Multi-word verbs: in-service training sessions
There are a number of different ways to analyse multi-word verbs
and your preferred option may not be how this site chooses to do
it.
If that is the case, some of what follows will not parallel your
presentation of the area so should be handled with some care.
All sensible analyses will, however, distinguish between
prepositional and adverbial particles and between adverbs used in
the normal way and those which combine with verbs to create a new
meaning. No sensible definition of a multi-word verb will
include a verb followed by a prepositional phrase.
Those ideas form the basis of worksheet #1.
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The key ideas |
These are the areas on which these worksheets focus. A
session of between 2 and 3 hours should be enough to cover the
essentials and give people the tools they need to focus on certain
aspects of the area for an assignment.
It will not be enough in itself, of course.
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Identifying multi-word verbs |
The first two tasks on the worksheet are awareness-raising
exercises and focus on the distinction between something worth
analysing (a multi-word verb) and something which is perfectly
explicable by the normal rules of prepositional-phrase use or
adverbs (and adverbials). This should be a reminder but it is not an area which is covered
on all initial training courses.
It is also, unfortunately, an area of deep and abiding confusion on
many websites as the guide to the area makes clear.
Task 1 of the worksheet asks people to identify whether we have a
case of a verb followed by a prepositional-phrase adverbial or a
true case of a multi-word verb.
Task 2 is designed to alert people to the fact that verbs can retain
their basic meaning but be modified by an adverbial expression while
others may act in combination with an adverb to alter the meaning of
the verb altogether. In the first case, we have a verb +
adverbial combination, in the second we have a true multi-word,
phrasal verb.
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Analysing multi-word verbs |
The view taken on this site is that we have three forms of multi-word verbs:
- Prepositional verbs
- transitive (arguably)
- intransitive
- Phrasal verbs
- transitive
- intransitive
- separable
- inseparable
- Phrasal-prepositional verbs
If you prefer, the first category may be better described as verbs with dependent prepositions. We can also state that all such verbs are, in fact, intransitive because none takes a direct object unless it is linked with a preposition.
Worksheet #2 tasks are tests more than presentations and assume that you have already done the presentation (and / or got the trainees to do their own research on this site and / or elsewhere).
- In tasks 1 and 2, the challenge is to come up with the rules for transitive and intransitive uses. Some verbs in this section are ditransitive, too.
- Tasks 3 and 4 focus on true phrasal verbs, i.e., verbs whose combination with an adverb particle affects the base meaning. All the examples are of the most common category – separable phrasal verbs.
- Task 5 focuses on the rarer category of inseparable transitive phrasal verbs.
- The four examples in task 6 focus on the very rare category of phrasal verbs which must be separated. Even here, a very long noun phrase makes the separation optional.
- Task 7 focuses on intransitive phrasal verbs which are, by definition, inseparable, of course.
- Task 8 focuses on phrasal-prepositional verbs which take the same patterns as prepositional verbs or verbs with dependent prepositions. The answer to the last question reveals the fact that these can be analysed as phrasal verbs plus a prepositional phrase because the latter is mobile.
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Related areas |
The worksheets here do not cover issues such as the use of adverbials with multi-word verbs or the use of the passive. For those, refer to the main guide.
| Related guides | |
| multi-word verbs | this is the in-service guide which underlies both the worksheets and all the tasks |
| multi-word verbs essentials | this is a much simpler guide in the initial training area |
| prepositional phrases | this is an allied area |
| verbs | for the in-service index to the whole area |
| A-Z index | where you can find guides to or containing specific concepts and terms |