Origin of Phrasal Verbs
Prepositions and adverbs can have a literal meaning which is spatial or "orientational", and then, as happens with all words, metaphorical meanings develop that are systematic extensions from the original core meaning. Many verbs in English can interact with an adverb or a preposition, and the verb + preposition/adverb complex is readily understood when used in its literal sense.
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- He walked across the square.
- She opened the shutters and looked outside.
- When he heard the crash, he looked up.
The function of the prepositional phrase/particle in such clauses is to show the relationship between the action (walked, opened, looked) and the relative positioning, action or state of the subject. Even when such prepositions appear alone and are hence adverbs/particles, they have a retrievable prepositional object. Thus, He walked across clearly shows that the "walking" is "across" a given area. In the case of He walked across the square, across the square is a prepositional phrase (with across as its head word). In both cases, the single-word/multi-word expression (across and across the square) is independent of the verb. The action of the subject (walking) is being portrayed as having happened in/at/on/over a certain location (across the square). Similarly in She opened the shutters and looked outside and When he heard the crash, he looked up, outside is logically outside (of) the house, and up is similarly an adjunct (= upwards, in an upwards direction, he is looking in a direction that is higher than where his eyes were previously directed).
Read more about this topic: Phrasal Verb
Famous quotes containing the words origin of, origin and/or verbs:
“Someone had literally run to earth
In an old cellar hole in a byroad
The origin of all the family there.
Thence they were sprung, so numerous a tribe
That now not all the houses left in town
Made shift to shelter them without the help
Of here and there a tent in grove and orchard.”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)
“Someone had literally run to earth
In an old cellar hole in a byroad
The origin of all the family there.
Thence they were sprung, so numerous a tribe
That now not all the houses left in town
Made shift to shelter them without the help
Of here and there a tent in grove and orchard.”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)
“He crafted his writing and loved listening to those tiny explosions when the active brutality of verbs in revolution raced into sweet established nouns to send marching across the page a newly commissioned army of words-on-maneuvers, all decorated in loops, frets, and arrowlike flourishes.”
—Alexander Theroux (b. 1940)