on.
(2) John made up a story/John made a story up.
whereas others don't:
(3) John takes after his father/*John takes his father after.
(4) He talked Fred round (to letting her go)/*He talked round Fred
(to letting her go).
Similarly, some literal combinations show alternation:
(5) He brought the milk in (to the house)/He brought in the milk.
(6) He put a log on (the fire)/He put on a log.
while others don't:
(7) He sat on a log/*He sat a log on.
(8) He took Mary below (deck)/*He took below Mary.
Positional alternation can plainly not be taken as a criterion for phrasal
verbs (as Fraser 1974:1-3 suggests; see also Mitchell 1958, and Bolinger
1971:10-11). I shall, in section 5, attempt to account for these alternations
by positing a single underlying order for each literal and non-literal con-
struction, and then specifying conditions under which a preposition may
be moved to the left (or, sometimes, to the right) of an adjacent non-
pronominal noun phrase.
2.3 Gapping. A superficial examination might suggest that only literal

combinations, and not phrasal verbs, can be 'gapped' (Fraser 1974:3).
In fact, the underlying structures we posit perfectly explain the possibil-

ities of gapping. A simple verb can — for some speakers — be gapped only
from underlying structures (those where no prepositional movement has
taken place) :
(9) Jones pulled the old tablecloth off, and Peters, the new one on.
(Fraser's example.)
(10) John kept his anger in and Mary her temper down.
But gapping of a simple verb is scarcely possible from sentences in which
the preposition has been moved to the left of the object noun phrase:
(11) * Jones pulled off the old tablecloth, and Peters, on the new one.
(12) *John kept in his anger and Mary down her temper.
Where there is a common subject, this can be deleted from the second
clause:
(13) Jones pulled the old tablecloth off and the new one on.
(14) John kept his anger in and his temper down.
but not
(15) *Jones pulled off the old tablecloth and on the new one.
(16) *John kept in his anger and down his temper.
Gapping — of the type exemplified in (9)-(10), (13)-(14) — is possible
with many literal constructions, and with some mildly phrasal verbs that
show a degree of semantic congruence, as in (10) and (14). The more
idiomatic a phrasal verb is, in its semantics, the less chance there is of
its being gapped — He took his shirt off and the firm over is distinctly
zeugmatic.
In addition to gapping on a simple verb, verb-plus-preposition can
sometimes be gapped, but only from clauses in which they are contiguous.
Thus, if in literal put N out (of a building) and in phrasal verb put N up —
where 'N' = 'noun phrase' — the preposition is shifted to the left of N,
we can obtain:
(17) John put out the cat and Mary the dog.
(18) Mary put up the oboeist and John the tympanist.
In each of these cases, gapping possibilities do not distinguish literal
from non-literal combinations. The potentiality for felicitous gapping
relates to the semantic criterion for recognising a.verb-preposition com-
bination as a phrasal verb; it does not constitute any sort of independent
criterion.
2.4 Fronting. It might seem that the preposition of a phrasal verb cannot
be fronted, together with a following noun phrase (in a iüA-question,
or just for emphasis) and that this is a test for distinguishing phrasal verbs
from literal verb-preposition combinations (Fraser 1974:2, Legum 1968:
51):
6 R.M.W. DIXON
(19) John ran up a hill/ Up what did John run?/ Upahill.John ran.
(20) John ran up a bill/* Up what did John run?/*Up a bill John ran.
Closer examination shows that fronting can, like gapping, be entirely
explained in terms of the hypothesis about underlying structures. A pre-
position that precedes (and governs) a noun phrase in underlying struc-
ture can, optionally, be fronted with it. Thus corresponding to John ran
up a hill (with the intransitive verb run) we get both What did John run
up? and Up what did John run?. However, (20) has the underlying form
John ran a bill up ; this is the causative verb run (as in the literal sentence
John ran the dogs out of the camp, i.e. he made them run . . .). The pre-
position follows the object noun phrase and cannot be fronted with it;
the only wA-object sentence is What did John run up?. The Critical point
here is that a preposition which has been moved to the left of the direct
object noun phrase cannot be fronted with it.
Fronting applies in a similar fashion to both literal and non-literal
combinations. Thus the phrasal verb take after has an underlying struc-
ture just like literal sentence (19), and shows the same interrogative
possibilities:
(21) John takes after his father/After whom does John take?¡Who
does John take after?
And literal bring in is syntactically parallel to the phrasal verb run up.
The underlying structure is John brought the cat in (to the house). The
preposition can be moved to the left of the object noun phrase, giving
John brought in the cat. But since it does not precede the object noun
phrase in underlying structure the preposition cannot be fronted with it:
we get only What did John bring in (to the house)?, not *In what did
John bring?. Fronting is plainly not a sure criterion for distinguishing
which verb-preposition combinations constitute phrasal verbs.
We must add, though, that in many of the most strongly phrasal
verbs (where the meaning of the combination is furthest removed from
the literal meanings of verb and preposition), the semantic link between
verb and preposition is so strong that the preposition can scarcely be
fronted, e.g. He knocked off work, but not *Off what did he knock?.
We should note, however, that prepositions differ in the extent to which
they can be fronted even in their literal use — for example, by fronts less
easily than up. The fact that fronting of by is not possible from phrasal
verb come by 'acquire' (He came by a large sum of money, but not
*By what did he come?) parallels the fact that it is not possible from
literal come by (He came by road but not *By what did he come?).
It is clear that the same basic principles operate for both literal and
non-literal constructions. It is only possible to front a preposition together
with its prepositional object, not with a direct object noun phrase (even
though it may be moved- to the left of such a noun phrase). There are
further restrictions, for both literal and non-literal combinations, depend-
ing on the nature of the preposition and on the strength of the semantic
link between verb and preposition.
2.5 Passive. It is usually possible to passivise a transitive clause, with the
direct object becoming surface subject. In addition, the object of a pre-
position may become a passive subject in particularly marked circum-
stances, e.g. This bed was slept in by Queen Elizabeth, or That table was
sat on by so many people that eventually it collapsed (see Davison
1980). Most transitive phrasal verbs (those with a direct object noun
phrase coming between simple verb and preposition in underlying struc-
ture) can passivise, e.g. / was taken in (by his smooth talk), We were put
up for the night (by John and Mary). With a few transitive phrasal verbs,
though, a passive seems infelicitous: John gave up the chase, but hardly
The chase was given up by John.
The factors determining plausible passivisation are not well under-
stood. They include the semantic nature of the verb, the semantic re-
lation between verb and object, and such features of the object noun
phrase as definiteness and its human/animate nature (essentially, whether
it can- function as 'focus' for the sentence). It also appears that some
causatives are not very open to passivisation — we can say John walked
the dog, but hardly The dog was walked by John. This may be why the
passive of the transitive phrasal verb run up seems a little awkward — That
bill was run up by John is only a little better than the passive of the pre-
positional object (modifiedby a demonstrative) in an intransitive sentence:
That hill was run up by John.
The most interesting examples involve phrasal verbs where the simple
verb is immediately followed by the preposition in underlying structure,
with the preposition followed by a noun phrase. We would expect these to
behave like intransitive verbs in not readily permitting passivisation.
However, some of the most idiomatic phrasal verbs of this type can passiv-
ise, as well or almost as well as the corresponding single-word synonym
(if there is one). Thus John was picked on by the teacher he had last year
seems as acceptable as John was victimised by the teacher he had last year.
This congruence can also extend to lack of a passive — take after does
not passivise, and neither does its synonym resemble. These examples
are, however, fairly minor. Most non-transitive phrasal verbs do not
passivise, irrespective of how any single-word synonym may behave,
e.g. come through [the operation], standby [a friend in need], fall under
[someone's influence].
It should be clear that passivisation does not provide any firm
criterion for recognising phrasal verbs (and see Bolinger 1971:7; also
Bolingerl977).
2.6 Adverb insertion. Another criterion put forward to distinguish phrasal
verbs concerns adverb placement. Mitchell (1958:104) suggests that an
adverb can come between a verb and a literal preposition, but not in the
middle of a non-literal verb-preposition sequence. Compare:
8 R.M.W. DIXON
(22) He turned suddenly off the road.

(23) *He turned suddenly off the light.
The possible positions of an adverb can be explained very simply in
terms of underlying structure. An adverb can occur between a verb or
object noun phrase and a prepositional phrase, in underlying structure;
it cannot intervene between verb and object. A preposition can move to
the left of an adjacent object noun phrase but — and this is the vital point
— it cannot take an adverb with it. (22) is an intransitive sentence (like
He turned over in bed) and the adverb suddenly can come between the
verb and the prepositional phrase. In contrast, (23) involves the causative
turn (as in He turned the stone over), the underlying structure being He
turned the light off. An adverb cannot intervene between the verb turn and
its direct object the light; and it cannot come between the light and off
(since the preposition does not have a noun phrase following it). We thus get
only (Quickly) he (quickly) turned the light off (quickly). The preposition
off can move to the left of the object noun phrase, but it cannot take the
adverb with it.
These principles apply to both literal and non-literal combinations.
If we study the behaviour of a transitive verb with a preposition used in
its literal sense, we get exactly the same possibilities as for (23):
(24) (Quickly) he (quickly) brought the milk (quickly) into the
house (quickly).
If the final prepositional phrase is shortened to in, the adverb can no
longer precede it:
(25) (Quickly) he (quickly) brought the milk in (quickly).
In can now be shifted to the left of the milk, but the adverb cannot
move with it:
(26) (Quickly) he (quickly) brought in the milk (quickly).
(It appears that some speakers can accept an adverb before a sentence-
final preposition — He brought the milk quickly in, He turned the light
suddenly off. This in no way affects the final result — the adverb can
never be moved between verb and object.)
And just as an adverb can intervene between a verb and a literal
prepositional phrase, in (22), so it can often come between the simple
verb and following preposition of an intransitive phrasal verb. Many — but
not all — speakers find the following acceptable:
(27) He came slyly by a great hoard of books.
(28) He takes exactly after his father. •'•'..
(29) John's mother has taken quickly to his newwife.
and even, with a sentence-final preposition: 2
[2] However, most phrasal verbs with a final preposition in underlying structure
(30) The doctor brought him quickly to/He came quickly to.
Despite its many proponents — see also Fraser (1974:4), Legum
(1968:51) — the positioning of adverbs can in no sense be taken as a
criterion for recognising phrasal verbs (cf. also Bolinger 1971:11-13).
Other tests that have been suggested include: (i) 'action nomináis' (Lees
1960:64-9, Fraser 1974:3) — in fact, only a fraction of phrasal verbs
form derivatives of this type (Bolinger 1971:8-10; see also Kroch 1979:
222); and (ii) the placing of sentence stress on a metaphorical, but not a
literal preposition (Mitchell 1958, Lipka 1972:17, Fraser 1974:3, and see
Eitrem 1903) — in fact, both sorts of preposition can be stressed, in
appropriate circumstances, as Bolinger (1971:13-15) has shown.
3. THE LITERAL/NON-LITERAL CONTINUUM

The putative tests discussed in section 2 do illuminate a number of
TENDENCIES: a phrasal verb will seldom gap on the simple verb com-
ponent if the meaning of the phrasal verb is very different from the literal
meaning of the simple verb; the prepositional object of an intransitive
phrasal verb may be more readily passivised than the object of a literal
preposition; and a preposition within a phrasal verb is more likely to bear
sentence stress than is a literal preposition. But there are no clear-cut
CRITERIA for distinguishing phrasal verbs from literal verb-preposition
constructions.
It appears that there is a continuum, with the more idiomatic and
idiosyncratic combinations at one extreme, and entirely literal combin-
ations at the other. We can usefully recognise five levels within the con-
tinuum:
(A) Literal combinations where the meaning of a sentence can be
fully inferred from the meanings of the words and their grammatical
relations, and where no deletion is possible, e.g. John walked on the
grass.
(B) Like A, but with the possibility of deletion of some part of the
prepositional phrase, the deleted poition being generally understood
from the context, sociocultural knowledge, etc.; e.g. He ran down
(the bank) to the railway line, She put the rubbish out (of the build-
ing).
(C) Constructions which could scarcely be regarded as literal but
which do involve an obvious metaphorical extension from a literal
phrase, e.g. John pulled a $10,000 loan in (cf. The snail pulled its
horns in), or The firm went under (cf. The drowning man went
under (the surface of the water)).
(D) Non-literal constructions which cannot transparently be related
to any literal combination, e.g. They are going to have it out, or She
(types I and III from section 5) do not permit an adverb immediately before
this preposition, e.g. *John gave suddenly up, *Mary put John quickly off.
10 R.M.W. DIXON
couldn't put up with him.
(E) Full idioms, involving more than just verb and preposition(s),
e.g. lay down the law, put on a good face, turn over a new leaf, kick
over the traces.
I use 'phrasal verb' to cover C and D ('mildly' and 'strongly' phrasal
verbs respectively).
Literal constructions, A and B, show no semantic peculiarities. In
contrast, D and E involve multi-word lexical items, each of which must be
given a distinct dictionary entry, in addition to the entries for their com-
ponent words. C falls' part-way between B and D — the meanings of some
of these combinations may be inferrable from the semantic descriptions
of individual words if these are full enough, and if they indicate directions
of metaphorical extension (they would have to be more sophisticated

than the entries in current dictionaries).
Phrasal verbs containing a given preposition may — to a limited
extent — be placed in a number of sets, each with a common meaning
element. Thus Bolinger (1971:99-102) divides phrasal verbs ending in up
into those where the preposition has: (i) the primitive directional mean-
ing, literal or metaphorical, e.g. The work piled up, Turn up the volume,
Chalk up the score; (ii) perfective meaning, as manifested in resultant
condition, e.g. It shrivelled up, He laced up his shoes; (iii) perfective in
the sense of completion or inception, e.g. He followed up the lead
I gave him; She took up dancing; (iv) perfective in the sense of
attaining a hi?h intensity, e.g. They revved up, Let's brighten
up the colours; etc. (see also Meyer 1975:7-8, Whorf 1956:70-1). But,
useful as they are, these semantic sets can at best account for part of the
meaning of a minority of phrasal verbs.
There are a few interesting congruences between the semantics of
phrasal verbs and of the literal meanings of their component prepositions,
for instance:
talk [X] into [doing Y] 'persuade [X] to [do Y] '
talk [X] out of [doing Y] 'persuade [X] not do [do Y] '
snap into [X] 'quickly start [doing X] '
snap out of [X] 'quickly stop [doing X] '
And there can be subtle distinctions between related phrasal verbs, for ex-
ample one most frequently 'cleans up' a room but 'cleans out' a cupboard,
although either phrasal verb is possible with either object noun phrase;
as Kennedy (1920:37) explained, 'out has a certain directional force
which suggests the removal of debris or unnecessary articles, while up
lends to the combination a perfective force'.
Other differences may be functionally useful but scarcely predict-
able — an old or ill person may 'slow up' in his work or general pace of
living, whereas an over-energetic young executive might be told to 'slow
down', lest he crack up. One can either 'sober up' or 'sober down' — the
former may be more used for getting over inebriation and the latter for
calming down after a period of lighthearted exuberance. Why, though,
should one 'fall down' but 'trip up'? (Could it be related to the fact that
one trips 'over' something, or that trip also has a causative sense — She
tripped him up?)
What should be clear is that there is a semantic continuum: A shades
into B, B into C, and so on. As one descends the scale, so meaning be-
comes — very gradually — increasingly idiosyncratic and non-predictable
from the literal meanings of the component words.
The syntactic picture appears to be quite different. The aim of this
paper is to show that C and D do, by and large, follow the regular syn-
tactic rules and conventions of the language, just like A and B. (Only
a few of the most strongly phrasal verbs, on the borderline between D
and E, show some minor deviations — see section 7.2.) This contrasts
strongly with the full idioms, under E; all of these show some degree of
syntactic rigidity — Fraser 1970 has demonstrated that there is some-
thing of a syntactic continuum within E, the number of syntactic deri-
vations (transformations) that cannot be applied to an idiom indicating
the degree to which it is grammatically as well as semantically 'frozen'.
There is just one major syntactic difference between the literal
verb-preposition combinations, in B, and mildly phrasal verbs, in C. For
any literal clause that ends with a preposition a final noun phrase COULD
be supplied. Thus to He took his hat off we could add his head — if he
had taken his hat off anything else (e.g. the coat peg, or someone else's
head), .then the prepositional object could not have been left unspecified.
In contrast to this, there are many true phrasal verbs that have a clause-
final preposition to which NO noun phrase can be appended (the preposit-
ion may move to the left of a preceding noun phrase, if there is one, but
this is an entirely different matter), e.g. He took John off ('imitated
John'). Even here, though, it is impossible to draw a firm line. I'm going
to lie in this morning could be said to imply the prepositional object
bed, and The president's new servant sleeps out could be expanded by
of the place where she works. It might be argued that these expansions
just qualify lie in and sleep out for membership of class B, rather than
class C. But what of The news of his dismissal gradually sank in? Into
what? In 'to his thick head' (a possible addition to the sentence)? Al-
though the extremes are clear enough, individual judgements concerning
where to draw the line between literal combinations and phrasal verbs
will vary; we cannot dismiss difficult cases, but must simply recognise
that there is a fuzzy area in this part of the continuum.
The 'final noun phrase' test only applies to certain types of phrasal
verb, those with a final preposition, like sei in and put [X] off. There are
other varieties — those like take after [X], see [X] through [Y], take
up with [X], and put [X] down to [Y], that must have a noun phrase
following the phrasal verb preposition. The six types of phrasal verb will
be described in section 5, after we have distinguished between local and
non-local classes of preposition and looked at the syntax of literal preposit-
ional constructions.
12 R.M.W. DIXON
4. LITERAL USE OF PREPOSITIONS
It is useful to distinguish two types of preposition. Local prepositions

give information about position or motion in space or time — beneath,
in, along, from, and so on. Non-local prepositions establish a functional
link between a peripheral noun phrase and the core constituents (sub-
ject, object, verb) of the sentence — of, for, etc.
All non-local prepositions in English except for of and for also have
a local sense: (i) on is non-local with devolve and decide, but local with
sit; (ii) about is used non-locally-with talk, but locally with walk; (iii)
from can be resultative (John is obese from overeating), in addition to
the 'motion departing' sense; (iv) by marks passive agent, as well as

relative motion or rest (John stood/walked by the tree); (v) at has a non-
local meaning with laugh, grumble or wonder; (vi) in is used non-locally
with confide, indulge, deal (with the meaning 'buy and sell') and believe;
(vii) over has a non-local sense with fight, but a local meaning with fly
or walk; (viii) against can be local (fall against), or non-local (set/play
off against); (ix) with is clearly non-local in its instrumental sense and
after such words as commensurate, contend, and deal (in the sense of
'attend to'), but perhaps has a marginally local meaning in comitative
constructions (John went with Mary); (x) to, one of the most frequent
and most important prepositions in English, can mark indirect object
(give it to John), or just local destination (go to New York).
There are, however, many prepositions that are entirely local in
meaning (leaving aside their occurrence in phrasal verbs) — along, down,
under, off, and so on.
Each preposition — whether used in a local or non-local sense — will
be followed by a noun phrase; it is said to govern this noun phrase, which
is referred to as the prepositional object. Some verbs REQUIRE a pre-
positional phrase involving a particular non-local preposition — examples
include rely (up)on, depend (up)on, refer to. (These are not taken to be
phrasal verbs since the verbal component does not occur as a simple verb,
without the preposition.) There are not, in the same way, any verbs that
require a specific local preposition; put cannot be used alone but the
addition may be any one of a variety of kinds of local specification — an
adverb (here or there) or one of a number of types of local preposition-
al noun phrase (on the table, out of the door, by the tree, etc).
As was mentioned in section 3, some prepositional phrases can be
abbreviated in particular contexts, by the deletion of the second preposit-
ional element (if there is one) and of the noun phrase. The main con-
straints on this deletion are:
(a) No deletion is possible from a non-local prepositional phrase.
(b) Deletion is not possible for a phrase involving just one of the
three main local prepositions at, to or from.
(c) Deletion can be possible from a local phrase involving some
local preposition other than at, to or from (it may have to as second
element), which provides richer semantic information than just position

of rest (OÍ) or the beginning- or end-point of motion (from and to).
It is scarcely permissible to discuss deletion possibilities except in
a context of utterance. Any sentence may have the final part of its pre-
positional phrase omitted if this can unequivocally be supplied by the
intended addressees, on the basis of information in the surrounding
text, or from the context of situation, or from general sociocultural
knowledge or expectation. Thus take the kettle off would in Western
society always be understood as 'off the heating device (gas burner,
electric ring, primus stove, or the like)'. Put the cake in would normally
be taken to mean 'into the oven' (putting it into a tin for storage would
be put the cake away). He crossed over could refer to a road, a river, a
railway line or the floor of a parliamentary assembly; it is likely to be
understood unambiguously in each instance of use, in a particular situa-
tion.
The important point, which was mentioned in the last section, is
that if a literal construction does have a preposition not followed by a
noun phrase, then a noun phrase can always be added; it will explicitly
specify something that the speaker could otherwise have expected the
addressee to be able to infer — it does NOT change the meaning the
sentence has within that particular context. Thus a pedantic person could
say I'll put the cat out of the house, whereas most people would abbrevi-
ate this to I'll put the cat out; and He saw me from the upper window
and came down the stairs to say hello would be likely to have the stairs
omitted (but if he were a fireman sliding down a pole the prepositional
object would be less likely to be omitted, unless the addressee could be
expected to infer it). In neither of these instances of use would there be
any difference in meaning.3
Once the noun phrase it governs has been deleted, a local prepos-
ition can usually be moved to the left of a preceding direct object noun
phrase (if there is one), provided this noun phrase does not have a person-
al pronoun as its head. Again, there will be no difference in meaning:
compare put in the cake, take off the kettle, put out the cat. But a pre-
position cannot move if it retains a prepositional object; that is, it cannot
move away from the noun phrase it governs. The conditions on left move-
ment are discussed in some detail in section 7.
There are a limited number of cases where a preposition can move to
the right of its prepositional object, and then there is a difference in
meaning — John walked over the field, John walked the field over. Right
[3] Traditional grammarians have called over a preposition in He jumped over the
wall, but an adverb or a prepositional adverb in He jumped over (cf. also
Quirk & Greenbaum 1973:145). Despite the fact that it is followed by a noun
phrase in one of these sentences but not in the other, over has exactly the same
syntactic role in each and should surely be assigned the same label in each (cf.
Jespersen 1924:88, Jackendoff 1973).
14 R.M.W. DIXON
movement of prepositions is discussed in section 8.

Not every local preposition (other than at, to and from) permits the
omission of the noun phrase it governs — against does not, for instance.
A full discussion of prepositional subclasses in English, and their syn-
tactic characteristics (including prepositional sequences such as in to,
out of) is given in section 10.
5. TYPES OF PHRASAL VERB
There are six types of phrasal verb. It will be helpful to refer to these by
abbreviatory formulae. We use 'N' for a noun phrase and 'p' for a prepos-
ition; each phrasal verb begins with a verbal element and this need not be
included in the formula. The underlying structures are:

(I) p e.g. set in, come to, fall through, pass out
(II) pN e.g. take after [X], come by [X], set about [X],pick
on[XJ
(III) Np e.g. putfX] off, takefXJ on, put[X] up, bring[X] down
(IV) NpN e.g. see [X] through [Y], hold [X] against [Y], take
[XJforfY]
(V) ppN e.g. take up with [X], go in for [X], get on to [X],
scrape by on [X]
(VI) NppNe.g. put [X] down to [Y], let [X] in for [Y], tie [X]
in with [Y], take [X] up on [Y]
A noun phrase occurring before p in one of these underlying struc-
tures is always the direct object of the verb. Types III, IV and VI, with an
object noun phrase, are transitive phrasal verbs, and I, II and V are in-
transitive. We refer to V and VI, which involve a sequence of two pre-
positions, as double phrasal verbs.
The following subsections deal firstly with intransitive single phrasal
verbs I and II; then transitive single combinations III and IV; then double
phrasal verbs, V and VI. I have examined a corpus of about 800 phrasal
verbs (almost all taken from Cowie &: Mackin 1975);4 the approximate
number of verbs from the corpus which belong to each of the six types
will be indicated.
5.1 Intransitive single phrasal verbs. The corpus contains about 200
items of type I, p, where there is neither direct nor prepositional object,
and just over 100 of type II, pN, with a prepositional object.
There are very few phrasal verbs that can have either structure,
i.e. where the prepositional object may optionally be deleted — those
that do permit this include knock off (work/painting/. . . ), come through
[4] This is certainly not an exhaustive list of the phrasal verbs in British English;
a careful study might uncover several hundred more (and of course semantic
judgements as to what is and what is not a phrasal verb are likely to vary).
But it is big enough and representative enough to be taken as the basis for gen-
eralisations of the type attempted here.
(the operation/crisis/ . . .), lay off ((tormenting) that poor fellow). More
than 95% of the phrasal verbs of type I cannot include a prepositional
object, e.g. carry on, [the planes] take off, break down. And more than
90% of the phrasal verbs of type II cannot delete the prepositional object,
e.g. live off [X], tell on [X] 'tell someone in authority that [X] has done
something wrong', get round [X] 'gain a favour from [X] '.
This is in marked contrast to the structure of sentences involving
literal prepositions. As described in the last section, many literal prepos-
itions may omit their object noun phrase if this could be inferred from the
context of utterance; ANY final occurrence of a literal preposition can be
followed by a prepositional object noun phrase with no change in utter-
ance meaning. But most intransitive phrasal verbs either MUST have a
prepositional object, or can NOT have one. Indeed, there is at least one
minimal pair, with markedly different meanings: go off 'decay' vs go off
[X] 'lose one's liking for [X] '.
Since there is no direct object, the preposition from an intransitive
phrasal verb cannot be moved to the left over a noun phrase. Limited
right movement, over the prepositional object, is possible; this is discuss-
ed in section 8.
5.2 Transitive single phrasal verbs. By far the richest set of phrasal verbs
is type III, Np; there are over 300 in the 800-item corpus. In contrast,
type IV, NpN, is quite rare. I have only collected about 20 NpN examples
and in about half of these the final noun phrase can optionally be omitted,
giving a phrasal verb of type III, e.g. let [X] off (the punishment), pull
[X] through (the operation), see [X] through (the crisis). Most strict
NpN phrasal verbs include a preposition which does not, in its literal
use, permit the omission of a prepositional object noun phrase, e.g.
touch [X] for [Y] 'borrow [Y] (money) from [X] ', set [X] against
[Y] 'cause [X] and [Y] to become enemies'. There are just one or two
examples of strict NpN with a preposition that does permit its object to
be omitted in literal use but where this deletion does not extend to the
phrasal verb, e.g. press [X] on [Y] 'insistently offer [X] to [Y].
Where final N can delete from a NpN phrasal verb, the resulting
combination behaves just like the Np type, with leftward movement of
the preposition, and so on. If the prepositional object cannot be omitted
(or in sentences where it is not omitted) no movement of the preposition
is possible. Exactly as in literal constructions, the preposition cannot
move away from its prepositional object. And for none of the NpN
examples collected can the preposition move to the right over its own
object.5
[5] It may be appropriate to put forward the following surface structure constraint
for English: two noun phrases cannot occur in succession, without any inter-
vening preposition, unless the second is a direct object (as in He gave Mary a
book), a predicative complement (as in He considered Mary a genius) or a time
adjunct (as in He saw Mary this morning). This constraint would help 'explain'
16 R.M.W. DIXON
Type III, Np, is the largest and perhaps the most interesting group.
Although in only a small" minority of cases can a prepositional object
noun phrase be added (as is always possible in a literal construction of
this type), phrasal verbs of type III have exactly the same syntactic poss-
ibilities as literal constructions that end in a preposition. That is, the pre-
position can in almost all cases be moved to the left of the preceding
direct object noun phrase — if this has a noun as head — with no change
in meaning. A full discussion of left movement is in section 7.
Just a few phrasal verbs of type III allow the direct object to be
omitted, Np then alternating with p. For most of these examples the cor-
responding simple verb allows object deletion e.g. eat [X] up or eat up,
drink [X] up or drink up (but note that drink [X] down does not altern-
nate with drink down). One or two may omit an object noun phrase
where this is inferrable from the context, e.g. lock [X] up or else just
lock up. And in a few cases the omission of the object gives a reflexive-
type meaning — dress [X] up and dress up 'dress oneself up'; note that the
simple verb dress behaves in exactly the same way. At least one NpN
verb can also omit the direct object, with a reflexive-type meaning —
compare The doctor pulled John through (the illness) with John pulled
through (the illness) 'pulled himself through'; since the prepositional
object can also be omitted we have here an unusually wide set of altern-
ates, p/Np/pN/NpN.
It must be stressed that it is unusual for a phrasal verb of type Np
to allow the direct object to be omitted, just as it is unusual for a pre-
positional object to be possible after p. Over 250 of the 300-plus examples
I have of this type of phrasal verb have the invariable structure Np (or
pN — where N is still the direct object of the verb — after preposition
movement has applied).
5.3 Double phrasal verbs. There are both intransitive and transitive variet-
ies of double phrasal verbs, which involve a sequence of two prepositions
obligatorily followed by a prepositional object noun phrase: ppN struct-
ures such as do away with [X], and the NppN type, such as put [X] down
tofYJ.
There are some possible sequences of literal prepositions — in to
(or into), on to (or onto), and out of (off of is found in American English
only); these are discussed in section 10.1 below. About 30 of the 150
double phrasal verbs in my corpus do involve these sequences and may be
directly related to the literal combinations, e.g. talk [X] into [Y], talk
[X] out of [Y], do [X] out offYJ, come into [X] 'inherit [X] ', laugh
[X] out offYJ, catch on to [XJ.
The remaining 130 double phrasal verbs involve as first element one
of about, across, along, (a)round, behind, by, down, in, off, on, out,
over, through, under, up, away, back, forth, i.e. a subset of those elements
the sorts of prepositional movement that do and those that do not occur. See
also section 8.
which occur in single phrasal verbs (see the list on pp. 2-3). The second
preposition in a double phrasal verb is one of about, at, against, for, from,
in, on, to, or with (of occurs only within out of, mentioned in the preced-
ing paragraph). These are all non-local prepositions — in fact this list
comprises all the non-local prepositions, given at the beginning of section
4, except by and over.
We can thus conclude that a double phrasal verb involves a sequence
of a local followed by a non-local preposition.
In section 4 I remarked that some non-phrasal verbs do require
an obligatory prepositional phrase, and that this always involves a non-
local preposition — devolve (up)on, rely (up)on, refer (to), contend
(with), and so on. We can regard double phrasal verbs as, effectively,
single phrasal verbs — of types p and Np — that must take a non-local
prepositional phrase, exactly like devolve and refer. In fact many of
them do have a single verb synonym that substitutes for the verb-plus-
first-preposition and retains the second preposition, e.g. 6
take up WITH [X] - associate WITH [X]
put [X] down TO [Y] - ascribe [X] TO [Y]
do [X] out OF [YJ - deprive [X] OF [Y]
make up FOR [X] — compensate FOR [X]
stand in FOR [X] - substitute FOR [X]
(There are, in addition, just a few double phrasal verbs that have a single-
word synonym taking a direct object, with no preposition involved, e.g.
put up with [X] = tolerate [X], stand up for [X] = support [X], look
down on [X] = despise [X]. There are one or two where there is a (semi-)
synonym for verb-plus-first-preposition taking a preposition which differs
from that in final position in the phrasal verb, e.g. let in for [X] = expose
to [X], be in on [X] = share in [X]. And there are some double phrasal
verbs for which I cannot find any single-word synonym or semi-synonym,
e.g. get off with [X], be up to [X].)
The corpus contains more than 125 double phrasal verbs of type
V, ppN, i.e. with a prepositional object, but without a direct object to
the verb. For only a small proportion of these can the final pN optionally
be omitted, in the way that it can from some literal constructions with a
sequence of two prepositions (e.g. He took the cake out of the oven -+
[6] Prepositions may not usually be fronted (e.g. with an interrogative preposit-
ional object) from any double phrasal verb, although they may be from a
synonymous verb plus preposition, e.g. To what did he ascribe his illness?
or What did he ascribe his illness to?, but not *To what did he put his illness
down? (still less *Down to what did he put his illness?), only What did he put
his illness down to?. With a few double phrasal verbs the final pN (but never
ppN) can be fronted to give sentences that are marginally acceptable to some
speakers, e.g. For whom was he standing in?, On whom does he look down?;
but for most double phrasal verbs fronting of prepositions is quite impossible.
This is surely an indication of the syntactic and semantic association between
the two prepositions in a double phrasal verb.
18 R.M.W. DIXON
He took the cake out). Phrasal verbs of this type, where ppN alternates
with p, include pull out (of [X]), stand in (for [X]),let on (about [X]),
catch on (to [XJ), check up (on [XJ). It is never possible to delete just
the final N from ppN, or from NppN, leaving a final sequence of two
prepositions.
Some ppN verbs can passivise on the prepositional object, but only
in fairly marked circumstances, e.g. This woman cannot be put up with
(Palmer 1965:189), but scarcely She was put up with; other examples
arc He was done away with, She was looked down on. (Interestingly,
all of these have single-word synonyms: tolerate, kill and despise res-
pectively.) This is a rather rare phenomenon — the prepositional objects
cannot be passivised from run out on [X], feel up to [X], meet up with
[X], keep in with [X], stick up for [X], among many others.
Finally, I have collected about 30 transitive double phrasal verbs of
type VI, NppN. Just three or four of them show an alteration NppN/ppN.
With turn [X] into [Y], omission of the direct object yields a reflexive
meaning, She turned him into a frog/She turned into a frog 'turned
herself . . . '. Set [X] up in [Y] behaves similarly: She set him up in
business/She set up in business 'set herself up'. Tie [XJ in with [YJ is
a little different — intransitive The school holidays tie in with my work
schedule relates to transitive / managed to tie the school holidays in
with my work schedule, which appears to be a type of causative. How-
ever, most NppN phrasal verbs do not permit the direct object to be
omitted. Indeed, there is at least one semantically contrastive pair: take
up with [X] 'begin to keep company with', and take [X] up with [Y]
'raise a matter, usually for critical comment'.
Only one or two NppN verbs can omit the final pN, giving a phrasal
verb of type III, Np — He made the farm over (to his nephew), I got the
point over (to the assembled delegates). I know of no NppN verb which
has the possibility of omitting both the direct object and the final pN
(even if not necessarily simultaneously).
Almost every NppN verb can freely passivise on the direct object
(the first N), just as Np and NpN can, e.g. The question of productivity
was taken up with the management, He was put up to that trick by his
sister. NppN verbs can never passivise on the prepositional object.
The most fascinating question concerns whether the first p in NppN
— the p which appears to relate to the preposition in a single phrasal verb
— can move to the left, over the direct object noun phrase. A careful ex-
amination of the corpus of about 30 NppN items shows that left move-
ment is possible for about half of these verbs.
Leftward movement of the first p over the preceding N is NOT
possible: (i) from sequences on to, in to, and out of, which relate to
sequences of literal prepositions, from which left movement is not
possible (without deletion of the final pN), e.g. do/laugh/talk [X] out of
[Y], read/turn/talk [X] into [YJ, put [XJ onto [YJ ; (ii) with under,
which never undergoes left movement (see section 10.6).
The NppN which do most readily permit left movement, yielding

pNpN, are undoubtedly those which can delete the final pN, showing
that they should perhaps be regarded as Np verbs, of type III, followed by
an optional non-local pN constituent: He made over the farm (to his
nephew), She set up John (in business), We took up the question of over-
time (with the management). It should be noted that any Np verb may be
followed by a local prepositional phrase — which is not syntactically
connected to the verb — and that this has no effect on leftward move-
ment of p, e.g. He made a story up in the bath, He made up a story in
the bath. It may be that Np(pN) should be regarded as an analogous
construction, even though there is here a close syntactic and semantic
link between Np and pN.
But there are a few NppN constructions where pN cannot be omitted

and where left moveí, «mt of the first p can have a degree of acceptability,
for some speakers, e.g. He played John off against Mary -> He played off
John against Mary, She put his nervousness down to inexperience -*• She
put down his nervousness to inexperience. Progressively less acceptable
are He tied in the school holidays with his work schedule, and She let in
John on the secret. And left movement appears to be impossible — for
all speakers — with She put John up to asking the question and He let
Mary in for a boring evening. (Textual examples of NppN and pNpN,
together with an insightful discussion, can be found in van Dongen 1919:
346-7.)
5.4 Summary. The full list of types and sub-types of phrasal verbs can
now be summarised, together with structures derived by leftward and
rightward movement of prepositions. It is appropriate, at this stage, to use
subscripts .do> and <po> to distinguish Direct Object (of verb) and Pre-
positional Object noun phrases respectively. Without functional sub-
scripts there may be confusion between underlying structure pN p o ,
and pN d o , deriving from underlying N d o p by leftward movement of
the preposition. Parentheses indicate optional constituents.
(I) p many, e.g. set in
(II) pNpo many, e.g. take after [X]
just a few derive N p o p by right movement of
p, e.g. look [X] over
p(Np O ) a few, e.g. knock off(fXJ)
(III) N d o p very many, e.g. put [X] off
almost all derive pN d o by left movement of p
(N do )p a few, e.g. eat (fXJ) up
(IV) N do pNp O a few, e.g. hold [X] against [Y]
NdoP(Npo) a few, e.g. see [X] through (fYJ)
(N d o )p(N p o ) one known, pull (fXJ) through (fYJ)
(V) ppN p o many, e.g. take up with [X]
p(pN po ) a few, e.g. let on (about fXJ)
20 R.M.W. DIXON
(VI) NdoPpNpo a few, e.g. do [X] out of [Y]

some may, for some speakers, allow derivat-
ion of pNjopNpo by left movement of the
first preposition, e.g. put down [X] to [Y]
N
doP(p N po) a few, e.g. make [X] over (to fYJ)
most or all can derive pN d o (pN p o ) by left
movement of the first preposition
(Ndo)ppNpO a few, e.g. turn ([X]) into fYJ
6. JUSTIFICATION FOR UNDERLYING STRUCTURES

Traditional grammars of English have found great difficulty in dealing

with phrasal verbs. There has been a tendency to regard verb-plus-
preposition as a continuous unit, and to assign similar grammatical struc-
tures to, say, John picked on Fred and John picked out Fred. But there
is then no explanation of why the preposition can move to the right of
the postverbal noun phrase in the latter sentence only —John picked
Fred out, but not *John picked Fred on.
Chomsky (1957:75-7) used prepositional movement as one of the
initial points of justification for the addition of transformations to an
essentially post-Bloomfieldian phrase structure analysis. But he suggested
that of The police brought in the criminal and The police brought the
criminal in the former should be the kernel sentence, with bring and in
contiguous elements. He argued that bring in is here a single constituent
and 'we know that discontinuous elements cannot be handled readily
within the phrase structure grammar'. There was then need for an optional
rule which moved the preposition to the right of a following noun, and an
obligatory rule moving it to the right of.a pronominal object — we get
only The police brought him in, not *The police brought in him. Chom-
sky did not discuss examples like The police picked on John/him, where
the preposition can NOT move over the following noun phrase, whether
it be noun or pronoun, although verb and preposition do here constitute
a single lexeme (indeed, pick on is a phrasal verb, with idiomatic meaning,
whereas bring + in is a literal construction).7
The underlying structures that were given in section 5 seem to me
intuitively obvious; only very rarely did I have to stop and wonder what
type a given phrasal verb belonged to, in examination of the 800-item
corpus. The underlying structures can be justified in that they provide
the basis for an optimally simple grammatical description:
(a) Taking the underlying structure as bring [X] in transparently
relates this to bring [X] into fYJ. The butler brought the milk in and
[7] American informants have suggested that in their dialect bring in may be a
mildly phrasal verb (rather like round up). But John brought the milk in/
John brought in the milk show literal use of bring + in, and do have exactly
the same syntactic possibilities as the examples Chomsky quoted.
The butler brought the milk into the kitchen could refer to the same
event, and any treatment which shows them to be grammatically iconic
is surely to be preferred.
(b) As described in section 2, the underlying structures we recognise
help to explain that: (i) p N p o may be fronted (e.g. Into what did John put
the money?) but pNdo (derived from Nd o p by left movement) cannot be;
(ii) passivisation is usually possible on Ndo but only rather rarely on N p o ;
(iii) gapping of simple verbs is possible only from an underlying structure,
where no prepositional movement has taken place.
(c) Whereas Chomsky had to posit obligatory movement of the pre-
position over a pronoun to derive brought him in from the underlying
(but ungrammatical) *brought in him, we simply have to state among the

conditions for left movement that Ndo should not be a pronoun.
(d) The underlying structures perfectly explain the possibilities for
prepositional movement. Assigning the structure pN to both pick on
John and pick out John gives no clue as to why movement should be
possible for one verb but not for the other. We recognise that pick on
John is pNp O while pick John out/pick out John has underlying structure
N(j o p, with the general rule that p can move to the left of a (non-
pronominal, etc.) Nd o , deriving pNd o -
(e) Besides the highly productive left movement of p over Ndo, there
is also very restricted right movement of p over N p o . A grammar which
did not deal in underlying structures would surely have to regard look
over the field/look the field over as exhibiting an alternation parallel to
that in pick out the winner/pick the winner out. I prefer to say that
look over [X] is basically p N p o , with right movement yielding N p o p ,
but that pick [X] out is N(j o p, with left movement deriving pNd 0 - There
are, in fact, important differences between left and right movement
(sections 7 and 8). Right movement affects meaning, whereas left move-
ment doesn't. Right movement can take place over a personal pronoun
{look over it/look it over) whereas left movement can't (*pick out it).
(f) As mentioned in section 2, the underlying structures set up in
section 5 perfectly explain the possibilities of adverb insertion. An ad-
verb can intervene between Nd o and p (always in a literal, and often in a
non-literal construction), but not between verb and Nd o or between p
and N p o . When a preposition moves to the left it cannot take an adverb
with it. Thus, He picked immediately on John but not *He picked immed-
iately out John (only He picked out John immediately). 8
[8) The algorithm for adverb insertion could be explained by reference to prepos-
itional alternation (without any hypothesis concerning which of two possible
structures is the underlying one). That is, if a preposition cannot occur in a
different position, then it can be preceded by an adverb, e.g. pick Adv on
N (since on cannot occur in any other position) but not *pick Adv out N
(since out can follow N). Underlying structures would still of course be needed
to explain prepositional alternation in the first place, and for the other reasons
listed here. See also note 9 on adverb insertion and right movement.
22 R.M.W. DIXON
Other discussions of underlying structure for phrasal verbs, which

reach similar conclusions to those of this paper, often by slightly different
argumentation and examples, include Emonds 1972 and Kroch 1979.
Live's important study (1965) actually uses the label 'discontinuous verb'
in its title.
A final justification for analysis in terms of underlying structures is
that there are a considerable number of minimal pairs, distinguished only
by whether they take N¿o or N p o . Compare:
pNpo Ndop
knock offfXJ 'stop doing [X] knock [X] off 'steal [X] '
(e.g. work)'
lay offfXJ 'stop (doing) [X] lay [X] off 'dismiss [X] from work
(something harmful, e.g. temporarily'
cigarettes, drinking, all-night
parties)'
knock about (fXJ) 'move/ knock [X] about 'beat [X] up,
travel around ([X] )' treat [X] in a brutal manner'
turn on [X] 'attack [X], become turn [X] on 'excite/stimulate
hostile towards [X] ' [X], switch [X] on'
see through [X] 'understand the see [X] through 'ensure that [X]
true nature of [X] ' (e.g. the job) is satisfactorily
completed'
Note that left movement of the preposition is perfectly acceptable with
the first two verbs from the right-hand column. It appears to be accept-
able with knock [X] about and turn [X] on where Ndo is a longish
phrase, e.g. He really turned on that blonde with the smashing figure who just
moved in next door, and now she worships him. Left movement is less
likely with see [X] through; this may partly be because of the possibility
of confusion with see through [X], from the left-hand column. Note that
the first three verbs in the right-hand column are unlikely to be con-
fused with the corresponding entry in the left-hand column, after left
movement of the preposition, because the possibilities for Ndo and N p o
are radically different; turn on can have á human noun as N¿ o or N p o ,
and here intonation or the surrounding textual matter might be needed
to resolve any possible ambiguity in Mary turned on John.
7. LEFTWARD MOVEMENT OF PREPOSITION9

There are in my corpus over 300 phrasal verbs — of type Nd o p and
NdoP(pNpo) — which allow leftward movement of the preposition over
the direct object, e.g. put the visitors up for a night, put up the visitors
for a night. And there must be a greater number of literal verb-
[9] Irene Warburton has suggested (p.c.) that, as an alternative to saying that a
preposition may move to the left over a direct object noun phrase, we could
say that a direct object noun phrase may move to the right over an adjacent pre-
preposition combinations (where a final N or pN has been omitted) that

also show left movement, e.g. take the punt across, take across the punt.
Van Dongen 1919, Erades 1961, Poutsma 1928-9:417-25 and Wood
1955 provide excellent discussions of the factors motivating whether p
should follow or precede Ndo- The first two also give a survey of what
English grammarians have said on this matter; and van Dongen quotes
hundreds of examples, from written texts, to support his points. None of
these works distinguished between the various structural varieties of
phrasal verb (see section 5) and in fact seem to have been almost exclus-
ively interested in the Ndop type (although a few pN po examples do creep
in, unnoticed). Section 7.1 draws heavily on these sources.
Van Dongen assembled a corpus of 899 phrasal verb examples, from
established works of English literature, and found that the preposition

preceded the noun phrase in 740 instances. Even allowing that these may
have included a handful of pN p o verbs, the figures are still significant.
They suggest that the preposition is moved to the left of Ndo rather more
often than it remains in its 'underlying position'. (Similar results came from
a count made by Fairclough 1965:62.)
7.1 General considerations. There are a number of constraints — on when

left movement of the preposition must, or when it cannot, take place —
and also a number of tendencies — on the circumstances in which it is
preferred, or not preferred, (a)-(g) relate to the nature of the direct ob-
ject noun phrase, (h) to the nature of the preposition, and (i)-(j) to poss-
ibilities of coordination. Left movement may involve a shift in emphasis
— see especially (b) — but scarcely ever any change in semantic content
(see, however, Bolinger J . J / 1 : 1 2 1 ) .
(a) Left movement cannot normally take place over a personal
(or reflexive) pronoun.1 °
(b) Where the object noun phrase contains new information, left
movement will normally take place, so that the noun phrase appears in
final position, after verb and preposition. If the noun phrase is later re-
peated, as old information, left movement is less likely. Van Dongen
position. The 'moving noun phrase' alternative leads to a more straightforward
statement of point (c) in section 6 — it seems simpler to say 'a pronoun cannot
move' rather than (as I do in section 6) 'a preposition cannot move over a pro-
noun'. The question of adverb insertion — the acceptability for some speakers
of He brought the milk quickly in as opposed to *He brought quickly in the
milk — can be dealt with by specifying that an object noun phrase can only be
moved over an ADJACENT preposition. For all other points (in section 6) the
two alternatives seem to be exactly equivalent. (Similar remarks apply to right
movement of preposition over a prepositional object, and the alternative
formulation of left movement of the noun phrase over a preceding preposition.)
[10] It may be possible in colloquial speech if the pronoun has heavy contrastive
stress, e.g. I put up you, not Fred, for the presidency. See Bolinger 1971:39-41.
24 R.M.W. DIXON
(1919:329) quotes from Punch of 25 December 1915: We'll make up

a parcel for them . . . On the morning of Christmas Eve together we'll
make the parcel up (see also Wood 1955:24, Erades 1961:58). This re-
lates to van Dongen's (1919:329, 331) generalisation that whichever
of object and preposition is to be stressed, is put in final position.
(c) Erades (1961:58) suggests that left movement is relatively un-
likely 'when the object is a semi-pronominal noun; these always vaguely
and loosely refer to an idea under discussion, or a matter in hand, which
is hence familiar to the hearer'. He quotes He seemed to be thinking the
matter over, We'll talk things over presently and He laughed the idea
down. (See also Kruisinger &: Erades 1953:77.)
(d) There is a strong preference for left movement when the direct
object is a lengthy phrase; that is, verb and preposition should not be
separated by too long an object constituent. Van D'ongen (1919:329)
quotes You would like to sweep away all the dear old manners and customs
(and see Wood 1955:19). It must be emphasised that this is only a
tendency — sweep all the dear old manners and customs away is certainly
possible. But the longer the direct object noun phrase, the more likely it
is that the preposition will precede it. Indeed, some phrasal verbs which
appear not to permit left movement over a two-or-three-word noun phrase
can plausibly accept the preposition preceding a very long object noun
phrase. The doctor brought to my father is, for me, quite unacceptable
(it would have to be The doctor brought my father to), whereas The
doctor brought to that tall man with red hair who was brought in from
that terrible smash-up ten miles down the Pacific Highway sounds perfect-
ly alright.
(e) Left movement is obligatory when the direct object is a clause
(Wood 1955:19, Bolinger 1971:120). Compare the alternation in pos-
ition of preposition with a nominal object, / couldn't make his words
out/make out his words, with the fixed position before a clausal object,
/ couldn't make out where he was going. Note that clausal objects are
often quite long, and would then be covered by (d), the tendency for
a preposition to precede a long object constituent. It does seem, how-
ever, that for most speakers, there is an absolute PROHIBITION on a
preposition following a clausal object, whatever its length.
(f) A participle, as direct object, almost demands left movement
of the preposition, rather like a clausal object (Wood 1955:19). Com-
pare He gave up his job/cigarettes with He gave up working/smoking; the
former alternates with He gave his job/cigarettes up, but He gave working
up is quite unacceptable and He gave smoking up nearly so.
(g) The semantic nature of the noun phrase can have an effect on
the felicity of left movement. It appears that a preposition can move more
freely across an inanimate than across a human noun phrase. Thus The
secretary took the tea through to the boss and The secretary took the
foreman through to the boss are equally acceptable, but The secretary
took through the tea to the boss sounds considerably better than The
secretary took through the foreman to the boss.11
(h) Van Dongen's text count suggests that disyllabic prepositions
(or adverbs) tend to be moved over a direct object less frequently than do
monosyllabic items. Of 65 examples of over, 37 (57%) occurred before
the direct object, and of 64 instances of away, exactly half did, whereas
270 of the 290 examples of up (93%) and 144 out of 162 instances of
out (89%) preceded the direct object (see also section 10.1). Van Dongen
suggests that this is tied in with stress possibilities, although further study
would be needed to clarify the exact relation.
(i) Coordination of clauses with shared subject and object is only
possible when the verb plus preposition are contiguous, i.e. after left
movement of the preposition. Van Dongen (1919:329) quotes Never-
theless the excitement of it had thrilled and broken up the hardness of
her own nature. See also Poutsma 1928-9:421. (This relates to the dis-
cussion of gapping in section 2.3.)
(j) Prepositions (probably just from literal constructions) can only
be coordinated if left movement has not applied, e.g. She pulled the ring
off and on but scarcely She pulled off and on the ring (Wood 1955:20).
We have mentioned two circumstances in which left movement must
take place, (e) and (i), and two in which it is prohibited, (a) and (j). And,
in addition, three types of factor which tend to prefer left movement,
(b), (d) and (f), and three which militate against it, (c), (g) and (h). It is
not suggested that this exhausts the list of relevant parameters.
For many occurrences of a phrasal verb of type Na o p none of
(a)-(j) apply and left movement is, as it were, at the discretion of the
speaker. Considerations of euphony (van Dongen 1919:330), or just
whim, may determine his choice.
7.2 Specific verbs. Over and above the general constraints and tendencies,
which apply across the whole class of Np phrasal verbs, individual verbs do
show some more idiosyncratic characteristics.
The great majority of the corpus of over 300 phrasal verbs of type
III freely alternate Nd o p and pNdo- There are, however, a few combin-
ations for which left movement seems scarcely acceptable; and — at the
other extreme — there are some where left movement is almost obligat-
ory.
[11] Tim Shopen has pointed out (p.c.) that in some instances if the preposition
is moved to the left over a human noun phrase it may have semantic implic-
ations. Thus We threw the garbage out and We threw out the garbage show
little or no semantic difference. We threw John out is a normal sentence. But
We threw out John sounds odd; if it were used it would imply that John was
being treated not as a person but like an inanimate object (e.g. if he were hope-
lessly drunk on the floor). A suitable context might be: To lighten the air-
craft we threw out the seats, and the partitions, and then we threw out John.
26 R.M.W. DIXON
Those Np phrasal verbs which do not very readily accept left move-
ment include do [X] in 'kill [X] ', fence [X] in 'restrict [X] ', lead [X]
on 'try to make X do/believe something by false promises', tell [X]
apart 'distinguish [X]', count [X] out 'exclude [X] ' and put [X] out
'inconvenience .[X] '. I have no explanation of why these items should
have this property.
The type III phrasal verbs for which left movement seems almost
obligatory include give [X] off 'emit [X] ', pull [X] in 'earn/gain [X]
(lots of money)', offer [X] up 'present [X] (sacrifice or prayers) to
deity' and find [X] out 'discover [X] '. These verbs do not usually have
a first or second person pronoun as direct object — left movement would
not of course be possible over a pronoun. (There is find [me/you/
him/Mary] out 'uncover a person's wrong doings', but this is a separate

idiom from find out 'discover', which appears to be restricted to non-
human objects.) These are amongst the most idiomatic of phrasal verbs,
and behave in some ways like compound verbs (just as compounds such as
overtake and understand evolved in an earlier stage of the language).
Highly idiomatic phrasal verbs of type pN p o which appear to be evolv-
ing towards compound verbs are characterised by the freedom with
which NpO can be the basis for passivisation, e.g. pick on [X] ; the N p o
may be being reanalysed as Ndo- This test of idiomicity is not available
for phrasal verbs of type N^oP. since Nd o can usually be the basis for
passivisation, whatever the semantic relation between verb and preposit-
ion.
There are some restrictions on left movement which depend on the
nature of the preposition, or of the verbal component. Thus, under
cannot move over a direct object noun phrase, and neither can ahead
(see section 10 below); note that these are both disyllabic (cf. (h) in
section 7.1).
The possibilities of left movement are restricted for phrasal verbs
based on have. It appears to be impossible with have [X] out (e.g. have
the matter out) 'discuss [X] until an understanding is reached', and
almost so with have [X] on 'playfully deceive or trick [X] '. Left move-
ment is acceptable with have [X] up/over/in 'entertain [X] ', e.g. have
the new neighbours in for a drink, have in the new neighbours for a drink.
But it is less good when the object of have [X] in is some type of work-
men, e.g. have the painters in but not really have in the painters (the
latter suggests that the painters were invited in for a drink, rather than
being expected to do some painting).
Some intransitive verbs can form a causative, with identical verbal
form, e.g. His mother ran across (town, in the new car) •* He ran his mother
across ( . . . ) , The ball turned round -*• He turned the ball round, The
girl tripped up -r He tripped the girl up. Left movement does not seem
very felicitous for these causatives, and this is probably because of the
danger of confusion with the corresponding intransitive. He ran his
mother across cannot have the preposition moved to the left of the
direct object; He ran across his mother must be the intransitive phrasal
verb run across [X] 'meet [X] ', with his mother here the prepositional
object. He turned round the ball is ambiguous between the intransitive
verb turn 'turn oneself with prepositional phrase round the ball and the
left-moved version of transitive He turned the ball round. He tripped up
the girl is possible, but simply because an intransitive sentence would
require over between up and the girl.
The difficulty — but not impossibility — of left movement with
causatives is a special case of a wider constraint: left movement may
be inhibited if it could make for confusion with some intransitive phrasal
verb, or with a literal construction; the discussion in section 6 of the
minimal pair see through [X] and see [X] through, with no left move-
ment likely for the latter, was an example of this.

The general rules and tendencies just described do explain almost
all of the syntactic behaviour of prepositions both in phrasal verbs and
in literal constructions (recall the main thesis of this paper, that literal
and non-literal combinations have essentially the same grammar). But
there are a few points that are not, at present, fully understood. One is
the variable possibility of left movement for transitive double phrasal
verbs, NppN, discussed in section 5.3. Another is the fact that homony-
mous phrasal verbs sometimes show different preferences. With take
[X] in, for instance, left movement is optional for the senses 'receive
[X] into house, entertain', 'make [X] narrower', 'observe [X], note
[X] visually', 'understand [X] ' and 'delude [X] ', but obligatory in the
sense 'include [X] ', e.g. The Social Sciences take in linguistics.
8. RIGHTWARD MOVEMENT OF PREPOSITION
Right movement is, by comparison with left movement, highly restrict-
ed. It applies to only a dozen or two verb-preposition combinations, most
of them literal.
Perhaps the clearest examples of the semantic differences which right
movement entails involve over. Consider:
(31) John walked over the field (— to get from one side to the other).
(32) John walked the field over (— looking for a wallet he had
dropped).
(33) The director ran over the idea (with the scriptwriters — to give
them some general indication of how he was thinking).
(34) The director ran the idea over (in his head — to examine it very
closely).
The sentences in which p has been moved to the right of N p o , (32) and
(34), imply a more thorough treatment of the referent of the preposition-
al object. Sentence (32) might be paraphrased John walked all over the
field and (34) could be The director ran over every facet of the idea.
We mentioned that left movement is not possible over a pronoun;
but since left movement does not affect meaning no possible semantic
28 R.M.W. DIXON
distinction is lost by this prohibition. Right movement does carry a

meaning difference, and it is significant that it CAN apply over a pro-
noun — e.g. He walked it over.
Right movement is only possible for a small number of pN po com-
binations, and yields N p o p. It is not possible on structures of the type
NdopNpO, partly because this would yield a sequence of two noun phrases,
without any intervening preposition, something that is not a possible
surface sequence in English unless the second noun phrase has one of the
functions given in note 5 above.
There are one or two other constructions with over that permit
right movement. Wood (1955:22) gives / must think the matter over and
Sheffield cutlery is known all the world over;notc that the latter involves
right movement of over and also the inclusion of all, each of these seman-
tically reinforcing the other. We can also get He passed over John (when
s e l e c t i n g c a n d i d a t e s f o rp r o m o t i o n ) , H e p a s s e d J o h n o v e r ( . . . ) , where
the meaning difference is less clear. But over cannot move to the right of
NpO in other literal or non-literal combinations, e.g. not in stand over [X],
go over [X], wash over [X],
It might be thought that get over [X] can take right movement,
e.g. He got over the illness, He got the illness over. Closer study suggests
that there are two distinct phrasal verbs here: get [X] over 'make [X]
be over, i.e. finished', where X is N^o, and get over [X] 'recover from
[X] (mental or physical setback)', where X is N p o . The difference comes
out most clearly in She got the divorce over and She got over the divorce.
(Compare with other 'minimal pairs' of phrasal verbs, given at the end of
section 6.)
It appears that by can move over the prepositional object in pass by
— Mary passed by John, Mary passed John by; the latter — but not the
former — implies that she purposely ignored him. (See also Palmer 1974:
214-20.) I have not been able to find any other examples of right move-
ment with by. Some speakers can also accept limited right movement of
round and about, e.g. He sailed the world round/about (see Poutsma
1926:809).
There are a number of cases of right movement of through, over
a prepositional object that directly or indirectly relates to a period of time:
(35) The doctor says he'll live through the winter.
(36) The doctor says he'll live thé winter through.
(37) He slept through the film.
(38) He slept the film through.
Sentences (36) and (38) imply 'right through (all of)', with similar seman-
tic effect to the right movement of over in (32) and (34). There are also
one or two examples of out being moved over an N p o with temporal
reference, with similar semantic effect — Will the supplies last out the
weekend?, Will the supplies last the weekend out?.
There are a few examples of through being moved to the right of a
non-temporal prepositional object — She read the letter through (Wood

1955:22) and look [human nature] through ('to examine or survey
exhaustively' (NED — quoted in van Dongen 1919:351). But the possibilit-
ies are very limited; through cannot move over N p o in phrasal verbs such as
come through [X], run through [X], cut through [X], or in most literal
constructions.
In summary, right movement is restricted to some instances of over
and through, with just one or two examples of by, round, about and
out; it occurs in just a few literal constructions, and in one or two phrasal
verbs.1 2
9. TRANSITIVITY
There is no difficulty in distinguishing between transitive and intransit-
ive phrasal verbs. A noun phrase which immediately follows the verb
in underlying structure is a direct object of the verb, and marks a transit-
ive construction; a noun phrase which follows the preposition(s) in under-
lying structure is a prepositional object, and has no bearing on transitivity.
The direct object can almost always be the basis for passivisation, e.g.
John was done down by his rivals, She was let off lightly. As mentioned
in section 2, the prepositional object from a literal sentence can only be
the basis for passivisation in very marked circumstances (e.g. This chair
was sat on by the president). The prepositional object of a phrasal verb
can only quite rarely be the basis for passivisation — in the case of some of
the most idiomatic combinations, that appear to be moving towards a
reanalysis as compound transitive verb (taking Ncio) in place of the origin-
al intransitive verb plus preposition (taking N p o ); the N p o oí pick on
[X] may be — for some speakers — the basis for passivisation, but not the
NpO of take after [X], come by [X] or set about [X].
There is a strong correlation — but by no means a coincidence —
between the transitivity of a phrasal verb and that of its simple verb con-
stituent (cf. Lipka 1972:165ff). The possibilities are as follows:
(a) Some verbs retain their transitivity in all phrasal verb com-
binations, (i) All phrasal verbs based on go, come, fall and be are intransit-
ive. The come set, for instance, has type I phrasal verbs come about/along/
off/on/out/round/up/to; type II come across/by/over/through/upon [X],
[12] An adverb can occur between verb and pN po (e.g. He walked quickly over
the field, She passed quickly by the temple) but it cannot usually intervene
between verb and N p o after light movement (e.g. *He walked quickly the field
over, *She passed quickly the temple by, although He slept soundly the film
through is acceptable to some speakers). This can be explained by a general
surface structure constraint that an adverb cannot (usually?) intervene between
a verb and an immediately following noun phrase, whatever the function of the
noun phrase. (Compare He gave the book (surreptitiously) to Mary and He gave
(*surreptitiously) Mary (*surreptitiously) the book, where an adverb is not
permitted between verb and an immediately following indirect object.)
30 R.M.W. DIXON
and type V come in to/round to/up to/up for/down on/up against/

out in/across with/up with [XJ. (ii) All phrasal verbs based on bring,
have, throw and hand are transitive. The bring set has type III bring [X]
about/along/down/in/off/on/out/round/up/to, type IV bring [X] under
[Y], and type VI bring [X] around to/out in [YJ.
(b) Some simple verbs are ambi-transitive and phrasal verbs based
on them fall into two classes — intransitive phrasal verbs that relate to the
intransitive simple verb, and transitive phrasal verbs that relate to the
causative simple verb. Stand, for instance, enters into intransitive stand
down/off/out, and stand by [X], stand in (for fXJ), stand out from/up
for [X] ; and transitive stand [X] off/over/up/down. Other verbs in this
category include run, turn, hang, break and roll.

(c) Some simple verbs can optionally include a preposition before
what is (if there is no preposition) the direct object noun phrase, e.g.
pull the rope/pull on the rope, cut the rope/cut through the rope, pass
the house/pass by the house. A number of intransitive phrasal verbs based
on transitive simple verbs appear to be built on a principle that is similar
to the literal pattern, e.g. cut through [all the bureaucracy], pull on
[a pipe], and perhaps pick on.
(d) Some simple verbs can omit an object noun phrase, and then
have reflexive meaning, e.g. wash, dress. A number of intransitive phrasal
verbs, based on transitive simple verbs, may also be of this type, e.g.
put up for [X] (as in He put up for treasurer), which does have a transit-
ive congener put [X] up for [Y], and lay off [X] (as in I'll lay off beer),
fill out 'gain weight', which don't.
(e) For a few phrasal verbs the object noun phrase is likely to be
understood on the basis of shared sociocultural knowledge, e.g. He let
off 'He let off a fart', <màHe kicked off'He kicked the ball off the mark-
ed spot to start the soccer match'.
There are about 50 other examples, in the 800-item corpus, of phrasal
verbs with a different transitivity value from that of the simple verb.
Only about a dozen are transitive phrasal verbs based on an intransitive
phrasal verb — laugh [X] off/away, laugh [X] out of [Y], sleep [X]
off, think [X] out/up, dream [X] up, wait/sound [X] out, talk [X]
out of/in to [Y], talk [X] around (and see Kennedy 1920:261; Spasov
1966:45ff).
All the other examples are, like (c), (d) and (e) above, intransitive
phrasal verbs based on a transitive simple verb; I have not been able to
discern any general principles at work. These include [The planes] take
off, catch on to [X], give out 'become exhausted', take after [X] (and
see Kennedy 1920:26). They are, however, greatly outnumbered by
phrasal verbs that have the same transitivity value as their simple verb
component.
10. CLASSIFICATION OF PREPOSITIONS

Two thirds of the corpus of about 800 phrasal verbs involve one of up,
out, off, in, on, down (in that order of frequency); nevertheless, there
are in all about thirty prepositions that enter into phrasal verbs, some
of them in just a single combination.
We can now classify prepositions in terms of the types of phrasal
verb they enter into, and whether left or right movement is possible. The
criteria are summarised in Table 1: '+' indicates that a verb does
In literal
occurrence , can: a.
•-Z
0 .
•O D.
O Cu Are there phrasal ZZ
verbs of types: g^
•aV
'S IM
>
0 ^J 0
o
0
u
¿i
V
Î V
ru Z
c
1
a.
if
a. Z Z
0
0 § a.
Za
ea. s
Q.
S.
2
D.
d*
Z
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
1. on(to)/upon, off + + + + + +
2. over, through + + + + + + +
3. by, across, + * + + + +
•about, (a)round
4. in(to), out (of), + + • *
+ _ + +
up, down, along
5. back, away, + + _ + +
aside, forth,
forward, apart
6. under, behind, +•> + + + _
ahead
7. to + + *
8. with, against, + _
for, at, after
9. before, below, + _ _ _ _
past
10. above, among, _ _
beneath, beside.
between, beyond,
during, from
Table 1. Classification of prepositions

32 R.M.W. DIXON
have, and '—' that it does not have, a certain property; a blank indicates
that the question is inapplicable. '*' indicates that just one or two ex-
amples are known, for some prepositions in the class — right movement
is attested for one instance of by and one of out (section 8) and there is
a single Np construction involving to, bring X to (see section 10.7).
Columns 1-3 relate to the literal use of prepositions. Column 1 en-
quires whether a following noun phrase (or preposition plus noun phrase
from literal combinations involving two prepositions) can be deleted (see
section 4), e.g. from He walked along the beach/street (with his head in
the air) we can get He walked along (...), with the object of the prepos-
ition unstated. Column 2 enquires whether, after its object has been de-
leted, the preposition can be moved to the left of a preceding direct ob-
ject noun phrase (section 7). Compare He took Mary round the factory
-y He took Mary round -*- He took round Mary with He took Mary ahead
of the others -*• He took Mary ahead •+ *He took ahead Mary, where left
movement cannot apply. Column 3 enquires about the possibility of right
movement (section 8); this applies to some — but by no means all —
instances of over and through, and to one or two examples of by, about,
round, and out.
Columns 4-6 indicate whether a given preposition is found in the
various structural types of phrasal verb, described in section 5. Basically,
the same prepositions are possible in type I, p, and as the first element of
type V, ppN (column 4); in type II, pN and type IV, NpN (column 5);
and in type III, Np and as the first preposition of type VI, NppN (column
6). The second preposition of ppN and NppN is non-local, and is not
relevant to this classification (see section 5.3). Column 7 enquires whether
left movement of the preposition is possible in Np (or NppN); it will be
seen that column 2 (left movement in literal constructions) and column
7 (left movement from phrasal verbs) give very similar, although not
quite identical, answers.
Prepositions that do not enter into any phrasal verbs simply show
'—' in each of columns 4, 5 and 6.
At, to and from are the three main local prepositions from a literal
point of view, but they play a very minor role in metaphorical combin-
ations. There are a few phrasal verbs with-ai, all of structure pN, e.g.
stick at [X] 'continue with [X] ' and get at [X] 'criticise/nag [X] ;
discover [X] (e.g. the truth)'. To is unusual in having a handful of p and
of pN combinations (see section 10.7); there are no phrasal verbs at all
involving from. In contrast, those prepositions that provide more specific
locational information — in, on, over, through and so on — each enter into
several score phrasal verbs.
10.1 'On' and 'off, 'in' and 'out'. The basic reference of on/off is with
respect to a two-dimensional, and of in/out with respect to a three-
dimensional entity — thus in the box/forest/house, but on the stage/
carpet/ground/floor. Different dialects of English appear to vary in where
they draw the line between two and three dimensions (that is, how great
the third-dimensional 'depth' has to be before it is considered significant),
but the RELATIVE reference of the two sets of prepositions seems
constant. In can sometimes be used for location well within a two-
dimensional area — thus in the middle of as against on the edge of. We can
say John lives in the plain or John lives on the plain, but once the third
dimension is even implied a difference becomes apparent — thus John
lives on the heath has a similar meaning to in/on the plain, while John
lives in the heath conjures up visions of a mouse-sized house dwarfed
by the heather. Once the ground ceases to be flat, the choice disappears:
convexity indicates that it is a two-dimensional SURFACE and demands
on, whereas concavity provides the three-dimensional depth and requires
in — we would say John lives on the hillside (in the hillside demands a
burrow) but John lives in the valley (on the valley is simply impossible
in my dialect).
On; off, in and out can refer either to motion or position. A corres-
pondence can be recognised with at, to and from which effectively refer
to a point (one-dimensional) origin:
Position
Motion Motion distant
approaching Position retreating from
origin at origin from origin origin
One-dimensional to at from
Two-dimensional on(to) on off(of) off (of)
Three-dimensional in(to) in out of out of
The motion senses of in and on are canonically followed by to, although
this can optionally be omitted:
(39) John walked into the house/Mary walked onto the stage.
(40) John walked in the house/Mary walked on the stage.
When in and oh are used in the sense of 'position' they are not followed
by any other preposition. Sentences such as (40) are thus ambiguous
between 'motion to' and 'position at' readings.
Out and off can take a following of, although the details vary from
dialect to dialect. In British and Australian English of is scarcely omissible
after the motion sense of out, whereas in American English He walked
out the house appears acceptable. In contrast, British and Australian
dialects do not nowadays allow off to be followed by of (probably for
reasons of phonological felicity), whereas He walked off of the stage is
perfectly good American. Of, in these combinations, is something like
a conditioned variant of/rom. It is sometimes just possible to effect
left-movement of out or off, and then of must be replaced by from —
He took the milk out of the fridge -*• He took out the milk from the fridge,
She brushed the dirt off the coat -*• She brushed off the dirt from the
coat (and note that a synonym for talk [X] out of [Y] is dissuade [X]
fromfYJ).
34 R.M.W. DIXON
While to and o/MAY be omitted between on/in, off/out and a fol-

lowing noun phrase, they MUST-be omitted when this prepositional
object is not stated — She dragged the dog out of the rose garden ->• She
dragged the dog out. When they have no prepositional object on, in,
off and out can, when used in a motion sense, freely move to the left over
a direct object noun phrase — She dragged out the dog, He put on the
kettle. When they have a position sense the possibilities are more restrict-
ed — object omission is just about impossible after out and off (e.g. not
from He waited off the stage, She lay out of the sun) but is a little easier
after in or on (He left the cat in). Left movement of in or on in a pos-
ition sense is rather restricted — only some speakers find John-left in
the cat to be an acceptable sentence.

There are many phrasal verbs, of all six structural types, involving
on and off. In contrast, in and out enter into phrasal verbs of types p,
ppN, Np and NppN but not pN or NpN. There are in the corpus about
thirty phrasal verbs in which on or off must immediately be followed by
a prepositional object — e.g. [The music] growfsj on [X], lay off [X]
(as in He laid off beer) — but none where in or out can be.
In and out enter into compound prepositions inside, outside, within
and without (referring just to the minor, local sense of without). Whereas
the noun phrase following in, inside, out or outside refers to the complete
three-dimensional entity, that following within or without tends to specify
the surfaces of the entity — within the walls of the city is roughly equival-
ent to in the city and quite different from in the walls of the city. Inside,
outside, within and without can omit a prepositional object, but they
cannot undergo left movement (cf. (h) in section 7.1). They do not enter
into any phrasal verbs.
Upon alternates with on in the latter's positional — but not its
motional — use; omission of the prepositional object — and subsequent
left movement of the preposition — is not possible with upon. For most
phrasal verbs of type II, pN, upon alternates freely with on — bear on/
upon [X], hit on/upon [X]. But upon is not possible in phrasal verbs of
the other five structural types e.g. carry on, have [X] on, slap [X] on [Y]
(e.g. slap another ten dollars on the price), hang on to [X] 'keep [X] '
Sndput [X] on to [Y].
10.2 'Over' and 'through'. Over has at least four distinct literal senses, all
of which can be distinguished for John jumped over the wall: (i) he jump-
ed from this side, over the top, to the other side; (ii) he jumped up and
down on the other side of the wall; (iii) he jumped up and down above the
wall — suppose a Roman wall is known to be below a certain spot, on
which John jumped; (iv) he jumped from one side of the top of a wide
wall to the other side of the wall. The distinction between (i) and (iv) can
be seen in the substitutability of across in the latter sense only (cf. John
jumped over/across the stream/road).
Senses (i) and (iv) involve motion — the prepositional object noun
phrase can be omitted, and left movement of over is then permitted.
However, the position senses, (ii) and (iii), do not permit any omission
or movement.
Through is related to the three-dimensional prepositions in and out;
it indicates 'into some entity and out of the other side of it'. Across,
and sense (iv) of over relate to on and off in exactly the same way — walk
into the house, walk out of the house, walk through the house and walk
onto the carpet, walk off the carpet, walk over/across the carpet.
Both over and through occur in a tair selection of phrasal verbs, of
all six structural types. Left movement of the preposition is freely allowed
in phrasal verbs, as in literal constructions. In addition, over and through
provide the largest number of examples of right movement of the pre-
position over Np O (for some literal combinations and for phrasal verb
look through, and perhaps also look over).
10.3 'By', 'across', 'about' and '(a)round'. In literal constructions these
four prepositions all allow the prepositional object noun phrase to be
omitted, if it could be understood from the context. Speakers vary in
their opinions concerning whether or not left movement of the prepos-
ition is acceptable. He brought across the raft seems alright; and while
He took about his maiden aunt, She showed round the visitors and He-
brought by his new sports car would, I feel, be likely to pass unnoticed
in actual discourse, they sound only marginally acceptable when studied
in isolation.
Each of these prepositions enters into about a dozen phrasal verbs,
which do span all of the structural types, e.g. get by 'survive, be success-
ful', stand by [X] 'support [X] ', bring [X] about 'cause [X] to happen',
come across with [X] 'give/hand over [X] ', bring [X] round to [Y]
'convert [X] to believe in [Y], etc.'. Left movement applies freely with
phrasal verbs of type Np involving by, across and about but only to some
of those containing (a)round — kick around the idea is quite acceptable,
bring around the patient a little less good, while the preposition cannot
move over the direct object from talk John round 'alter John's opinion'.
Around and round alternate freely in a number of phrasal verbs.
There are some, however, where only around is permitted, e.g. sleep
around, kick [the idea] around; and there are one or two where round
is definitely preferred, e.g. talk [X] round.
10.4 'Up', 'down' and 'along'. Up, down, in and out are amongst the most
popular components of phrasal verbs — on and off enter into more com-
binations then down, but less than up and out (in scores about the same
number as o//). 1 3 Yet these four, together with along, do not enter into
any phrasal verbs of type pN or NpN, where the sole preposition must
immediately be followed by a prepositional object noun phrase. All five
[13] The 800-item corpus included (counting the single preposition in phrasal
verbs of types p, Np, pN and NpN, and the first preposition in double phrasal
verbs ppN and NppN): up 153, out 101, off 78, in 76, on 67, down 50, over
42, through 28. No other preposition scored as many as 20.
36 R.M.W. DIXON
do freely permit omission of the prepositional object in literal construct-

ions, and left movement of both literal and phrasal verb prepositions.
Up and down pose an interesting problem for our 'underlying struc-
ture' analysis. For prepositions like off and on we suggested that any con-
struction in which off and on were not followed by a noun phrase could
be related to an underlying structure in which they were (that what are
often called 'adverbial' uses of these words can be related to their prepos-
itional uses); thus John pulled his shoes off and Mary brought the cat in
are held to be related to sentences like John pulled his shoes off his feet
and Mary brought the cat in to the kitchen.
Now John walked up or Mary slid down would seem to be analog-
ous to John walked in or Mary ran out. We could argue that just as there
must be some three-dimensional entity with respect to which one goes
in or comes out, so there must be some angled surface with respect to
which one progresses up or down. John walked up and Mary carried the
parcel up would then be parallel to John walked up the hill and Mary
carried the parcel up the stairs. We could say, as we did in section 4,
that a prepositional object can be omitted when it could be inferred from
the context, or from shared sociocultural knowledge, or the like.
This argument runs into difficulties with sentences like The bird
flew up or The bird carried a worm up in its beak. These just imply up-
ward movement, not motion up along a surface. A prepositional object
noun phrase could NOT be added to the sentence, as a further specific-
ation, as it can after any clause-final occurrence of in, out, on, off,
over, through, along, etc. The solution is to recognise that in addition to pre-
positions up and down there are also adverbs upwards and downwards,
and that these can be shortened to just up and down (cf. Fraser 1974:
49-51). Now, any clause ending with up or down can be expanded by the
addition EITHER of a prepositional object noun phrase, OR of -wards.14
Along enters into just about half-a-dozen phrasal verbs, of types p,
Np and ppN, e.g. come along 'grow', string [X] along 'misinform [X] ',
go along with [X] 'agree with [X]'. It behaves like in and out; there is
even an alternate form alongside which is like inside and outside in permit-
ting omission of the prepositional object, but in not being able to move to
the left over a direct object.
10.5 'Back', 'away', 'forth', 'forward', 'apart', 'aside'. These forms are all
traditionally classed as adverbs. They do, however, behave in many ways
like in, out, on and off. Compare the combination away from with out
of and in(to) in She came out of the door and ran away from the house
as he came in(to) the room or Out of the door she came and away from the
house she ran. Back, away, forth and forward all implicitly refer to some
[14] A similar treatment may be appropriate for some instances of in and out
in terms of inward(s) and outward(s). There is also onward(s), corresponding
to just one restricted sense of on, but no corresponding adverb based on off.
See Fraser 1974:49-51.
point of origin, just as do prepositions such as at, to, from, in, out, on and
off (but not adverbs like upwards and downwards).
All six prepositions can immediately follow a direct object noun
phrase, and back, away and aside can be moved to the left of it, just like
the prepositions discussed in sections 10.1-4. Thus She hid the present
away /She hid away the present; He took the deficient item back/He took
back the deficient item. Note that true adverbs cannot intrude between
verb and direct object — *She hid quickly the present, *He flew upwards
the plane. Back, away and aside behave much more like prepositions than
like adverbs (in contrast, backwards patterns like an adverb). Forth,
forward and apart are much more limited in meaning and use, but they
do behave like back, etc., in literal occurrences and especially in phrasal
verbs.
There are about a dozen phrasal verbs based on each oí back and
away, half-a-dozen based on aside and just two or three which involve
forth, forward and apart. These are all of the types p, Np and ppN. They
are exactly like in, out, up, down and along in not entering into phrasal
verbs that must have a prepositional object (i.e. types pN and NpN);
they also resemble them in freely permitting left movement of the pre-
position in the Np type. Examples include: steal away, fall apart, leave
[X] aside, put [X] forward, hold forth (on fXJ) and fall back on [X].
10.6 'Under', 'behind' and 'ahead'. A prepositional object noun phrase
may occasionally be omitted after behind or after under (e.g. a drowning
person, or a hospital patient, can 'go under'), but neither preposition can
undergo left movement. There are a handful of phrasal verbs, of all struc-
tural types, involving under and behind, and left movement is not possible
here either; e.g. go under 'fail', keep [X] under 'suppress [X] ', get behind
with [X] 'not progress sufficiently fast with [X] '.
Ahead is often classified as an adverb. But ahead of [X] seems
parallel to out of [X] ; in both cases o/and the prepositional complement
noun phrase can be omitted. Ahead is, however, like under and behind
— and unlike out — in not undergoing left movement. There are half-a-
dozen phrasal verbs with ahead, all of them of the type p or p(pN), e.g.
fire ahead 'start (e.g. questioning)', go ahead (with [X]) 'proceed (with
[X])'.
10.7 'To'. At first sight to appears to be something of an anomaly. In its
literal use there is little possibility of the prepositional object being omit-
ted — Bolinger (1971:23) mentions just pull the door to 'pull the door
to the jamb', cf. Poutsma 1928-9:420 — yet it enters into about a dozen
phrasal verbs, some of type pN e.g. take to [X] 'take a liking to [X] ',
run to [X] 'afford [X] ', some just p, and even one Np, bring [X] to
'revive [X] '.
There is an historical explanation. Kennedy (1920:23) explains that
[metaphorical] combinations with to are relatively few and since the Eliza-
38 R.M.W. DIXON
bethan period have decreased quite notably. From Shakespeare and his
contemporaries or more immediate successors can be quoted such phrases
as go to, lay to, seal to, set to, stand to. A few are still used commonly in col-
loquial usage, especially come to 'to revive', fall to 'to begin', heave to, turn
to and pull to, push to and put to when applied to the closing of a door.
(See also Meyer 1975:13-14.) This is in marked contrast to other preposit-
ions occurring in phrasal verbs, which have greatly extended their range of
metaphorical combinations since the sixteenth century, and are still being
productively extended (cf. Bolinger 1971:xi-xii; Spasov 1966:23-4).
10.8 Other prepositions. The remaining prepositions can be divided into
three classes. Firstly, there is a set consisting of the non-local preposition
for, the temporal after, and at, with, against, which have both local and
non-local senses. In their literal'use these prepositions do not permit the
prepositional object to be omitted. They enter into a number of phrasal
verbs, all of the types pN and NpN, i.e. with a noun phrase immediately
following the preposition. I have collected almost twenty with for, e.g.
fall for [X] 'be attracted to [X] ', do for [X] 'ruin or kill [X] ', take [X] for
[Y] 'mistakenly think [X] is [Y] '; and between six and nine with each of
the others, e.g. make after [X] 'chase, pursue [X] ', deal with [X] 'handle
[X] ', hold [X] against [Y] 'be prejudiced against [Y] because [Y] was
involved in [X] \
Secondly there is a small group of prepositions which do permit a
prepositional object to be omitted in appropriate circumstances, but do
not undergo left movement, and do not enter into any phrasal verbs (as
far as I have been able to ascertain). They are before, below and past.
The third class answers 'no' to each of the questions in Table 1;
they always demand a prepositional object, and do not form any phrasal
verbs. They include above, among, beneath, beside, between, beyond,
during, anàfrom.
Finally, it should be stressed that the prepositions do not — despite
the tidy appearance of the table — fall into strictly defined sets. Rather,
they range along a continuum, from on, off, over, and through at one
extreme to from and beyond at the other, with respect to the properties
that have been considered here.
11. CONCLUSION
11.1 Syntactic. A phrasal verb is defined as the combination of a verb
with one or more prepositions where the meaning of the combination
cannot be fully inferred from the meanings of the component words.
There is no strict cut-off point, but rather a continuum — ranging from
fully literal combinations like stand on [X], take [X] under [Y], through
go out (of [XJ), put [X] on [YJ, to semi-literal wash [X] down, pich
[X] up, and finally strongly phrasal verbs like have [X] on and put up
with [X],
Phrasal verbs fall into six structural types, (section 5). Those with
underlying configuration (N)pN and some (N)ppN do not differ in struc-
ture from literal constructions. But phrasal verbs of types p, Np, and some
(N)p(pN) differ from literal combinations in that they do END with a
preposition, to which a prepositional object can NOT be appended; for
every literal sentence with a final preposition a prepositional object noun
phrase could be supplied.
The syntactic behaviour of phrasal verbs is exactly like that of literal
constructions. The same constraints and tendencies apply to the -left
movement of a preposition over a preceding direct object noun phrase.
And the limited degree of right movement of a preposition, over its
following prepositional object, applies to literal constructions and to a few
phrasal verbs. As regards passivisation, coordination and gapping, fronting

(in question formation, etc.) and adverb placement, phrasal verbs behave
exactly like literal verb-preposition combinations. There are just a few of
the most idiomatic phrasal verbs which find it easier to passivise on a
prepositional object than is usually the case.
Semantically, phrasal verbs like pick out and pick on are each
single lexical units, requiring an individual dictionary entry. But syn-
tactically they must be regarded as just verb plus preposition. The pre-
position has the same syntactic relationship to the verb in pick on fXJ
as in the literal sentence sit on [X] (cf. Huddleston MS, where the same
constituent structure is assigned to the two types); and similarly the
relationship between verb and preposition in pick [X] out is the same
as that in the literal construction take [X] out (of [Y]).
That is, I am suggesting that John took Mary in (with his sweet line
of jive) be analysed into syntactic constituents in exactly the same way as
John took the coal in(to the house) (with his wheelbarrow). And that
Those tranquillisers saw me through the crisis be assigned the same struc-
tural analysis as John saw Mary through a crack in the wall. The difference
is lexical and semantic. Phrasal verb see through has its first element
associated with the main verb node, and the second element with the
prepositional node, within a prepositional phrase. A regular syntactic
construction is assigned a special significance not because of any special
syntactic relation between verb and preposition in pick on [X] or pick
[X] out or take [X] in or see [X] through [Y], but because of the se-
mantic interpretations that are superimposed on the syntactic construct-
ions by the dictionary entries for these phrasal verbs.
11.2 Semantic. Finally, we can enquire what types of verbs and what
kinds of prepositions most typically enter into phrasal verbs. Logan
Pearsall Smith (1925:251) concluded that 'the richest in idiom' of the
verbs that enter into phrasal verbs are go, come, run, fall, turn, stand,
get, take, 'ook, put, set, lay (I would add bring, pull, cut, hold, keep,
have and ne). He continued 'all of these are what I may perhaps call
, "dynamic" verbs, which express movement or attitudes of the body'.
Fraser (1974:11) commented that 'stative verbs such as know, want,
40 R.M.W. DIXON
see, hear, hope, resemble, etc., practically never combine with a particle'
(i.e. form a phrasal verb). It is also worth noting that the more literal
prepositions a given verb can co-occur with, the more phrasal verbs it is
likely to enter into.
It is mentioned in section 10.1 that although prepositions like on,
off, in and out can refer both to position and to motion, the prepositional
object is much more likely to be freely omissible (and left movement
possible) in the motion sense. This gives a semantic clue as to why certain
prepositons should more freely enter into phrasal verbs — especially pre-
position-final constructions, of types p and Np — than others. The great
majority of phrasal verbs involve a preposition whose main literal refer-
ence is to motion, not to a position of rest. The last two classes in Table
1 — prepositions which do not enter into any phrasal verbs' — are most
typically concerned with position — above, among, before, below, be-
neath, beside, between, beyond, etc.
There is a further factor, to put beside the semantic criterion of
reference to motion, that helps explain which prepositions occur most
frequently in metaphorical combinations: monosyllabic forms are favour-
ed. In fact, every monosyllabic local preposition (excepting the most
general local forms at, to and from) is very well represented in phrasal
verbs, as will be seen from the table. Those disyllabic prepositions which
can occur clause finally — either in a literal construction or in a phrasal
verb — either cannot undergo left movement at all {under, behind, ahead)
or else do so relatively seldom (over, away — see section 7.1).
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Chomsky, N. 1957. Syntactic structures. The Hague: Mouton.
Cowie, A.P. & Mackin, R. 1975. Oxford dictionary of current idiomatic English.
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Davison, A. 1980. Peculiar passives. Lg 56. 42-66.
Eitrem, H. 1903. Stress in English verb + adverb groups. Englische Studien 32.
69-77.
Emonds, J. 1972. Evidence that indirect object movement is a structure preserv-
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Department of Linguistics, [Received 11 November 1981.]

Faculty of Arts, ANU,
PO Box 4,
Canberra, ACT 2600.

Australian Journal of Linguistics Volume 2 Issue 1 1982 (Doi 10.1080/07268608208599280) Dixon, R. M. W. - The Grammar of English Phrasal Verbs

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The grammar of English

To cite this article: R. M. W. Dixon (1982) The grammar of English

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/07268608208599280

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Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of

This paper is an attempt to investigate some of the syntactic properties

with very similar meaning (and self-appointed arbiters of usage have

2.3 Gapping. A superficial examination might suggest that only literal

In fact, the underlying structures we posit perfectly explain the possibil-

(22) He turned suddenly off the road.

appropriate circumstances, as Bolinger (1971:13-15) has shown.

3. THE LITERAL/NON-LITERAL CONTINUUM

of metaphorical extension (they would have to be more sophisticated

4. LITERAL USE OF PREPOSITIONS

It is useful to distinguish two types of preposition. Local prepositions

the 'motion departing' sense; (iv) by marks passive agent, as well as

element), which provides richer semantic information than just position

movement of prepositions is discussed in section 8.

included in the formula. The underlying structures are:

The NppN which do most readily permit left movement, yielding

But there are a few NppN constructions where pN cannot be omitted

(VI) NdoPpNpo a few, e.g. do [X] out of [Y]

6. JUSTIFICATION FOR UNDERLYING STRUCTURES

Traditional grammars of English have found great difficulty in dealing

(but ungrammatical) *brought in him, we simply have to state among the

Other discussions of underlying structure for phrasal verbs, which

7. LEFTWARD MOVEMENT OF PREPOSITION9

preposition combinations (where a final N or pN has been omitted) that

established works of English literature, and found that the preposition

7.1 General considerations. There are a number of constraints — on when

(1919:329) quotes from Punch of 25 December 1915: We'll make up

him/Mary] out 'uncover a person's wrong doings', but this is a separate

ment likely for the latter, was an example of this.

distinction is lost by this prohibition. Right movement does carry a

non-temporal prepositional object — She read the letter through (Wood

and type V come in to/round to/up to/up for/down on/up against/

category include run, turn, hang, break and roll.

10. CLASSIFICATION OF PREPOSITIONS

Table 1. Classification of prepositions

While to and o/MAY be omitted between on/in, off/out and a fol-

the cat to be an acceptable sentence.

do freely permit omission of the prepositional object in literal construct-

phrasal verbs. As regards passivisation, coordination and gapping, fronting

Fraser, B. 1970. Idioms within a transformational grammar. FL 6. 22-52. [Re-

Kennedy, A.G. 1920. The modern English verb-adverb combination. Stanford

Department of Linguistics, [Received 11 November 1981.]

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