Phrasal Verbs: Their Teaching and Acquisition (original) (raw)
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THE NATURE OF ENGLISH PHRASAL VERBS: A SYNTACTICO- SEMANTIC INVESTIGATION
Journal of Communicative English, 2017
The main thrust of this paper is to investigate the syntactic and semantic features of the English phrasal verbs and examine the extent to which undergraduate students understand these features. Phrasal verbs from the stand point of this study were classified into subgroups according to their syntactic and semantic characteristics. The investigation, which is preceded by an extensive literature review, is aimed at tackling silent issues related to phrasal verbs. The paper shades light on the basic definitions of phrasal verbs, deals with the importance of phrasal verbs in English, and examines the syntactic and semantic features of phrasal verbs; to reveal whether these phrasal verbs are transitive or intransitive and separable or inseparable. It also focuses on the differences between phrasal verbs and prepositional verbs. Finally, the literal and idiomatic usage of English phrasal verbs has been reviewed. 684 fresh undergraduate students of Federal College of Education, Zaria, who registered and passed GENS 103 (English and Communication Skills) at credit level and above were selected for the study out of the over 1,200 that have registered for the course. In the light of the findings of the study a number of conclusions are drawn which includes: English phrasal verb consists of two basic components: a lexical verb and a particle (an adverb or a preposition), the meaning of the phrasal verbs is not implied in the meaning of the constituent elements that form them, both transitive and intransitive phrasal verbs can be used as phrasal verb but their state will be different. The results also reveal that although a number of the participants can be said to understand the different characteristics of English phrasal verbs,(43.85% on semantic knowledge, 50.58% on syntactic knowledge and 39.91% on the distinction between Phrasal verbs and Prepositional Phrases) however, larger percentage of them(56.14%, 49.41% and 60.08% respectively) still find phrasal verbs difficult to understand.
Phrasal verbs: Sorting them out
ELT journal, 1990
Phrasal verbs create specialproblems forstudents, partly because there are so many of them, but also because the combination of verb and particle seems so often completely random. These difficulties are sometimes increased by the way in which phrasal verbs are presented in course books or by teachers telling students that they will just have to learn them by heart, thereby implying that there is no system. However, if one looks closely at the particle, patterns start to emerge which suggest that the combinations are not so random after all. A more flexible approach to the relationships between phrasal verbs enables the outline of a system to establish itself. This article looks at how this system works and also at the implications for teachers and course book writers.
1983
This study is the result of an interest in the fields of linguistics and ESL begun ten years ago and nurtured through academic studies and a professional career. I acknowledge and thank Dr. Mary Jane Coole for having introduced me to this very interesting and fascinating field. I thanle her also for encouraging any potential she saw in me that would result in my becoming an 'ES~ specialist'. Finally, I thank her for helping me to continue work leading to a doctoral degree, particularly through the difficulties time and place have offered. This dissertation could not have been completed without her help and professional guidance. I also thanie Dr. William Christie and Dr. Anoop Chandola, who were so kind as to sacrifice vacation time in order to serve on my committee. A large debt of gratitude goes to my mother, Germaine B. Sproul, who took over many of my duties as homemaker and mother to allow me t!1e time and energy to complete this study. Finally, I aclmowledge the love and encouragement of my husband, Reginald A. DaIle, whose emotional support provided the help I needed to continue and finish this worle. I will be forever indebted to him.
Phrasal Verbs: Usage and Acquisition
Phrasal verbs represent a typical feature of English. Multiword expressions, and especially phrasal verbs, can assess the level of English language proficiency. However, learners of English tend to adopt a strategy of avoidance. Unpredictable, phrasal verbs can be difficult to both understand and remember for non-English speakers, which prompted to call them 'the scourge of the learner'. The role of multiword constructions has also been emphasized in theories of first language acquisition . They are indeed a rich and productive source of predication that children must master, doing so at very young ages. There is, nevertheless, a huge gap in the study of child language acquisition that has largely left unaddressed questions about how the child learns and acquires verb-particle constructions. The purpose of this paper is to explore the gradual development of verb-particle constructions in child language by examining longitudinal data from the spontaneous oral speech of Naima, an English-speaking girl from the Providence Corpus of the CHILDES database , between ages 0;11 and 3;10. My findings also support the claim that input and interaction play a major role in the language acquisition process. Indeed, by analyzing the emergence and usage of phrasal verbs by Naima, I will thus compare the top ten verb-particle construction types used by the child and the adult. Ultimately, I will show the correlation between the most frequently used phrasal verbs in adult speech and the earliest constructions acquired by Naima.
Investigating the Difficulties of Understanding and Using English Phrasal Verbs
2019
College Of Graduate Studies College of Languages (MA, in linguistic) Investigating the Difficulties of Understanding and Using English Phrasal Verbs (A Case study of Second year English Language Student) (at AL-Neelain University College of Arts ) مهف يصقت مادختساو تابوعص هبكرملا لاعفلاا يف ةيزيلجنلاا هغللا دلأا ةيلكب ةيزيلجنإ ةغل ةيناثلا ةنسلا بلاط ةلاح ةسارد( ا ب – ج ا ةعم ) نيلينلا A Thesis Submitted in Fulfillment of the Requirement for the Degree of M.A in Linguistics
Phrasal Verbs in Learner English: A Corpus-based Study of Lithuanian and Polish Learners of English
2020
Phrasal verbs, though very common in the English language, are acknowledged as difficult to acquire by non-native learners of English. The present study examines this issue focusing on two learner groups from different mother tongue backgrounds, i.e. Lithuanian and Polish advanced students of English. The analysis is conducted based on Granger’s (1996) Contrastive Interlanguage Analysis methodology, investigating the Lithuanian and Polish components of the International Corpus of Learner English, as well as the Louvain Corpus of Native English Essays. The results obtained in the study prove that both learner groups underuse phrasal verbs compared with native English speakers. It is concluded that this could be due to the learners’ limited repertoire of phrasal verbs as they employ significantly fewer phrasalverb types than native speakers. Furthermore, it is noticed that learners face similar stylistic, semantic and syntactic difficulties in the use of this language feature. In part...
Collocational Restrictions of English Phrasal Verbs
Idioms and phrasal verbs constitute a highly considerable portion of the English vocabulary and their mastery is often indicated as a native like competence. They pose many difficulties to foreign learners because of their syntactic and semantic abnormalities. On semantic terms phrasal verbs, and idiomatic ones in particular, are viewed as phrases which do not correspond to their literal meanings. Syntactically they could be recognized by their idiosyncratic behavior which often defies the usual syntactic operations. The view of idioms and phrasal verbs as bits of frozen units provides only little possibility of syntactic and sematic flexibility. This paper attempts to trace the flexibility of the structure of phrasal verbs with reference to the collocational restrictions that govern their structures.
There’s no such Thing as a “Phrasal Verb”: Insights for Teachers
Journal of Studies in the English Language, 19(3), 63–97, 2024
Phrasal and prepositional multi-word verbs are a thorny topic, rife with semantic and structural obscurities, both theoretical and in teaching-learning. A survey of the history of the topic provides evidence that the very concept of “multi-word verb” is often based on misanalyses. Cognitive Linguistics considerations in particular show that neither verbs nor prepositions functioning as particles lose or change meaning in combinations with each other, making independent contributions to clause-wide meaning, be this idiomatic or literal. Prepositions refer to their subjects’ pathway and/or positioning, while verbs show how those subjects move along pathways, get into position, what they do there, or what happens to them there. In this paper, I argue that students, teachers, and analysts need to identify the meaning content of verbs and prepositions separately from each other, as well a as exploring how they work as part of the whole clause across all contexts to gain a full understanding of their communicative force. My argument leads me to conclude that a cognitive-based approach—one that focuses on verb and preposition meaning domains and semantic networks—appears to be the most effective means of analysing, understanding, teaching, learning, and using verbs and prepositions.
Phrasal verbs between syntax and lexicon
The Italian Journal of Linguistics, 2009
Phrasal verbs have some structural and semantic characteristics in common with morphologically complex words, even though they originate from phrasal constructions. Focusing on the role played by lexicalization and grammaticalization processes in the gradual shift from syntactic to morphological structures, this paper deals with semantic and morphotactic characteristics of Italian phrasal verbs. The overlapping between the range of directional meanings conveyed by prefixed verbs and phrasal verbs is considered as further evidence of the correspondences between phrasal verbs and clear morphological structures. A constructionist approach allows us to explain the processes that led to the origin of phrasal verbs, the hybrid characteristics they display, and their tendency toward the acquisition of lexical status * . Phrasal verbs (hereafter PhVs) are a phenomenon at the lexiconsyntax interface, in that they originate from syntactic constructions and yet they have some structural and se...