Az Eszterházy Károly Tanárképző Főiskola Tudományos Közleményei. 2002. Vol. 3. Eger Journal of English Studies.(Acta Academiae Paedagogicae Agriensis : Nova series ; Tom. 29)
Éva Kovács: Properties of Verbs Which Constitute Phrasal Verbs
126 ÉVA KOVÁCS From all this it can be concluded that the semantic complexity of phrasal verbs seems to be really perplexing. Sometimes the phrasal verb fits into more than one category of particle meaning, as the meanings may overlap, or one may be the metaphorical extension of the literal meaning, and sometimes it is difficult to say exacdy what meaning is contributed by the particle to the phrasal verb. In addition, many phrasal verbs have more than one sense. Often the particle has the same meaning in all these senses, but sometimes it has different meanings. The above discussion also leads, in accordance with Sinclair (1991:68), to another very important conclusion: the semantics of phrasal verbs, however, is #not as arbitrary as it is often held to be. The discussion so far has been restricted to the syntactic and semantic properties of phrasal verbs. A final point of this paper is to consider their phonological properties. 4 Phonological Properties The phonological shape of a verb can also determine whether or not it can combine with a particle. Kennedy (1920:56) and Fraser (1976:14) have noted that the majority of verbs occurring with particles are monosyllabic and that the remainder are made up primarily of disyllabic words which are initially stressed. Kennedy found in 988 cases (not all of which are phrasal verbs as defined here) only one trisyllabic case, this being partition as in partition off and partition up. Fraser also mentions apportion out\ separate (out), summarise (up) and telephone in, which I have not found in any up-to-date dictionaries. Fraser (1976:13) finds that while there are numerous phonologically disyllabic verbs occurring in verb-particle combinations, many of these may be analyzed as phonologically monosyllabic. In particular, these phonologically monosyllabic verbs contain a final syllabic liquid or nasal (1, r, m, or n): i) banter (about), batter (around), blister (up), peter (out), simmer (down), wither (away) ii) battle (out), botde (up), buckle (down), diddle (away), parcel (out), iii) batten (down), blacken (up), frozen (out), fasten (down), iv) blossom (out)
