Re: (In)transitive verbs

On Fri, 6 Feb 2004, Ph. D. wrote:

> Shreyas Sampat wrote:
> >
>
> > Mark J. Reed wrote:
> >
> > > English is also full of phrasal verbs (verb +
> > > preposition[s]), which are transitive when treated
> > > as a unit but officially analyze into an intransitive
> > > verb modified by a prepositional phrase: "look at",
> > >"climb up", "watch out for", etc.
> >
> > I'm not sure I agree; look at these two sentences:
> >
> > Louise looked up Teresa's phone number.
> > Louise looked up Teresa's nose.
> >
> > They look similar, right?
> >
> > 1) Teresa's phone number is what Louise looked up.
> > 2) Up Teresa's nose is where Louise looked.
> > 3) *Up Teresa's phone number is where Louise looked.
> >
> > 'Look up' can't be a verb with an obligatory pre-
> > positional phrase; then 3 would be grammatical and
> > 1 wouldn't be.
> >
> > That isn't to say that there aren't verbs with such things,
> > but the examples you gave aren't that kind of animal.
>
>
> I've always considered these "phrasal verbs" to be
> "verb + adverb" rather than "verb + preposition." To me
> these samples are two different verbs:
'Phrasal verbs' are little more than verbs composed of two parts, the
first part of which is (almost?) always the same as a verb and the second
is (almost?) always the same as a preposition. Shreyas adequately shows
that they _aren't_ prepositions, but they also aren't adverbs:

1a. John gave it slowly.
1b. John gave it up.

2a. John is a slow giver.
2b. ?John is an up-giver. (Not quite the same. Anyone have any adverbs
      that don't have an equivalent adjective (well=good). Actually, the
      idea itself seems odd, I'd expect a zero-derived adjective, at
      least, to crop up before long. Only helps them not being adverbs...)

3a. *John is a giver-slow(er(er))/giver-slowly(er(er)).
3b. John is a giver-up(per(er)). (My dialect is responsible for embedded
      brackets.)



--
Tristan