Az Eszterházy Károly Tanárképző Főiskola Tudományos Közleményei. 1998. Vol. 2. Eger Journal of English Studies.(Acta Academiae Paedagogicae Agriensis : Nova series ; Tom. 26)

Studies - Éva Kovács: Identification of phrasal verbs in the literature

Mitchell (1958), Fairclough (1965), and Bolinger (1971); Quirk et al. (1985); Rot (1988); Graver (1990); Palmer (1988); to the 'verb-particle construction' in Lipka (1972); to the '(separable) verbal compound' in Curme (1931), Kruisinga (1932); to the 'verb-adverb combination' in Wood (1955); to the 'compound verb' in Gratten and Gurrey (1925); to the 'discontinuous verb' of Live (1965); to the verb-particle combination in Fräser (1976) and to the 'verb-particle construction' in Lindner (1981). Henry Sweet (1898/1920:36) divides parts of speech into declinable (nouns, adjectives, verbs) and indeclinable (particles: adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions, interjections) and draws a clear dividing line between combinations 'verb plus adverb' and 'verb plus preposition'. Sweet (1898/1920:31-33) also recognises that most prepositions are also used as adverbs; thus by is a preposition in 'he passed by the house', and an adverb in 'he passed by

' He also says that some prepositions such as of, to, for are not used as adverbs. According to Sweet, grammatically the preposition is associated with the noun-word it governs, but in meaning it is associated quite as closely or even more so with the word modified by the prepositiongroup. This association in meaning consists in the fact that the collocation of verb and particle in the construction 'verb plus particle plus noun-word' is, in a given case, equivalent to a single transitive verb. This type of collocation is called by Sweet a 'group-verb'. Such collocations as look at, think of attend to are also considered group verbs because they have counterparts in single transitive verbs. Gratten and Gurrey (1925:79-85) make a distinction between prepositions, adverbs, verbal particles and postpositions. They state that while adverbs merely add to the meaning of the verb, verbal particles may be said to fuse with the verb, and with it they express one unit of thought. This union of simple Verb with Particle forms what is known as a 'Compound Verb'. They admit, however, that the distinction is sometimes impossible. "Where the verb preserves its literal meaning, it is practically impossible to make a distinction between Particle and ordinary Adverb, and so to determine whether we have before us a Compound Verb or not, for example: Come back., Go Away., He threw the parcel down. In Curme's (1931:568) classification, particles seem to constitute two major classes, viz. adverbs and prepositions, but within each class special subclasses are distinguished, namely prepositional adverbs within adverbs, and inflectional prepositions within prepositions. About prepositional adverbs Curme says that they often "stand at the end of a proposition because of the suppression of a governed noun or pronoun, which is omitted since it is suggested by a preceding noun or by a situation: E.g. / threw the ball at the wall, but / threw it too high and it went over. 118