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
126 Éva Kovács Locative on is not yet a frequent continuative/iterative particle in ME. A more common continuative/iterative particle with verbs of communication is forth , e.g.: Now wol I telle forth my tale. 'Now I will tell forth my tale.' 5 Conclusion The present study has been an attempt to trace the evolution of some prefixed and phrasal constructions in OE and ME, which involved extremely complex linguistic changes. Modern English phrasal verbs are doubtless a problem not only to learners of English as a foreign language but also to those trying to describe them linguistically. As we have, however, seen, their early history was even more complicated, and their syntactic and semantic complexity reached its peak at the end of the OE and the beginning of the ME period. The above discussion has shown that in the course of the development of both verbal prefixes and post-verbal particles in Old and Middle English, it is possible to see a semantic shift in some of these forms from spatial meanings to aspect/aktionsart/figurative meanings. It has consequences for an understanding of the meaning of phrasal verbs in Modern English as at least a subset of the post-verbal particles functions in quite a systematic way in expressing aspect or aktionsart meaning, and this is a direct consequence of their original spatial meaning. These meaning relations have served as a basis for the analysis of prepositions/particles/prefixes by cognitive grammarians, who considered metaphoric processes to be the major factors in this semantic shift. Cognitive-semantic studies of polysemy structures such as verbparticle constructions with the particles UP and OUT by Lindner (1981), the meanings of OVER by Brugman (1981), Taylor (1989) and Lakoff (1987) have succeeded in uncovering motivation and order behind previously random-looking groupings of meanings. They have pointed out that the meanings of prepositions/particles/prefixes are not completely arbitrary but motivated by their spatial meanings and by metaphors in our conceptual system. References Bolinger, D. (1971). The Phrasal Verb in English. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. Brinton, L. J. (1988). The Development of English Aspectual Systems. Cambridge University Press.
