Phrasal or multi-word verbs consist of a verb and one or two prepositions.
They may be TRANSITIVE (take an object):
To look for: She is looking for her right shoe.
Or INTRANSITIVE
Come back: Call me when you come back.
Some can be TRANSITIVE and INTRANSITIVE, but the meaning changes
To stand up = Move from a sitting or lying down to a vertical position. 'Everybody stood up when the judge entered the court'.
To stand somebody up = Fail to keep an appointment. 'He agreed to meet me last night, but he stood me up.
Phrasal verbs that are TRANSITIVE, are divided into three categories:
1. The main verb and the preposition must be separated, the object goes in the middle
I talked my mother into letting me borrow the car.
2. The main verb and the preposition can remain together and the object goes after the preposition or they can be separated, in which case the object goes between the verb and the preposition
| To take off: |
|
I took off my gloves. |
| |
|
I took my gloves off. |
But if the object is a pronoun, it has to go between the verb and the preposition
| To take off: |
|
I took them off. |
| |
|
(not I took off them) |
3. They can be INSEPARABLE
The object must go after the preposition
| To look for: |
|
I'm looking for a house. |
| |
|
(not I'm looking a house for) |
The prepositions of multi-word verbs have literal meanings but they also have figurative meanings which are very important to know in order to learn the phrasal verbs. For example in 'Please put out the fire', the preposition 'out' is not used with the literal meaning of 'outside' but with the figurative meaning of "ending".
The following units explain the meanings of the most common prepositions used with phrasal verbs.
|
