English grammar - Roger Berry 2012

B7.2 Distinguishing phrasal and prepositional verbs
B7 Multi-word verbs
Section B Development

Phrasal verbs and prepositional verbs have a lot in common. If we take a typical prepositional verb, such as look after, we can see that, like look up, its meaning is idiomatic. If we say

I looked after the cat

there is no idea of looking, nor indeed of ’after’. And if we make a question and answer

What did you look after? The cat

we get the same structure as for look up, where the cat appears as the object of the verb. However, there is one crucial difference.

Activity B7.1

Which of these two sentences is incorrect?

1. I looked the word up.

2. I looked the cat after.

So what is up in sentence 1? It is not a preposition according to our definition (because it does not go with a noun phrase). It is usually called a ’particle’, or ’adverb particle’ (making it another type of adverb to add to the list in B4). Phrasal verbs such as look up are combinations of verb + particle. The particle has nothing to do with any following noun phrase; the fact that it can be placed after the object, as in sentence 1 above, shows this. Particle movement is a key technique for distinguishing (transitive) phrasal and prepositional verbs.

Activity B7.2

Decide whether the verbs in the sentences below are phrasal or prepositional by seeing if the ’little word’ can be moved.

1. Don’t look at the floor.

2. Who carried out the attack?

3. Let’s wait for them a bit longer.

4. I have found out nothing.

5. Everything depends on your answer.

6. Why did you put on those shoes?

7. Cars always break down at inconvenient times.

One reason for confusing phrasal and prepositional verbs is that particles look like prepositions; indeed, their membership overlaps extensively (cf. determiners and pronouns in A3). But some words can only be particles: out (in standard English), away and back are the most common ones. And most prepositions cannot be particles, e.g. to, at.