Grammar: Groups & phrases: Verb group: Structure of the verb group

Phrasal verbs

What are phrasal verbs?

These are verbs that are made up of two or three words (forming a short 'phrase'), but which function as a single lexical verb: 

I'm tired. It's time to turn off the TV.                    phrasal verb

Phrasal verbs such as turn off (deactivate), turn on (activate), bring back (return), hand over (give) all combine a single lexical verb (turn, bring, hand) with a 'particle' (off, on, back, over). Phrasal verbs, especially those formed with an adverb, can often be replaced by a single verb with similar meaning. 

Sometimes the meaning of a phrasal verb can be guessed from its component parts but not always, eg turn up has at least two quite different meanings, neither of which is obvious from either the verb or the particle:

Mrs Gong turned up the lights. [brightened/increased] 
Bozo finally turned up just as everyone was leaving. [arrived]

Because of their meaning often being 'greater than the sum of their parts', phrasal verbs are best learned as a single, multi-word unit.

There are two basic types of phrasal verbs, plus an intermediate type that combines these two basic ones:

	verb + adverb
		Bozo's book has gone astray [missing/lost]
	verb + preposition
		Miss Lee turned down the lights. [dimmed]
	verb + adverb + preposition
		Dotty fell out with her best friend. ['quarrelled']

If you would like some practice in identifying phrasal verbs in a text, click here:

For a summary of the relationship between the form and the function of phrasal verbs, click here: