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

PHRASAL VERBS 115 BRING: about, along, back, clown, forth, forward, in, off, on, out, over, round, together, up LOOK: ahead, around, away, back, down, in, on, out, over, round, through, up FALL: about, apart, awav, back, behind, down, in, off, out, over, through We can raise the question whether or not we can predict which verbs combine with which particle(s) and in which relationship. As Fraser (1976:13) points out, "we have no way of determining from any syntactic or semantic properties associated with a verb whether or not it will combine with a particle in one way or another". 2 Syntactic Properties With respect to syntactic properties, we have almost no basis for specifying which verbs can co-occur with a particle or which cannot. Both transitive and intransitive verbs combine with particles both literally and figuratively, e.g., get off the bus, put off an appointment (postpone); come back, go for someone or something (attack). In the literature, Kennedy (1920:26), Lipka (1972:165) and Fraser (1976:12) note that changes with regard to transitivity are noted as the most conspicuous difference. There are cases where verbs which are normally transitive become intransitive when a particle is added. E.g.: The pilot took off smoothly. 1 resolved not to give in. There are also verbs which are intransitive and become transitive when a particle is added. E.g.: The technician will run that bit of tape through again. 'The government will see the thing through. We can observe, however, that stative verbs such as know, want, see, hear, hope, resemble, like, hate, remember, understand, etc. practically never combine with a particle. Hear someone out (listen without interrupting until they have finished speaking), see about something (arrange for it to be done), see someone off at the station, see a task, plan, or project through (continue to do it until it is successfully completed) appear to be exceptions to this generalization, but note that these combinations have become nonstative. Fraser (1976:8) also mentions some verbs which are usually intransitive and do not usually co-occur