Verb-particle combinations may be highly polysemous; quite commonly, the meanings range on a cline from purely compositional to highly idio-matic:
(11) We’d better take in the children’s toys.
(12) They supplement their income by taking in students.
(13) I’ve taken in your trousers, because they were too loose.
(14) Grammar takes in syntax and morphology but not phonology.
(15) I thought we might take in a show after dinner.
(16) I was too tired to take in what she was saying.
(17) I’m not surprised he was taken in: he’s as gullible as a child.
These examples from Huddleston & Pullum (2002: 284) are arranged according to their relative compositionality. Such clines are commonly the result of linguistic change, with older and more recent forms continuing to co-exist. A direct comparison of take in ‘carry inside’ in (11) and take in
‘deceive’ in (17) shows the well-known development from concrete to abstract meaning; cf. the further discussion of lexicalization processes below. Not all phrasal verbs show the full range of idiomaticity as take in in these examples – some will be purely compositional in all uses while others will appear as non-compositional combinations only. These can be assumed to have undergone a lexical development from compositional to non-compositional, with the earlier, compositional meanings lost, while the later non-compositional meanings fossilize (a more detailed treatment of this topic will be provided in the historical discussion in Chapters 3 and 5 below).
In another widespread type of phrasal verbs, the particle may function as an aspectualizer, e.g.:
(18) Newcomen got round this difficulty by fitting a leather skirt on top of the piston, this being kept supple by filling it up with water.EED_299
(BNC)
(19) While Charles listened to all this good advice, he drank up his glass of champagne and felt a bit better. ACE_2531 (BNC)
(20) Abraham talked on, not noticing her lack of attention.GW8_176 (BNC) (21) She chatted away, her hands illustrating her words.CDX_1644 (BNC) At first sight the different semantic types exemplified here may seem rather random and disordered, but they can be divided into three major semantic categories.
2.2.1. Three semantic types
Although it is not always possible to draw clear-cut distinctions, it seems useful to distinguish between three, albeit somewhat idealised, semantic types of phrasal verbs, which have been characterized as ‘literal’, ‘aspec-tual’ and ‘non-compositional’ (or ‘idiomatic’); cf. the tripartite semantic division in König (1973: Ch. 9.4), who takes up comparable earlier classi-fications by Bolinger (1971), Fraser (1965 and 1966), Live (1965) and Makkai (1972) but adds the caveat that it is often difficult to distinguish between adverbial, aspectualizing and idiomatic uses (König 1973: 98).
However, this threefold categorization is better subdivided as shown in Figure 2-1, since both the combinations with a directional and the combi-nations with an aspectualizing particle are semantically compositional and contrast with the non-compositional combinations whose meanings cannot be inferred from their parts.
In keeping with much of the literature, the compositional type with directional particles will here be simply referred to as ‘compositional’, while the compositional type with aspectual particle will be referred to as
‘aspectual’. With the non-compositional combinations, it is by definition not possible to assign particular meanings to the particles. In the following sections, each of these types will be dealt with in some more detail and thereby (if only implicitly) treated as if they were separate categories. At closer inspection, though, it turns out that both the compositional vs. non-compositional and the directional vs. aspectual particles are more properly to be seen along clines reflecting both their synchronic meaning and their diachronic development (for a comprehensive discussion of particle semantics in present-day English, see Cappelle 2005: Ch. 8; cf. also Dirven 2001).
verb-particle combination
compositional non-compositional
directional particle aspectual particle
Figure 2-1. Semantic classification of phrasal verbs
Another well-known semantic classification, proposed by Bolinger (1971), will not be used here (for a discussion of Bolinger’s model, see Hampe 2002). In his discussion of ‘stereotyping’, Bolinger makes a two-fold distinction: (i) between ‘first-level metaphor’, where the literal (‘adverbial’) meaning of the particle is changed, and ‘second-level meta-phor’, where the meaning of the whole phrasal verb is non-literal, and (ii) between ‘first-level stereotype’, where the meaning of the combination is additive, and ‘second-level stereotype’, where the meaning of the combina-tion cannot be inferred from the meaning of its parts (Bolinger 1971: 113–
114). Bolinger’s model, which has not met with widespread acceptance, has a number of inherent problems. These include his choice of terms (e.g. it is usually metonymy rather than metaphor that plays a role in the semantic changes in question, cf. the discussion in Chapter 5 below) but also his choice of categories (which e.g. explicitly include figurative use, a process not specific to phrasal verbs, but not the aspectual combinations).
2.2.2. Compositional constructions
In the compositional constructions, the verb combines with a directional particle and the whole construction is transparent from the meaning of its constituents, e.g.:
(22) Well it reminds me when I was in a shop on the High Street for many years and a little boy and girl came in with a, with an Alsatian dog, a puppy.KM3_748 (BNC)
(23) Fold forward and remove the four bolts which go into the floor and carry the seat out.AN2_1732 (BNC)
The formation of such compositional constructions is a process whose productivity can be illustrated by the exchangeability of verbs and particles (cf. the similar examples discussed in Jackendoff 2002: 74):
(24)
George
tossed took put carried threw
the food
up.
in.
away.
back.
out.
In such syntagms, the paradigmatic insertion of any verb and any particle seems possible, as long as the combination of verb and particle allows an
interpretation of motion through space, with the particle expressing the di-rection and the verb expressing the kind of the verbal action.
Characteristically, the directional particles in the compositional con-structions can be replaced by directional prepositional phrases:
(25) George carried the food into the house.
The directional particles can be fronted, cf. the inverted order in (26) with the particle in sentence-initial position. Again, directional prepositional phrases can also occur in this position, cf. (27).
(26) Then the door opened, and in came Felix, Sophie, and Agatha.H8G_451
(BNC)
(27) Into the shop came a young and very hot couple, leaving their bi-cycles outside.H9Y_83 (BNC)
Particles preceding the object can never be replaced in such a way, though.
Thus George carried in the food is possible but *George carried into the house the food is impossible.
It deserves to be pointed out that only the compositional combinations show the full range of syntactic properties typical of phrasal verbs, and that the restriction of the syntactic possibilities clearly goes along with different semantic properties. This is why an exclusion of the compositional combi-nations from the phrasal verbs seems problematic. Quirk et al. (1985: § 16.2 et passim), who would seem to advocate such an approach, do not provide any kind of explanation why the syntactic properties they list are also (and only) possible with other kinds of combinations of verb and par-ticle. In fact, by excluding the compositional combinations from the phrasal verbs by definition (since phrasal verbs are ‘multi-word verbs’ and these in turn are defined as ‘idiomatic’), Quirk et al. (1985) somehow fail to provide an account of their syntactic properties at all, which they do not discuss elsewhere either. Cf. the rather self-contradictory discussion by one of the co-authors of the grammar:
Multi-word verbs are combinations of verbs with other words that form an idiomatic unit, inasmuch as the meaning of the combination cannot be predicted from the meaning of the parts … In free combinations [treated as a sub-category of phrasal verbs, which in their turn are treated as a sub-category of multi-word verbs, ST], the verbs and the particles are both transparent in meaning. (Greenbaum 2000: § 11.18)
The problem here is connected to the dubious category ‘multi-word verb’
(cf. Section 2.4.5 below).
2.2.3. Aspectual constructions
As is well known, the enormous literature on aspect and aktionsart is cha-racterised by considerable terminological confusion (cf. e.g. Brinton 1988:
Ch. 1 and Bußmann 2008: s.vv., and the references there; see also Comrie 1976, the contributions in Vetters & Vandeweghe 1991 and Binnick 2001).
Kortmann (1991) suggests drawing the distinction along the following lines:
ASPECT: grammatical category; non-deictic; concerned with situation-internal time; presentation of some situation as incomplete/in progress/existent (‘from within’) or complete (‘from without’) at a given point/period in time;
AKTIONSART: lexical category; non-deictic; concerned with situation-internal time; temporal constitution inherent in the meaning of the verb (whether sim-plex, comsim-plex, or verbal syntagm) or predicate. (Kortmann 1991: 19)
Here these definitions are adopted, while the term aspectualizer is used as a cover term for both aspect and aktionsart marking, not least since the observation that the difference between aspect and aktionsart is one of grammatical vs. lexical coding along a (synchronic and diachronic) cline appears to be very much in favour of Sasse’s proposal to altogether abandon the term aktionsart. This would also seem to fit in with the con-structional approach taken here (cf. Section 2.6.4 below):
Aspectuality is always a matter of the correlation of lexical semantics and TAM [viz. tense–aspect–mood] categories, and can be ordered along a continuum from zero lexical and maximal grammatical distinctions to maximal lexical and zero grammatical distinctions. (Sasse 1991: 44)
Consequently the use of aktionsart should be seen as a mere shorthand for
‘lexical aspect’ (for a comprehensive discussion of the aspectual impact of the particles, see Cappelle 2005: Ch. 8).
Aspectual constructions might be treated as a sub-group of the compo-sitional constructions, since their meaning is usually fully transparent and readily understandable ad hoc formations are possible, e.g.:
(28) And having another baby to use the clothes up seems a little extra-vagant.K4P_1490 (BNC)
But the particles in these constructions are not directional but aspectual and they typically mark telic aktionsart, as shown by Brinton (1985), cf. e.g.
(29) and (30):
(29) He used our supplies.
(30) He used our supplies up.
Clearly, the difference between (29) and (30) with the added particle up is that in the second sentence the verbal event of the first sentence is pre-sented as directed towards a final stage that is not expressed by the simple verb (although completion may in principle be part of the meaning of a simple verb, e.g. He finished our supplies), i.e. the particle introduces “the concept of a goal or an endpoint to durative situations which otherwise have no necessary terminus” (Brinton 1985: 160). Thus completely in (31) only serves to intensify the particle in a largely synonymous sentence (cf.
Peters 1993 on intensification):
(31) He used our supplies completely up.
An apparently redundant use of aspectualizing particles is possible, as in (32) or (33), where the aktionsart meaning of the particle is already present in the simple verb:
(32) Chico finished up his drink.HTU_3724 (BNC)
(33) … so they didn’t come, and I didn't go out and Gemma came up and I was sitting there talking and they had a drop, drop of wine and I had one with erm and Gemma finished her biscuits up …KC2_1222
(BNC)
This is not normally encountered with the directional particles, i.e. pleo-nastic constructions (as in *He entered the room in) are less common, although not impossible:
(34) The hugely distended stomach had to be decompressed before it could be returned back into the abdomen, and the defect in the left hemidiaphragm (6×5 cm) was repaired with 2-;0 silk sutures.FT2_1308
(BNC)
Conversely, fronting of the particle is not possible with the aspectualizing particles (e.g. *Up he ate).
Quite clearly it is up that is the most central aspectualizer among the particles, both in terms of frequency and of meaning. Besides up, a rather restricted set of other particles can be used as aspectualizer, e.g. down as in the following example:
(35) Spitting it on to the floor, he raised the half-empty bottle to his lips and drank down the fiery vodka in great gulps, as if to drown the useless curses which rose in his throat.CDA_602 (BNC)
(36) She swallowed down a mouthful of wine.JY9_1827 (BNC)
As these examples with down indicate, the distinction between composi-tional and aspectual may be somewhat blurry, since the particle in (35) and (36) is both directional and aspectual. In fact, this overlap provides the con-text for the development of aspectualizing particles out of spatial ones; cf.
the discussion in Chapter 5 below.
The particles out, over and through are also found as telic aspectual-izers, e.g.:
(37) With that beat I needed a really stomping guitar line to go with it so I worked it through in my head and then worked out the chords on the piano.C9L_2186 (BNC)
(38) Bill Murray spent £50,000 on setting up his restaurant at Telegraph Hill, near Exeter, Devon, two years ago but said the business started to go downhill when he handed it over to a manager to run.A0C_167
(BNC)
Not all aspectualizing particles are telic, though. The two particles on and along, for example, may function as continuative (i.e. atelic) aspectual-izers, e.g.:
(39) Abraham talked on, not noticing her lack of attention.GW8_176 (BNC) (40) In the end, Mungo reasoned that the old man had probably been
driving along, had somehow caught a glimpse of him, and had taken a short cut from the road.ACV_152 (BNC)
Away is near-synonymous to on, too, but in addition it tends to intensify the verbal event, e.g.:
(41) Breeze talked away for all she was worth as she cut bread-and-butter in the draughty old kitchen, but she knew that her sister wasn’t really listening.BMU_665 (BNC)
To sum up, in the aspectual combinations the particles are used in a semantically transparent way, which may overlap considerably with the
‘literal’, i.e. directional, use of the particles. Another specific characteristic of the aspectual combinations is the occurrence of ‘pleonastic’ combina-tions, where the aspectual value of the particle is also part of the aktionsart of the verb alone.
2.2.4. Idiomatic constructions
Brinton & Traugott (2005: 32) point out that the term lexicalization has been used variously in the literature. In its broadest sense, the term may refer to synchronic word formation processes, more narrowly to fusion with decreasing compositionality but also to processes of separation with in-creasing autonomy. Here the term will be used in a more narrow sense, but broadly enough to encompass institutionalized uses of phrasal verbs which are not idiomatic, and I will refer only to those lexicalized combinations as idiomatic whose meaning is non-transparent (on idiomatization and lexi-calization cf. e.g. Brinton & Traugott 2005 or Bußmann 2008: s.vv. and the references there, and see the discussion of idiomaticity in Chapter 6 below).
Thus the idiomatic constructions are different from the two preceding groups in that their meaning cannot be inferred from the meaning of their elements; they belong, quite unambiguously, to the lexicon, as a few exam-ples suffice to show:
(42) My husband actually said to me that giving up smoking was easy because he’s done it plenty of times.JJP_385 (BNC)
(43) In the following extract we see that an equally offensive act is one in which a soft teacher tries to assert authority, but when challenged gives in.ECN_742 (BNC)
(44) Farmers, sailors, and chemists get by perfectly well on the basis of everyday experience, without recourse to Aristotelian logic.ABM_469
(BNC)
(45) He could not make it out, nor could he trust his own memory.BNF_1301
(BNC)
(46) After she hangs up on Mark, Martha takes a deep breath and dials a London number.HGU_3802 (BNC)
For the idiomaticity of a construction there is some syntactic evidence.
With the idiomatic constructions, the positional variants typically tend to be more restricted, cf. (45) above and the following example:
(47) *… and out he made it.
This last property is shared with the aspectual combinations, although the reason for this is more evident in the case of the present category: since no clearly identifiable meaning can be ascribed to the particle, it is unlikely to be focalised in an inversion.
Similarly, coordination of either of the elements in idiomatic phrasal verbs usually results in zeugma, as in (48) and (49), while it is common with compositional combinations, as in (50):
(48) ??He could not make it out or up.
(49) ??He could not make and carry it out.
(50) Oh well I think I’ll just play with the tab and make it pop in and out a few times.H61_413 (BNC)
Idiomatic phrasal verbs are certainly the type that has attracted most atten-tion, in particular in the more popular literature (e.g. in style guides, etc.) and in the teaching of English as a foreign language (cf. the discussion of this in Section 2.5 and in Chapter 6). But clear-cut boundaries between the three semantic classes are virtually impossible to draw, since very often literal, aspectual and idiomatic combinations are highly contiguous. More-over, it is worth pointing out that even though non-compositionality may be the prototypical semantic characteristic of the phrasal verbs, it is only in the compositional (transitive) phrasal verbs where the full range of syntactic properties is displayed.