Idioms / Phrasal Verbs [Jos Manuel da Silva]

References Cambridge Grammar of English. Cambridge, 2007. (CGE) Dictionary of Idioms. Chambers / Martins Fontes, 1999. (DI) Dictionary of Phrasal Verbs. Chambers / Martins Fontes. 1999. (DPV) Oxford Dictionary of Current Idiomatic Expressions. Vol 1: Verbs with Prepositions & Particles. Oxford: OUP, 1975. Oxford Dictionary of Current Idiomatic Expressions. Vol 2: Phrase, Clause & Sentence Idioms. Oxford: OUP, 1975. Idiom (DI) The term idiom is not easily defined it can refer to many kinds of words and phrases. The traditional definition of an idiom is a group of words which has a different meaning from the sum of its parts. This means that knowing the meanings of all the words in a phrase will not necessarily help you to understand the meaning of the whole phrase. In some cases it is possible to make a good guess at the meaning of an idiom, because the image created is an obvious one, eg. look like thunder [ = look angry], but in others it is virtually impossible to do so. metaphorical expressions: make someones blood boil or knock it off; sayings: thats the way the cookie crumbles; phrasal verbs which have a fixed element: live and learn, live and let live, live it up; proverbs and variations on proverbs: a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush; foreign or Latin phrases commonly used in English: fait accompli or ad infinitum. Corpus A language corpus is a record of language samples, spoken and written, from magazines, newspapers, radio and TV, formal meetings, and ordinary peoples everyday conversation. new meanings frequency collocation context spoken versus written language gender, age, status

Examples: You only live once. Live your life how you want. Before you know it youll be old. Old as me. [under live, but with the heading you only live once] Their house has been on the market for ages. [under market, with the heading on the market] What I cant understand is how this all went on under my nose, without my noticing anything. [under nose, with the heading under someones nose] Phrasal Verbs (DPV)

Idiomatic expressions or phrases frequent and almost instinctive for a native speaker have a meaning that is not deductible or is not readily deductible. These constructions can be broadly categorized as idioms and phrasal verbs.

A phrasal verb is a short two-word (or sometimes three-word) phrase made up of a verb, such as get, give, make, pull and see, and an adverb (an adverbial particle), such as together, or a preposition, such as in, off, on, out and up.

Strictly speaking, a phrasal verb is a form of idiom that is, it has a meaning which is different from the sum of its parts. In other words, knowing what the verb and adverb or preposition mean will not necessarily help you understand the combination when they are used together as a phrasal verb. (...) You may know that when someone acts up they behave badly, especially by being disruptive or uncooperative, as in The children were acting up again. The sentence The children were acting again has a wholly different meaning.

idiomatic or non-deductible phrasal verbs: this category includes phrasal verbs or senses of the verb + particle in which the particle cannot be dropped without changing the meaning completely. [hold on or hang on: Tell them to hold on a few seconds until we get the rest of the cartons unpacked. (= wait)] [hold out for: With the unions holding out for a full five per cent, a strike of some sort seems inevitable. (= refuse to accept anything less than that)] combinations that have a literal meaning, or idiomatic or semi-idiomatic senses: hold down, push around, put up. combinations in which the particle functions as a intensifier, suggesting the idea of completeness or thoroughness, without adding much to the basic meaning of the verb: finish off, tidy up, eat up. verbs which are always, or nearly always, accompanied by a particular adverb or preposition, rely on, abstain from, apprise of, consult with. Verb and particle order Several different positions may be possible for an adverbial particle, or there may just be one fixed position. In the phrasal verb eat up, in its transitive uses, up can come immediately after the verb, as in: His mum told him to eat up his lunch, or after the object, as in: Amy ate her lunch up. The object is regularly placed between the verb and particle when the object is a pronoun: She ate it up. When eat up is used intransitively, up always follows the verb: Come on, Amy, eat up quickly! Examples know about: There wasnt much he didnt know about British history. [ = you have discovered, learned or been told about something] look forward to: Shes looking forward to the birth of her baby. Are they looking forward to going to Australia? [ = you feel happy because you are going to enjoy something that is going to happen] mark down: I had marked down his address on the back of my cheque book. [= write something down] mark down as: From his appearance, you wouldnt mark him down as an aid worker. [= talk about the impressions you have of someone] piece together: Police piecing together the events of Tuesday night have discovered that the killer robbed another couple a few minutes earlier. [= gradually collect all the relevant facts and understand how they fit together] Piecing together and gluing the broken shards is a job for an expert. [= mend or reform something broken or torn into fragments]

Multi-word verb (CGE) A lexical verb which may be combined with one or two particles to function as a verb with a unitary meaning. There are three kinds of multi-word verb. Phrasal verbs have adverb particles (sit down, go away, get off, give in). Prepositional verbs take a preposition (go against, call on, look after), and phrasal-prepositional verbs take both an adverb and a preposition (look forward to, look down on, catch up with, put up with). Preposition, prepositional phrase, preposition stranding. Class of word used to express relationships between two events, things or people in terms of time (at 2 oclock), space (to the school) and other abstract relations (the capital city of Brazil). Prepositions can occur as single words (about, at, by, into) or in pairs (out of, next to, as for). A phrase with a preposition as the head followed by a complement is called a prepositional phrase (Ill come with you.). Prepositional stranding occurs when the preposition is separated from its complement and placed at the end of the clause. (What was she referring to?) Adverb, adverb phrase Indicates the time, place, manner, degree, frequency, duration, viewpoint, etc. of an event, action or process. It is mostly realised by the -ly suffix added to an adjective (beautifully, fortunately, angrily, actually). A phrase with an adverb functioning as the head is called an adverb phrase (The lecturer spoke very clearly.). Adverb phrases can modify verbs, adjectives, other adverbs and whole clauses. Examples: Look out the window. (out preposition) Look out! The dog! (out adverb) I didnt know what loquacious meant and had to look it up in a dictionary. (up preposition; in preposition) Look me up next time you come to Los Angeles. (up preposition) Finally, things are looking up for me. (up adverb; for preposition) Well, it seems to me things are looking up. (up adverb) I left the book on the table. (on preposition) She came out of the house. (out of preposition) Theyre going to school now. (to preposition)