Re: Topics and foci/focuses... Wow, now I get it!!!

Nik Taylor wrote:

>BP Jonsson wrote:
>> One difference between phrasal verbs and verbs followed by a prefosition
is
>> that in phrasal verbs the particle/prefosition is stressed.  Are native
>> English speakers not aware of this fact?  It works the same in
Scandinavian
>> lgs, BTW.
>
>Hmm ... "He switched on the light", "He fell on the floor".  You're
>right!  "On" does bear a secondary stress in the phrasal verb but not
>when it's a true preposition.  I'd never noticed that before!

Ahem.  Neither had I.  But as a Certified Trained Linguist (but not an
English specialist), I suppose I would have, after some thought.  I suspect
the person-in-the-street recognizes only 3 intonation patterns:
normal-falling, question-rising and emphatic-heavy stress.  The more
relevant "native's" test for phrasal-particles is probably whether they (or
the "object") can be moved,  and what happens when the "object" is a
pronoun:

turn the light on ~ turn on the light; turn it on (*turn on it)
To my view, the V-O-Particle is a transform of underlying [V+part.] O

Perhaps  V-O-P is preferred in some cases to avoid ambiguity, when VPO could
also be interpreted as V + Prep.phrase, as in:

(a) He looked the table over (for defects) :  He looked over the table
 which could also be interpreted as (b)"he looked [over the table]" (and saw
his little brother)
Note that "he looked it over" only = (a); "he looked over it" only = (b) --
and in both cases "over" is stressed.....

To repeat:  not an English specialist.  Thank God things like this don't
occur in Kash.