Az Eszterházy Károly Tanárképző Főiskola Tudományos Közleményei. 2004. Vol. 4. Eger Journal of English Studies. (Acta Academiae Paedagogicae Agriensis : Nova series ; Tom. 30)

ÉVA KOVÁCS The Diachronic Development ofPhrasal Verbs in English

Eger Journal of English Studies IV (2004) 115-128 The Diachronic Development of Phrasal Verbs in English # Eva Kovács In this paper I set out to discuss the diachronic development of phrasal verbs from Old English through Middle English to Modern English. Modern English phrasal verbs seem to have a long history. While in the Old English period prefixed verbs were dominant, in the Middle English period, when the language became SVO, most English prefixes were no longer productive and disappeared altogether. The most notable new development in Middle English was the emergence of phrasal verbs, in which the particle was either a preposition or an adverb, and they almost completely replaced the Old English prefixed verbs. As far as their semantics is concerned, the majority of OE phrasal combinations had literal, spatial meanings, though some of them could have metaphorical meanings in certain contexts. But it was not until eME that we find a growth of aspectual/figurative senses. Their syntactic and semantic flexibility no doubt contributed significantly to their subsequent productivity and popularity. In comparison with the vast literature on the problems of phrasal verbs in Modern English, which has considerably grown in volume since the 1970s, (cf. e.g: Bolinger (1971), Lipka (1972), Sroka (1972), Eraser (1976), Lindner (1981), Lakoff (1987) etc.), the diachronic studies are not so numerous. The most important studies on the historical aspects of phrasal verbs to have appeared so far are those of Curme (1913/1914), Kennedy (1920), Konishi (1958), Kiffer (1965), de la Cruz (1969), Hilliard (1971), Von Schon (1977), Mitchell (1978) Hiltunen (1983a, 1983b) and Brinton (1988). Examining the diachronic development of phrasal verbs and their relation to prefixed verbs from OE through ME to Modern English, we can see a structural shift from verbal prefixes to post-verbal particles and that the non-spatial, aspectual meanings of phrasal verbs developed from their concrete, spatial meanings. 1 From verbal prefixes to post-verbal particles Krom Old English to Early Modern English, the language underwent an important structural shift, from a productive system of verbal prefixes to a new system of post-verbal particles. In this shift, phrasal verbs as well as prepositional verbs came to be the equivalents of the older prefixed verbs