A Study on the Historical Development of the English Phrasal Verb and the syntactic test

◆WANG Xiao－hui

(Yingkou Vocational Technology College)

1 Definition of the Phrasal Verb and Similar Concepts

A phrasal verb in Present－ Day English is a verb that takes a particle，in other words，an resembling a ，necessary to complete a sentence.A common example is the verb"to fix up”:He fixed up the car.The word“up”here is a particle not a preposition because“up” can move:He fixed the car up.This movement of the particle“up”quickly distinguishes it from the preposition“up”.Because the forms of the particle and the preposition are themselves identical，it is easy to confuse phrasal verbs with a very similar－ looking type of verb:the prepositional verb.A prepositional verb takes a complementary prepositional phrase.Movement verbs are readily identifiable examples.For example，the verb"to go"is and without the benefit of context，it cannot operate in a complete sentence only accompanied by a subject.One cannot say，"I went，"and expect to satisfy a listener without including a prepositional phrase of place，such as I went to the store.Prepositional verbs are immediately distinguishable from phrasal verbs in terms of movement，as prepositions cannot move after their objects.It is not possible to say，I went the store to，and so"went"is a prepositional verb.In fact there are several to distinguish phrasal from prepositional verbs，and these will be discussed in detail in the final section.It is also necessary to understand that the term"verb phrase"refers not to phrasal verbsbut more generally to a sentence verb，its complements and matters of tense，，and so on.

2 The Historical Development of the English Phrasal Verb

2.1 The Ancestors of Phrasal Verbs in Old English

Old English generally did not possess phrasal verbs as they are found in Present－Day English.They did exist although they were rare.Much more common in Old English was the inseparable－prefix verb，a form in which the particle was attached to the beginning of the verb.These Old English prefixed verbs are directly comparable to current phrasal forms.For example，in Present－ Day English there is the verb"to burn"and then the phrasal monotransitive"to burn up."Old English had"b rnan"(to burn)and"forb rnan"(to burn up).The prefix"for－"remained affixed to the verb and could not move as modern particles can.Such Old English compound verbs werealsohighly idiomatic in that the meaning of the compound form did not necessarily reflect the meaning of the root.Denison provides"ber dan"as an example because it meant to dispossess，while its root verb"r dan"meant to advise.The phenomenon still survives today in the participle"forlorn"as well as the verb"understandan"，which does not in Present－Day English mean"to stand underneath sth"，but idiomatically"to comprehend".Akimoto suggests that Old English prefixes often remained before the verb because Old English had strong object－before－verb tendencies，whereas Present－Day English is largely a VO language which has made it possible for particles to travel to －verbal positions.Some Old English verbs did function as modern phrasal verbs do.Denison points out that Koopman finds and analyses examples of Old English phrasal verbs with post－ verbal particles.In the Chronicles of England the speaker says，"ac he teah for a his ealdan wrenceas" .Hence there was in Old English the rare incidence of phrasal verbs with postverbal particles.However，Denison notes about such examples that the meaning of post－verbal particles in this period was still often very directional in close relationship with a prepositional meaning.Therefore applications of the particle"up"in Old English conveyed a sense of direction upward as in"to grow up(ward)"，rather than the completive sense as in"to break up ”，that would become more common in Middle English and beyond.(p37 －61)He argues that not until the Peterborough Chronicle did the completive sense appear.

2.2 The Phrasal Verbs in Middle English as a Productive Form

The formation of prefixed verbs in Old English was no longer in Middle English and the loss of productivity was already evident in Old English，in which certain authors added a post－verbal particle to prefixed verbs possibly because the prefix was losing meaning.［1］(p47)Stress patterns also likely account for a shift，as prefixes in Old English compound verbs were unstressed while post－verbal particles carried stress，making them stronger and thus preserving their lexical value.Middle English was also subject to the powerful forces of French and Anglo－Norman，as well to some influence from Old Norse.Several authors on the subject claim that Old Norse which already had a fairly robust incidence of phrasal verbs must have incited the production of English phrasal verbs with post－verbal particles although the degree to which Old Norse is responsible for this is unclear.The rapid borrowing of French verbs into Middle English likely slowed the development of phrasal verbs(p340)because of competition in，as French brought in Romance verbs that could fill the semantic fields of the Old English prefixed verbs.For example，the French borrowing"destroy"could accommodate the meaning of Old English"forbrecan"(break up).French forms also likely hindered phrasal verbs because of.French was the language of status in England after the Norman Conquest and phrasal verbs，while common by the fourteenth century ，were considered informal.(p123)Nonetheless phrasal verbs regained strong productivity by the fifteenth century.Tanabe notes the occurrence of 162 phrasal verbs in The Paston Letters despite the formal quality of those letters，and the incidence of“to give up"in the Peterborough Chronicle.Middle English underwent a shift in from many instances of SOV to SVO as it lost many from Old English，becoming a much more or word－order based language.The new VO word order as Akimoto claims，likely enabled the prefixes of Old English to become post－ positioned adverbial particles.In other words，Old English"forbrecan"became"to break up".By late Middle English phrasal verbs could be divided into 3 categories:a)Old English－style inseparable particle+verb(overtake);b)verb+separable particle(take up);and c)compounds derived from the first two(outcry).

2.3 The Rise of the Phrasal Verb in Early Modern English

The incidence of phrasal verbs exploded in Early Modern English.Shakespeare himself applied the form widely throughout the plays.Hiltunen cites a study by Castilloin which 5744 phrasal verbshave been identified within thebody of the plays.Nevalainen also notes Spasov＇s study which analysed 46 plays from the Renaissance to Present－Day English，finding that phrasal verbs remained"below ten per cent of the total of all verbs from his four Early Modern English subperiods，but does exceed the five per cent level from about 1600 onwards."(p423)Hiltunen explains that phrasal verbs were used extensively in Early Modern English dramatic texts because of their variable shades of meaning and productive capacity"to be expanded to form new idioms"(p161).Akimotonotes also that"phrasal verbs occur more frequently in letters and dramas than in essays or academic writing"in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries(p221).This confirms that phrasal verbs occupied a lower social position in Early Modern English than perhaps single Latinate verbs that could fill their semantic fields which gives rise，incidentally，to a syntactic test for phrasal verbs.However，phrasal verbs continued to become entrenched.Stage－ three arose，such as"breakdown"and"comeback".The stress on the particle in the verbal form("I have to break DOWN these boxes)moved from the particle to the verbal component when the compound acted as a noun(as in，"he had a BREAKdown").Phrasal verbs in Early Modern English also could be formed with a noun+particle such as"to louse up".［7］(p319)It was also in this period that objects were firmly established before particles("She put it on"not*She put on it)as a standard practice while nominal objects retained movement before and after the particle(She put the dress on/She put on the dress).

3 Syntactic Tests for Phrasal Verbs in Present－Day English

Jeremy Smithin his brief discussion of phrasal verbs in Present－Day English lumps together the following verbs as phrasal:"burn down"，"come across"and"talk［someone］into"(p140).However，this brief sample from Smith＇s list contains not only a phrasal verb but a prepositional verb and a phrasal－prepositional verb as well.Syntactic tests can clear away such confusion，and a knowledge of such tests is indispensable for anyone studying phrasal verbs.

3.1 Particle movement:particles for transitive phrasal verbs can move either before or after the direct object，and this will determine whether the word in question is a particle or a preposition.For example，"I gave up the keys/Igave the keys up."The"up"is a particle because it can move.If it were a preposition，"up"could not move:"I walked up the stairs"but not*I walked the stairs up.As a side note，particle movement is generally not possible with gerunds:"I gave up trying"but not*I gave trying up.Particle movement is also restricted with pronouns:"I helped her out"not*I helped out her.Particle movement is also unhelpful in analyzing intransitive phrasal verbs as there is no complementary noun phrase to facilitate movement.

3.2 Adverb intervention:Adverbs cannot be placed within the verb phrase including verb，particle，and object，but must be placed before the verb or at the end:“I help out Sheila often/I help Sheila out often/I often help out Sheila”but not* I help often out Sheila，I help out often Sheila，I help often her out.Adverbs can，however，be placed between verbs and prepositional phrases:"I went quickly into the room."

3.3 Spoken stress:particles are stressed in phrasal verbs but prepositions are unstressed.Therefore one says，"Igave up the keys"("up"is stressed particle，transitive phrasal verb)or"the plane touched down"("down"is stressed particle，intransitive phrasal verb).A true preposition is unstressed:"I walked up the stairs"(unstressed preposition，prepositional verb).

3.4 Translation/synonymy:Phrasal verbs can be translated with a single －unit verb of the same .Therefore“give up”can be translated as the clearly transitive"relinquish"or"surrender"while"touch down"can be translated by the clearly intransitive"land".Translation，however，is not reliable as the sole or even primary method of syntactic testing.Quirk et al discuss the possibility of translating certain prepositional verbs with single－unit transitive verbs.For example，the sentence"She looked after her son"could be translated"She tended her son."(p1156 －6)Obviously"after"is not a particle as it lacks stress and movement，but this style of analysis still unresolved in descriptive grammar，confirms the wisdom of using other tests when checking for phrasal verbs.Phrasalprepositional verbs are also difficult to analyze by this means alone because of the possibility to translate them with single－unit verbs.

3.5 Passivization:Transitive phrasal verbs can be rendered in the for two reasons:because they are transitive and have the capacity for the inversion of logical subjects and objects，and because doing so does not violate the syntactic frame of a prepositional phrase.Therefore the sentence“I gave up the keys”can be rendered in the passive:“The keys were given up by me.”However，a prepositional verb at least prescriptively resists rendering in the passive‘I walked up the stairs’‘would not traditionally be rendered thus in the passive:“The stairs were walked up by me”，even though“to walk up”could be translated with the transitive verb“to ascend”，which could easily be rendered in the passive.However，as Quirk point out(p1156 －7)，prepositional verbs have been rendered increasingly in the passive.Therefore passivization is also by no means a stand－alone syntactic test of phrasal verbs.

4 Summary

The Old English ancestors of modern phrasal verbs were generally inseparable－prefix verbs although some separable forms did exist.The influences of the Norman Conquest and Old Norse on ME eroded Old English OV syntax，and this catalyzed the production of separable adverbial particles and the phrasal verb in Middle English.In Early Modern English phrasal verbs grew rapidly in dramatic and less formal texts while new nominal－derivative compounds and rules about pronominal－object placement arose.In Present－Day English phrasal verbs are identifiable by particle movement，stressed particles，incapacity for adverb intervention in the verb phrase，translation，and passivization.Prepositions can be distinguished because they cannot move，they are unstressed，and adverbs can intervene between the verb and the prepositional phrase.

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