Talk:English phrasal verbs

Phrasal verbs in other languages

There's a number of verbs that are originally made of a verb and a particle joined together, such as understand, undertake, forgive and so on. Supposedly, in English they were predecessors of phrasal verbs - there still are separable verbs in German, which work like something in between ('aufstehen' becomes 'stehen *** auf'). And the fact is, verbs made of a prefix particle and a verb are really often in Indo-European languages - I personally also know they are in Ancient Greek, Latin (and, consequently, French / Spanish / Italian / etc) and Russian.

I'm not a linguist, so it's just a piece of idea for someone who actually knows if that's a piece of information that worths adding to the article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 14.200.83.169 (talk) 15:16, 4 March 2022 (UTC)

Your description of word compounding differs from the phrasing comprehended by phrasal verbs as construed in English. Kent Dominic·(talk) 13:12, 6 May 2022 (UTC)

As the article already says, English particle verbs and German separable verbs are independent but parallel developments of old verb prefixes. That much is true. However, the point of talking about "phrasal verbs" is to explain to language students why there are verb phrases containing extra words. There is really no merit in including verbs where the prefix is still a prefix. The use of prefixes is a basic element of all Indo-European languages, and in all the languages you mention, elements like "under" can be prefixes, prepositions, adverbs or particles, since they migrate easily from one part of speech to another in the course of a language's history. --Doric Loon (talk) 14:06, 6 May 2022 (UTC)

Particle verbs do exist in every Germanic language and the so-called separable verbs of the Continental West Germanic languages (primarily known by the major written languages (High) German and Dutch) are just a form of them and a result of the (underlying) verb-object word order of these languages. 2A0A:A541:10F4:0:2942:173E:5F5B:CC8B (talk) 21:51, 5 October 2023 (UTC)

Apology re recent change to lede definition

My edit from moments ago represents a lede that is hugely at odds with the definition in my own lexicon, which limits the concept of a phrasal verb to collocations excluding the following –

1. verb + adverb e.g., talk fast
2. verb + preposition e.g., it comes in three colors
3. verb + particle + preposition e.g., put up with
4. verb + noun/pronoun + particle e.g., piss them off; took the signs down

In short, I consider phrasal verbs as limited solely to verb + particle as collocated without an intervening noun/pronoun. In my book, the four items ID'd above are verb phrases although #3 from above is a verb phrase that entails the put up phrasal verb followed by with (someone or something) as a predicative object. My apology: My edit to the lede leaves intact the adverb and preposition elements traditionally associated with phrasal verbs and as had been presented in the article. Please don't shoot the messenger for emending the lede's semantics without emending its substance. I'm just abiding by the WP:OR guidelines. Cheers. --Kent Dominic·(talk) 14:02, 6 May 2022 (UTC)

I agree that it is far better to restrict the term "phrasal verb" to the particle construction. As a teacher, that's what I do too. Unfortunately, the grammar books are inconsistent, so we have to do justice to a complicated situation. But I think we are at least beginning to become more precise about what types are meant. --Doric Loon (talk) 14:27, 6 May 2022 (UTC)

It boils down to swimming against a tide of traditional grammars that mix up terminology in naive ways. My challenge both here and in my own work: how to simply and effectively describe stuff without sacrificing precision. Soldier on! Kent Dominic·(talk) 15:45, 6 May 2022 (UTC)

Apology re lede, Part II

The current lede continues to be at odds with how I'd characterize phrasal verbs if left to my druthers, but it now more closely reflects current theory and practice. Feel free to add cites and/or editing tweaks, as needed. --Kent Dominic·(talk) 21:58, 7 May 2022 (UTC)

Shifting

The section on Shifting characterizes its occurrence when objects "are very light." I know of no source for light objects. Indeed, the whole section describes tmesis rather than shifting since there's nothing "noncanonical" about a transitive object that immediately follows a transitive verb. Fair notice: I'm eventually gonna take a scalpel to the section unless someone beats me to it. --Kent Dominic·(talk) 17:57, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

what prasal verb mean 152.36.220.115 (talk) 01:42, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

Requested move 4 December 2023

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: Not moved. There isn't consensus to move to the singular "English phrasal verb" either, at least in this discussion. (non-admin closure) BegbertBiggs (talk) 22:57, 13 December 2023 (UTC)

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English phrasal verbs → Phrasal verb – WP:SINGULAR and WP:OVERPRECISION. The article was boldly moved in 2021 for disambiguation, but disambiguation from what? There is no hatnote indicating other Wikipedia articles that discuss phrasal verbs in non-English languages. It also does not seem clear why the topic was made plural in that move. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 21:34, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

Oppose at an article titled "phrasal verb(s)", I'm expecting a linguistic overview of the general concept as it exists in multiple languages. Given that phrasal verbs occur in other languages the title should clarify that the scope is restricted to English. (t · c) buidhe 23:06, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose per buidhe ; WP:PRECISE the proposed title lacks precision, as it is not a general article on the concept of phrasal verbs -- 65.92.247.90 (talk) 07:51, 6 December 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose; the proposed title would be the right place for a new article on the broader topic if you want to write one. This article would not benefit from being broadened to include full details of world languages. Sometimes we need articles that aim for depth rather than breadth, and that is what this one should do. Doric Loon (talk) 08:05, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

  Actually, when I think about it, I'm not sure there is a broader topic. Although this article talks about similar constructions in other languages, I am not aware that the term "phrasal verb" is actually used in the grammar of those languages. Analyzed in this particular way, I suspect that this is a purely English phenomenon. Doric Loon (talk) 17:21, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

• Any opinions on the WP:SINGULAR aspect? —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 15:55, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

  If you were to propose a move to English phrasal verb I could go along with it on analogy to Germanic strong verb etc. But keep "English" in the title please. Doric Loon (talk) 17:18, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

  It is not unusual for the outcome of an RM to be a renaming that is different from what was proposed. Removing "English" doesn't seem popular in this conversation so far, but I don't notice an objection to making the title singular. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 18:11, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose I think the title is perfect. Denisarona (talk) 16:21, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

• Support: As it now stands, the article itself suggests that 'The category "phrasal verb" is mainly used in English as a second language teaching.' (Italics added for emphasis.) Which raises the question, for me anyway, how is the phrasal verb concept applied in other languages? Any such evidence argues in favor of the article's title change. Kent Dominic·(talk) 15:37, 10 December 2023 (UTC)

  Well, surely the point is, we have no evidence of the category being used in any other languages. We have evidence of parallel phenomena in other languages being made points of comparison in order to understand the English concept better, but not of those languages using this category themselves. Doric Loon (talk) 16:31, 10 December 2023 (UTC)

  Then, remedies in the alternative: (A) Support the move/renaming, or (B) remove "mainly" from the sentence quoted above from the article's Types section. Kent Dominic·(talk) 18:17, 10 December 2023 (UTC)

  Ah, I see. "Mainly" was meant to mean that the term is sometimes also used in other areas of English studies besides language teaching. I think I wrote that sentence, so apologies if it was not clear, but I don't think it ever intended to say "mainly English but also other languages." Feel free to reword. Doric Loon (talk) 10:19, 11 December 2023 (UTC)

  Doric, I reworded it accordingly. In so doing, I deep-sixed the reference to "prepositional verb", which (I know, I know) is part of the ESL erudition but not, IMHO, a cromulent description re the pertinent syntax. I hope the rewording looks pretty, but the editor who's part of the "comprised of" police is likely to have something to say about that. Cheers. Kent Dominic·(talk) 14:32, 11 December 2023 (UTC)

  Not clear if it's mainly used in ESL. Book search overwhelmingly gives that impression, but academic search does not. What is clear, is that the market for ESL books has increased twentyfold since 1960, probably a result of commercial interest in serving the vast and growing number of ESL students reflecting the hegemony of English as the de facto global language established over this period. Mathglot (talk) 21:48, 12 December 2023 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Perhaps a bad idea for good intentions

Is there anything someone can cite for the proposition that the so-called full infinitive (aka a to-infinitive) constitutes a phrasal verb as an infinitive verb collocated with "to" as a prepositive adverbial particle? Any editor who's hell-bent on finding such a cite and accordingly adding a pertinent section to this article would be my hero. Here's to a discussion of how a full infinitive may be deemed a phrasal verb nominalized as a subject (e.g. "To be a medical doctor requires a proper license") or as part of a predicate object (e.g. "I want to be free"). Kent Dominic·(talk) 15:01, 11 December 2023 (UTC)

That would be a new one on me, and I don't really buy it. You're right that the full infinitive can be a subject in the example sentence you give, but so can the gerund: "Being a medical doctor requires a proper licence." There are bound to be a range of theories about what is going on there. But I can't see how any of them could involve this being a phrasal verb.

If I understand correctly, you are saying that "I want to go" is a (phrasal?) verb "want" followed by a preposition "to" and a noun "go". That indeed is how it would have been understood in Old English (complete with dative noun inflections on the infinitive), but I don't know of any analysis that sees the infinitive marker "to" as still being a preposition today. And I don't see how it is going to help anyone to say that "go" is a noun.

Besides, we say in the article that a phrasal verb in the strict sense is a particle verb (type 1), and that verbs with prepositions (type 2) are only phrasal verbs (if at all) when the collocation is semantically unintuitive. But what you are suggesting would be type 2 with no semantic difficulty. Doric Loon (talk) 21:27, 11 December 2023 (UTC)

I totally empathize with all of that except to quibble how "I want to go" includes to as a particle, not a preposition. The "to go" full infinitive item thus is a particle + verb rather than the verb + particle construct primarily addressed in the article. I don't include a to-infinitive under the rubric of a phrasal verb in my own work, but I often get the nagging feeling that someone in a far corner of the linguistic world is going to criticize me for not doing so. I do think such a person would have a valid analysis that "I want to go" comprises want as a transitive verb and to go as a predicate object in the form of a nominalized verb phrase (according to you, thankfully, and everyone else, I hope) but NOT a phrasal verb and NOT a noun. Cheers for the input. Kent Dominic·(talk) 13:47, 13 December 2023 (UTC)

F. Schmidt

@Mathglot, in your recent edit summary you mentioned that before the term was used in its modern sense, it was used by F. Schmidt (1900) in a different sense. Since I don't have that book here, could you possibly tell us what Schmidt meant by it? I don't know if that belongs in the article, but at least here on talk it would be good to air it to give us more context. Thanks. Doric Loon (talk) 10:27, 13 December 2023 (UTC)

@Doric Loon: I may have been too conservative in my edit summary; upon second glance, it's not entirely clear to me that it is being used in a different sense. It may, in fact, be the modern sense, or a precursor or more likely subset of the modern sense. It's a bit difficult to determine from context, and it's hapax, which makes it even harder.

Note. The phrasal verb speke of often occurs in the passive voice without the preposition, e.g., 'these (sc. textis) whiche schulen be spoken' 477; 'the now spoken bokis' 47; 'in the manner of leefulnes spoken before' 161.

— Frederik Schmidt, Studies in the Language of Pecock, (1900) p. 48

(This is page 48, but when I found it before, I distinctly recall it was p. 51, and I can't account for the difference. Perhaps a different edition or reprint?) Upon further examination, this does appear to be the modern sense, at least in the sense of a non-idiomatic use of verb + particle (prep.) where the meaning is easily determinable from the phrase. This isn't obvious from the limited context of the quotation on p. 48 and the somewhat opaque wording, but if you go back to p. 47, it becomes clearer what Schmidt is talking about in context, in his § 61. where he gives examples including spoken of, and attended to, as in, "the feith in oon God is so weel attended to". Schmidt discusses the separation of the preposition from the noun ("substantive") and some of the examples in Pecock's Middle English are hard to understand, but the examples of "brougte in and offrid up" seem clear. Schmidt may be attempting a description, if not quite a definition of 'phrasal verb' on the cusp of pp. 47–48:

In the former group of verbs, what was originally a preposition is turned into an adverb and forms with the preceding verb a species of compound; in the latter, the combination of verb + adverb (or separable particle) is earlier, a fact, which may have contributed in measure to the formation given in the other group. This kind of assimilation is especially illustrated by examples where verbs of both groups are coordinated with each other, e.g., 'the freelnes of the persoon ougte bi rigt be fougt agens and be leid away 514, or where the same verb is combined twice with a particle, which sometimes has the function of a preposition, sometimes that of an adverb."

This sure sounds like he's describing (some subset of) phrasal verbs to me, and then two sentences later, he uses the term phrasal verb on the same page, referring to one example of what he was just talking about.

If this stands up to scrutiny, we may have back-dated first use of the term a quarter century, which would be exciting. Obviously, we can't use any of this analysis in the article, as it would be WP:OR, so I'd look for confirmation, first. If it doesn't hold up, then that's that; but I think it would be worth a query to Linguist List, and if that leads to a response online, we could use that as the citation. Even more exciting (at least to me) than possibly backdating first use of the term, is that we may have found some of the first usages of phrasal verbs in English, in the writings of Pecock, or perhaps Wycliffe, at least according to Schmidt, who says:

This separation of the substantive from its governing preposition (see Paul, Prinzipien, § 204) would seem to be an original characteristic of Pecock's style, since Mätzner (II, 67) and Kellner (Eng. Stud. XXII, 81) give but few instances before his time, mostly from Wycliffe.

Note that there is an earlier reference to phrasal insertion from Am J Philology (1881) "On the Position of 'Rhematic To", p. 458, again about Pecock, and again mentioning 'Wickliffe'. However, this use seems to be more about what I'd call a split infinitive. I hope this provides the additional context you requested, and is helpful.

If I had more time, I'd write to Linguist List and follow up all those citations from Schmidt, to see what more could be learned, and hopefully use the result as a kernel of a history section, which the article currently lacks. If you have the time and the inclination, I'd love to see what you find out. Cheers, Mathglot (talk) 20:10, 14 December 2023 (UTC)

@Mathglot Thank you so much for taking the time to write such a full response. I am certain you are right: Schmidt's is an earlier use of the term, though the way he writes it, it sounds like he is not really aware of it as "a term", so much as as a brief description. And yes, the Middle English examples he is citing are undoubtedly phrasal verbs in the modern sense.

It would certainly be possible to add Pecock examples to the article, citing Schmidt as a source - that is not OR as Schmidt is a respectable RS for that. And it would might even possible to list Schmidt as one who used the term, at least in a footnote, though for that we would be citing him himself as a primary source, and wouldn't have a secondary source, which means we couldn't put great weight on it. What we can't do without a secondary source is to say he was the first to use the term. Doric Loon (talk) 07:49, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

I agree, I thought it was descriptive use as well, not yet gelled as a term. Had it been a new term, he might have put it in double quotes, or said something about where he heard it (or not; don't know the fella!) Anyway, if you think it's ready for the article (not as coiner, I agree with you on that we still need a 2ary source) please go ahead and do so. Would still love to get further input from the Linguist List angle; have you ever contacted them? I did, and got an online response (but that was years ago) which is perfect, because then you can cite it; responders are usually working linguists at universities. Mathglot (talk) 08:27, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

I think it probably can be added, but I'd like to mull it over a little longer. I am not on Linguist List, but I agree I'd be very interested in what they have to say, if you do find time to mail them. Doric Loon (talk) 10:06, 15 December 2023 (UTC)