1.

Introduction
The decoupling of lexis and syntax leads to the creation of a rubbish
dump that is called idiom, phraseology, collocation, and the like.
(Sinclair 1991:104)
The following study will select some items of the linguistic rubbish dump
evoked by Sinclair in the above quotation, namely multi-word verbs, and assign them a somewhat more suitable place, perhaps the corridor connecting
lexis and syntax.
Multi-word verbs have in general received less than adequate
treatment so far. Linguists dealing with purely lexical matters, for instance
word-formation, have usually excluded them, ostensibly on the grounds that,
seen from a formal perspective, they do not constitute words. But that
exclusion seems arbitrary insofar as they constitute le xemes and are formed
on the basis of regular patterns. Furthermore, it may lead to embarrassing
contradictions, for instance the inclusion of phrasal nouns as opposed to the
omission of phrasal verbs in works like Marchands (1969). Grammarians,
for their part, have also mostly felt ill at ease with multi -word units; while
these do have an internal syntactic structure, it is burdened with exceptions
in many cases brought about by their lexeme status, so that a special
treatment of them is made necessary. Most of all, multi-word verbs have
hardly ever been treated as a group as such; rather, individual types are
inserted here and there in grammars in many different sections (with the
notable exception of Quirk et al. 1985), which makes them very hard to find .
In general descriptions of the language they exist on the fringes as rubbish
dumps are of course wont to do. However, they have found a more
comfortable shelter in their very own specialized dictionaries (such as Cowie
& Mackin 1975), a kind of haven for exotic verbs.
And yet multi-word verbs are neither exotic nor at the fringes of the
English language; rather, they are a part of the mainstream development. To
quote Sinclair (1991:68) once more: "the whole drift of the historical devel opment of English has been towards the replacement of words with phrases
(...)". I will therefore treat multi -word verbs in the present study as a group in
their own right, with an emphasis on their common features, examining their
development and behaviour in their authentic textual environments. The time
and the basis I have chosen for this consideration is the non-literary prose of
the late Early Modern English (EModE) era that is, precisely the time, the
place and the language important for the emergence of modern Standard
English.

Introduction

Inevitably, the problem indicated in the first Sinclair quotation above

will play an important role in this study. Both lexical, or rather semantic, and
syntactic matters are intertwined in the case of multi -word verbs, and both
will require more or less equal attention. The connection is so intricate, I
find, that it would be unwise, if not impossible, to attempt a unified
theoretical treatment with one of the two areas as the dominant basis.
Accordingly, this will not be a theoretical piece of work, but one that will
take an empirical and eclectic approach; my foremost aim is the description
of what is there in late EModE. I will try to take a ccount of the fact that
syntax and semantics merge to some extent in multi -word verbs. However, I
take semantics to be the primary, and thus in some respect the more
important level. After all, people who know how they are going to say
something, before they know what it is they are going to say, must be
considered a rare species. Multi-word verbs certainly originate mainly for
semantic reasons but these can be found just as well in the semantic
properties of syntactic structures as purely in those of the individual words
making up the complex verbal unit.
In sum, my aims in this work are to throw some light on how syntax
and semantics combine and also interact with more peripheral linguistic
areas, such as considerations of style or register, to produce a greater variety
of expression in the English language. Moreover, this is foremost an
historical study, and thus questions of the characteristics of multi -word verbs
in EModE, their status within the language, and their development co mpared
to the situation found in Present-day English (PDE) will of course be major
concerns. The frequencies found and their rise or decline over time will be
further important points, especially as two studies (Konishi 1958; Spasov
19661) have pointed to a decline of phrasal verbs within the period to be
studied here. A new assessment of their results will be possible in the light of
the more extensive data to be presented here (9,467 multi-word verbs, of
which 4,266 are phrasal verbs). In general, it will also be interesting to see
whether the frequencies of different kinds of multi -word verbs develop in
similar ways. Furthermore, I will pay attention to EModE speakers
awareness of and attitudes towards multi -word verbs, which might have a
(positive or negative) influence on the development of these forms within the
context of emerging prescriptivism and the standardization process. These
matters will form the core of this work, comprising chapters 6 to 9.
The chapters preceding these four will set the historical scene and
provide the material required to put the empirical findings into their proper
perspective. Three aspects play a role here. The first concerns the data base,
1

For information on Spasov 1966, a book that proved impossible to obtain, cf.
Bolinger 1971 and Hckel 1968/69.

Introduction

the Lampeter Corpus of Early Modern English Tracts (1640-1740), and its
historical context, as the nature of every corpus necessarily affects the resultant data (chapter 2). The second and third aspects relate to linguistic
theories about multi-word verbs and my interpretation or application of them
(chapters 3 and 4), and the whole history of multi-word verbs (chapter 5).

2. The Lampeter Corpus of Early Modern English Tracts

Empirical research in historical linguistics is no simple matter. On the one
hand, historical linguistics has actually always been corpus-based, in being
orientated towards authentic language data preserved in old texts brought
down to us i.e. it is firmly based on empirical evidence. Of course, for
most of the time there was no corpus in the present strict sense of the word;
real historical corpus linguistics only started with the publication of the
Helsinki Corpus in 1991. Since then, there have been more attempts to
supply historical linguistics with a firm basis of principled corpora, and the
Lampeter Corpus is a contribution to this ongoing process, filling one slot
with a collection of prose writings from 1640 to 1740.
On the other hand, it is faced with difficulties not experienced by researchers into the present-day language. There is the inapplicability of
modern linguistic intuition to old data; this, together with the absence of
native speakers of, e.g., EModE, complicates judgements about the
acceptability, the appropriateness or, in general, the exact nature and status
of any instance found of a linguistic phenomenon. This fact either impedes
or rules out completely the employment of some common methods in
synchronic linguistics; this point will also have to be kept in mind for the
chapters 3 and 4. Then, there is the finiteness of the data, both in an
absolute, overall sense there are only so many texts that have come down
to us and with respect to instances for individual features. From this it
follows that there will necessarily be gaps in the existing data, with not all
historically possible linguistic manifestations actually being documented.
With regard to individual features this naturally means that one should be
careful not to build major arguments on the basis of apparent nonoccurrence.
Any historical study will inevitably touch on the question of linguistic
change, and this also shows up some particular limitations of the available
data. Samuels (1972:6) listed the following assumptions about linguistic
change, namely: (a) the majority of linguistic changes originate in the spoken
language, and may or may not ultimately spread to the written form, (b)
fewer changes, usually of a different nature, arise in the written language,
and may or may not be incorporated into the spoken language, and (c) the
written language exerts a conservative influence, by preventing or slowing
down the acceptance of many changes that come about in the spoken
language. The problems are obvious: we do not have any first-hand record of
the spoken language for older periods of the language, but can only work
with approximations, such as court room transcripts, private letters and

The Lampeter Corpus

dramatic dialogue in stage plays. We cannot assume that all features found in
the spoken medium are reflected in the written texts, and of those actually
found we do not know how long they have already been in existence before
eventually turning up in writing. It is also not easy for us to assess which of
the phenomena we find in our data would have been regarded as particularly,
or even exclusively typical of the written form.
All these limitations on the data base for the historical study of the
English language, needless to say, apply to the present corpus as well.
Moreover, as Atkins, Clear & Ostler (1992:5) have so rightly remarked in
general, any "corpus is inevitably biased in some respects", regardless of
whether it is diachronic or synchronic. What might be of particular relevance
in the present case is the absence of the spoken dimension, in the light of the
fact that the phenomenon under discussion, multi-word verbs, has often been
labelled as colloquial in modern English.
The more one knows about a corpus, the easier it is to put data
derived from it into the proper perspective. Also, the characteristics of a
written language can only be adequately put into their proper perspective
against the background of the interaction of the people using it and the uses
of literacy in a given society (Traugott/Romaine 1985:14). Therefore the
following two sections will be devoted to a description of the Lampeter
Corpus and its historical setting.
2.1 General Characteristics of the Lampeter Corpus
In brief, the Lampeter Corpus is a collection of non-literary prose covering
the 100-year period from 1640 to 1740. Its basic structure is determined by
its sub-division into ten decades with twelve complete texts each, bringing
the whole corpus up to 120 texts and 1,172,102 words.1 Every decade in turn
has an internal structure, containing two texts for each of the six domains of
2
RELIGION , POLITICS, ECONOMY , SCIENCE, LAW and MISCELLANEOUS . But let
me now go through the corpus characteristics in more detail.
As to the time chosen, it of course represents an important period in
the standardization process of the English language, a time when the

The research for this study was carried out with a pre-publication form of the corpus
- therefore all the word counts given here may vary somewhat from the final word
counts of the published corpus.
2
The codes for the individual texts chosen in the corpus and used throughout this
study to identify examples taken from the corpus derive from this basic structure. The
codes consist of one of the abbreviations Rel, Pol, Ec, Sci, Law, and Msc for the
domains, plus the letter A or B (two texts for each domain) and the date of publication,
thereby identifying the decade, e.g. PolA1646, SciB1684.

The Lampeter Corpus

relatively inconspicuous selection and codification process was going on

(Stein 1994:10), i.e. before codification became institutionalized in the
grammars and dictionaries of the 18th century. The Lampeter Corpus period
either follows or coincides with important linguistic processes, in particular
the massive expansion of the lexicon leading to the Inkhorn Controversy
(e.g. Nevalainen 1999; Baugh/Cable 1978) and the gradual regularisation of
syntactic structure towards its modern standard (e.g. Rissanen 1999, Rydn
1979). Furthermore, the span of one hundred years, while not very long in
itself, was considered sufficient for the purpose of studying linguistic
change, covering, as it does, three generations. The limitation in period
length was also thought sensible in order to provide somewhat greater depth
(1,172,102 words for 100 years as opposed to, e.g., 551,0003 words in the
Helsinki Corpus for the whole EModE period, 1500-1710) while still staying
within manageable overall proportions. It is thus possible to treat the corpus
either as a synchronic snap-shot of late EModE or as the basis for studying
diachronic development within those 100 years. Both approaches will be
applied in this study. Figure 2.1 shows the spread of data (word size) over
the ten decades in the Lampeter Corpus. The exact extent of the chosen 100
years was also influenced by the basic material that had been chosen. The
material basis was the Tract Collection stored in the Founders Library of the
University of Wales, Lampeter (hence the name of the corpus) 4, which up to
relatively recently allowed instant access to the original prints in its
possession. Using these prints instead of later editions ensured the absolute
authenticity of the material a fact not to be underestimated 5 and also
brought to light texts that had not been edited or re-published since their first
publication. The available material from which to choose in the collection
was especially rich during in the period from 1640 to 1740, with the Civil
War in the 1640s causing a first peak of publication figures (and changing
the nature of public discourse for good (Feather 1988:50f)), followed by
even higher outputs in the 1680s, 1700s and 1710s.6

The figure is taken from Kyts manual to the Helsinki Corpus (1991:2).
For further information on the Tract Collection, cf. Harris & James (1974).
5
Editions, which are usually prepared by people from other fields of research, e.g.
historians, are not necessarily very reliable with respect to purely linguistic matters.
6
After 1640, the printing industry expanded considerably with the publication of c.
1,000 titles a year in normal times, and up to c. 2,000 titles in moments of crisis or
public hysteria, and also with increasing edition sizes (c.1,500 copies, but up to 3,000
copies in some cases) (Cressy 1980:47).
4

The Lampeter Corpus

1730
108,454
1720
words
123,048
9%
words
10%

1640
126,099
words
11%

1710
102,740
words
9%
1700
101,714
words
9%

1650
96,456 words
8%
1660
102,233
words
9%

1690
126,148
words
11%

1680
150,457
words
13%

1670
134,753
words
11%

Figure 2.1 The decade structure of the Lampeter Corpus

The decision as to which kind of texts to include in the corpus was
also guided by the material found in Lampeter. As the name Tract Collection
already suggests it consists of tracts, though primarily actually of pamphlets.
The main OED definition of the latter runs as follows:
A small treatise occupying fewer pages or sheets than would make a
book, composed and ... (since c 1500) printed, and issued as a
separate work; always (at least in later use) unbound, with or without
paper covers.
In a general sense used irrespective of subject (...), and in 17th c. including issues of single plays, romances, poems, novelettes, newspapers, news-letters, and other periodicals; still sometimes applied to
chap-books, and the like; ...
As the OED shows, the meaning of tract (s.v. tract n. 1) is in fact rather similar to this:
2. a. A book or written work treating of some particular topic; a treatise; a written or printed discourse or dissertation

The Lampeter Corpus

3. a. In later use: A short pamphlet on some religious, political, or
other topic, suitable for distribution or for purposes of propaganda.
[first quote for 3.a.: 1762]

This means that those two particular publication formats provide for a great
variety of topics and text types or genres. 7 The subject matter of the pamphlets are often questions of intense and also controversial current interest,
such as the assessment and call for assassination of Cromwell, a discussion
or rather refutation of witchcraft, or the economic rivalry with the Dutch. On
the other hand, there are also very sober, less contentious publications,
such as Hookes scientific treatise on the motion of the earth, a rather dry
treatment of the legal administration of land-ownership, or a lengthy
exegetical tract on the biblical term scandal things one would not expect
to appear in that format from the modern perspective. 8 As regards text types,
there are such things as the inevitable sermons, political and legal speeches,
court room transcripts, essays, lectures, text-books, satires etc. as well
as texts that elude any hard and fast classification. The corpus is intended to
reflect this varied situation as far as possible, though with two exceptions.
Any kind of literary output to be found among those pamphlets (cf. the OED
definition above) was excluded from the collection; this also goes for the
perhaps not always quite so literary output of the well-known literary
figures of that period, such as Dryden, Defoe or Swift.9 The reasons behind
this are that (a) the literary production of that time is relatively easily
accessible at any rate, and it is also already represented in corpora (e.g. the
Century of Prose Corpus), and (b) the Lampeter Corpus is instead supposed
to represent the back-drop to this, the wide mainstream of written language
production, so to speak. Literature and great writers, after all, can only be
correctly assessed if seen in their own proper environment. 10 Newspaper
material was also excluded, as this will be available in the ZEN (Zrich
7

Grabes (1990:viii) used a more restricted definition than the one adopted here in his
study of the English pamphlet from 1521 to 1640, e.g. with restrictions as to the length
(up to 50 pages), the domain (only religion and politics) and the necessity of being
related to current affairs. In general, most people seem to think mainly of politics in
connection with pamphlets, cf. also for instance Ahrens (1991).
8
For a list of all the texts contained in the corpus, see the corpus manual (forthc.). Cf.
also for general interest the online catalogue of the Founders Library.
9
This decision reflects a distinctly modern perspective, however, for, as Sharpe &
Zwicker (1987:1-20) point out in their introduction, the 17th century distinguished the
literary and the fictitious much less clearly from other types of writing than we do
today. Literature then could still be all things, and all things could be literature.
10
Also, as Warner (1961:80) remarked with respect to the historical study of style, a
minor writer can perhaps reveal the characteristics of his age better than a major
author.

The Lampeter Corpus

English Newspaper) and the Rostock Historical Newspaper corpora. To sum

up this point, the variety assembled in the corpus should also ensure a
diversity of linguistic structures, for instance in lexical range through the
many different topics and areas treated, but also with regard to syntactic
structures dominant or under-represented in one or the other genre or
register.
All the texts included in the corpus are complete texts, not samples of
arbitrarily cut-out smaller text chunks found in most other corpora. They
contain everything from the titlepage to the Finis, that is, in addition to the
main text, also dedications, addresses (usually to the reader), introductions
by publishers, and appendices with lists or other additional matter. It should
not be ignored that this approach has its disadvantages: the varying length of
individual texts (from 3,436 words to 24,042 words) can make compilation
and the final corpus seem rather erratic, it can introduce strong biases if not
enough care is taken, and it certainly complicates linguistic statistics. However, the great advantage of this method is that it makes text-linguistic and
stylistic studies possible on a sensible level. In this way the corpus can far
better reflect the uneven spread of linguistic features across the different
manifestations of the language. The inclusion of complete texts was considered especially necessary, as prose style and this is taken to include overall
textual characteristics seems to have undergone an extensive shift in the
period in question here (cf. Jones 1951; Adolph 1668, 1981). It is also easier
to identify the individual stylistic preferences of some authors and to make
allowances for them if one is working within the context of whole texts. The
inclusion of such material as dedications and addresses can also create interesting sociolinguistic perspectives.
The decade structure of the corpus, which looked like a very simple
thing in the beginning, proved to have its own particular problems as well.
The frequency of later editions of texts that were found in the Tract
Collection made it necessary to decide on the fact that it was not primarily
the date of publication, but rather that of writing which was to count. This
means texts suitable for inclusion needed to have been written in the same
decade in which they were published, i.e. first editions as a rule. Later
editions were included in some cases, but only if the text expressly stated
that corrections, enlargements or the like had been carried out by the author.
Only if the time line is kept intact in that way is the study of linguistic
change over the one hundred corpus years at all feasible.
The question of authorship has already been touched on above when
discussing the exclusion of literary writers. A special feature of the period in
question is the high instance of anonymous publications, which are to be understood against the background of censorship laws (e.g. Feather 1988:85;

10

The Lampeter Corpus

Siebert 1965:passim), or rather of eluding them, and the harsh punishment of

authors found guilty of libel throughout most of the period.11 Being such a
typical characteristic of the press situation then, anonymous publications, as
well as those only identified by the putative initials of the author, were not
completely excluded from the corpus; however, given the fact that
knowledge about the author can be (socio)-linguistically important, they
were kept to a minimum. Thus, most authors are known by name, and
background information could be found about most of them, though
unfortunately not all. Each author is represented only once in the whole
corpus. Texts originating with a corporate body (stated on the titlepage or the
Lampeter library catalogue), such as the Commissioners of the Navy, the
East India Company or the House of Lords, were also included; in contrast to
truly anonymous publications their authorship is definitely restricted to a
certain socio-economic circle of people.
Given the text-linguistic and to a lesser extent sociolinguistic
concerns connected with the compilation of the corpus, this was also to be
reflected in the finished product with the help of SGML markup based on the
TEI scheme, i.e. markup of individual features of the texts and a header with
(background) information about the text and its author added to every text. I
will not go into detail here about these matters 12, but the general aim of the
markup was to make the original layout of the texts as retrievable as possible
in so far as linguistically relevant from the electronic version. 13
2.2 The Lampeter Corpus as a Mirror of 17th- and 18th-century England
It is in three respects especially that the Lampeter Corpus can be called a
mirror of the political, cultural and social conditions of England in the 17th
and 18th centuries. The first is found in the areas of life and topics covered
by the texts, i.e. in general by the domain structure. The second is
represented by the authors of the texts, their social spread, their education,
their professions and their place in public life. The last has to do with the
nature of public discourse at that time, that is on the one hand the situation

11

Cf. for instance the fate of the author of text LawB1649, who lost both his ears and
was branded on the cheeks (cf. the header information) as punishment for publishing
libellous texts.
12
For a detailed explanation of the markup, cf. the corpus manual (forthc.). For some
further remarks about the header information, see below in 2.2.
13
Quotations from the corpus in this study will not contain any overt mark-up, and will
reproduce the original typographical appearance of the textual instance only if necessary to the discussion.

The Lampeter Corpus

11

of the press as such and on the other hand the characteristics of the
reception process and of the audience.
The domains RELIGION , POLITICS , ECONOMY , SCIENCE , LAW and
MISCELLANEOUS are supposed to reflect as widely as possible the scope of
life as found between 1640 and 1740.14 And in English and British history,
this was a period of enormous importance and far-reaching consequences for
the future of Great Britain. To deal adequately with that point would mean
turning this study into a full-blown historical treatise which, needless to say,
is completely out of place here. Thus I will restrict myself to those kind of
remarks of immediate relevance to the corpus material.
Religion and politics are intimately intertwined in the era in question,
and this is reflected in the texts; many of them deal with both issues at once
or with one of them under the guise of the other. In contrast to the modern
perspective this would not then have been perceived as problematic,
contradictory or even remarkable at all. Of course this was bound to cause
problems for classification in the corpus; usually the predominant theme in a
mixed text would determine under which heading it went (this applies also
to texts in the other domains), or, in some cases, text type would help
determine the question: however political the content, a sermon will always
be found under RELIGION in the corpus (e.g. RelA1696). Mixed texts in
general seem to have been not uncommon then, as thinking was obviously
less compartmentalized than it was to become later. Therefore, there has
intentionally not been an attempt to generally avoid mixed texts and opt
only for pure ones, as this would have distorted the historical situation. Any
linguistic approach taking domains/registers or text types as its basic
parameter will have to take account of this fact.
The four issues that are important with respect to RELIGION are Anglicanism, Protestant Dissent, Catholicism (with all three always including their
relationship to the political state) and the question of (passive) atheism. The
last may seem surprising at first, but while this was a religious age, it must
not be forgotten that it also was the Age of Reason. In fact, after the
Toleration Act of 1689 a significant number of people attended no form of
worship whatsoever, which was either a sign of outright atheism or simply of

14

A comparison of this classification, which was imposed by the corpus compilers on

the Founders Librarys Tract Collection rather than statistically derived from it, with
Feathers (1986) subject analysis of British 18th-century publishing shows that it is not
wide off the mark. Although an exact comparison is somewhat hampered by his very
wide category social sciences, the only ones of his types which the Lampeter Corpus
does not cover are literature (and this intentionally so), philosophy and languages (both
of which of are numerically minor categories). Thus the Lampeter Corpus can also be
seen to reflect the publishing situation rather accurately.

12

The Lampeter Corpus

religious apathy (Spurr 1991:378) perhaps rather the latter, as atheism

could still be the cause of sharp attacks against persons suspected of it, e.g.
Hobbes (Hunter 1981). Nevertheless, there was, after the Glorious
Revolution, a new atmosphere of liberalism, which fostered the growth of
heresies such as Socianism or Deism whose members were seen as
suspect not only by the Established Church but also by the state, for there
was a certain connection with political radicalism (Kenyon 1977:83) as in the
case of John Toland, the author of PolA1720. The question of
atheism/religious apathy, while of interest in itself, is also important for
estimating the possible impact of sermons on the population: not everybody
might have been exposed to them as often as Samuel Pepys (cf. his diary). In
general it was assumed, however, that sermons reached many people and had
a great influence, so that in each decade one of the RELIGION texts (RelA) is
always a sermon. After more than one hundred years of intense Protestant
indoctrination and of reading the Bible in English a very far-reaching
religious influence even if maybe more on the subconscious level on the
morals, the thinking and also the mode of expression of the people can be
assumed (cf. Humphreys 1954:168). And of course the sheer amount of
publications on religious themes can be taken as proof of considerable public
interest in the matter. 15
The real problem of the Anglican Church and the state at the time was
probably not fear of atheism but the danger perceived to come from the Dissenting and Catholic camps. The English apprehension of Catholicism
reached psychopathic dimensions (Mullet 1987:148), the best corpus
example of which is text RelA1679, the "sermon of the Antichrist", by whom
none other than the Pope is meant. Anti-Catholic sentiment also had the
clearest and longest lasting political influence, in bringing about the Glorious
Revolution and the Bill of Rights (1688/89) as well as the Act of Settlement
(1701), the latter forbidding a Catholic monarch or consort. The events
leading to the first of these are defended and justified in PolB1690, one of
whose authors happened to be a future bishop of Gloucester. While antiCatholicism could rely on widespread support within the population, the
Dissenters were, so to speak, the enemies from within. The execution of
Charles I and the Puritan Commonwealth that followed had left England
traumatized about the effects of radical Protestantism, a feeling that lasted
well into the 18th century (e.g. RelB1718; cf. Kenyon 1977:83). The ongoing
sermons before Parliament every January 30, on which RelB1730 is a
comment, testify to this. Therefore, the first approach was to suppress and
15

Spufford (1981:130; 138) found a proportion of up to 31% of religious publications

among the chapbooks, dominating especially the cheap market - thus pointing to their
accessibility also for the lower levels of society. Cf. also Hunter (1981:163).

The Lampeter Corpus

13

attack Dissent (cf. for instance RelB1667 with a discussion of this), which,
naturally, was resisted by the Dissenters (cf. an answer written by William
Penn, RelB1674) and which was also not ultimately successful: the
Toleration Act of 1689 relieved the Dissenters of most restrictions. While
there seemed to be a numerical decline of Dissenters towards the end of our
period (Spurr 1991:387), their culture, e.g. in the shape of the progressive
Dissenting academies, was an important contribution to English culture.
In spite of all external and also church-internal problems the Anglican
Church of England was the dominant religious influence in most peoples
life. It survived most conflicts relatively intact, such as that between jurors
and non-jurors (e.g. the author of RelB1701) or the Bangorian Controversy
(RelB1718, RelB1721), and managed to stabilize itself in the 18th century,
producing more calm and social balance within its ranks. The Anglican
clergy on the whole was rather open to new developments, even progressive
ones, which meant, for instance, that bishops also busied themselves with
other than religious (or political) matters, as for instance George Berkeley,
Bishop of Cloyne, and mathematics (SciB1735).
With regard to POLITICS one can think principally of two possible
types of texts, i.e. (i) texts on political theory, or (ii) treatments of and
comments on current political affairs. It is especially the latter kind that is
found in the Lampeter Corpus; theoretical considerations enter into some
texts, such as PolB1659 (the definition of tyranny) or PolA1684 (the
discussion of monarchy as such), but they are always firmly anchored in
some current state or event in those two cases Cromwells rule and the
Exclusion Crisis respectively. It seems as if the publication format of a
pamphlet does not readily offer itself to the exposition of political theory.
Thus the Lampeter POLITICS texts are closely mirroring the well-known
course of English history, e.g. the English Civil War and the Scottish
involvement in it (PolA1646), government during the Commonwealth
(PolA1659), the success of General Monck in preparing the ground for the
Restoration (PolB1660), the Exclusion Crisis (PolA1684) leading up to the
Glorious Revolution (PolB1690), the ongoing Jacobite threat to England
after this (PolA1702), the rise of party politics following their beginnings in
the 1680s (PolA1711), or connected with the emergence of party
democracy the intricacies of elections (PolB1724). It was the existence of
elections, and thus of an electorate, which made political information in print
so especially important; one modern estimate puts the number of voters at c.
340,000, that is one in every four men (Speck 1987:45f). But those who were
not entitled to vote also seem to have shared in a keen interest in politics,
naturally particularly so in times of crisis (Mullet 1987:130). While the great
majority of corpus texts deal with English affairs, there is also some interest

14

The Lampeter Corpus

in Ireland (PolA1720) and more notably for Scotland (PolB1689, PolA1699,

PolB1706), reflecting both the greater importance of Scotland for England
and also more self-confidence on the part of the Scots. Most texts are very
insular in outlook, but foreign (PolA1672) and colonial (PolA1699) matters
occur as well. However, those are much more common in the domain
ECONOMY a telling sign of where English priorities lay in that age. The
POLITICS texts as a whole usually exhibit a highly argumentative style of
writing, and while this is also true of individual texts from other domains
they do in that respect represent a more unified group.
The domain ECONOMY is not to be understood as economics, whose
beginning as an (academic) discipline can be traced to Adam Smiths Wealth
of Nations (1776), but it represents the great mass of writing on that topic
existing before, which is best characterized as economic nationalism. There
was indeed a strong interconnection between politics and economic matters,
with the latter being both a means and an aim in the political struggle with
other nations. Most notably there was the economic rivalry with the Dutch
(cf. EcA1652, EcB1700), which even resulted in three wars during that
period. As economic competition and activity in general was beginning to
take place on a world-wide stage (a first globalization, so to speak), foreign
trade (e.g. EcA1720, EcB1731) and colonial economies (EcA1714,
EcA1731) gained in importance and the whole enterprise also became
more risky (cf. for instance the case of lost ships in LawA1673). Risks, and
also greater costs, were more easily shared by groups of businessmen such as
the East India Company (EcB1641, EcB1676, EcB1681, EcA1697), founded
in 1600. Joint-stock companies like this one were a new development of the
17th century and an important step towards the modern form of capitalism.
But also for the individual merchant/entrepreneur and for the state as such
the question of finance became ever more pressing, as trade became more
expansive, and thus more expensive, and at the same time more competitive.
State financing was of course as sensitive a topic then as it is nowadays and
the search was constantly on for relatively harmless methods of raising
revenue (EcB1660, EcB1696, EcB1717). The longest-lasting outcome of that
periods successful struggle to come to terms with finances was the Bank of
England, founded in 1694 (EcA1705).16 Of course, both foreign economic
involvement and sober financing require a good foundation in the domestic
economy (cf. EcA1681). Many people saw this very clearly, and while,
probably as a result of public interest, the press reflected outside affairs to a
16

Cf. for instance Graves & Silcock (1984:169-193) on the English financial system.
According to them, by 1700 it was very well-developed and definitely superior to those
of Continental Europe, so that texts from that period reflecting the evolution might be
especially interesting.

The Lampeter Corpus

15

much greater extent, developments at home were not to be neglected. In both

agriculture and manufacture increasing specialisation and sophistication
were noticeable, often helped along by new inventions or techniques. The
progressive farmer or entrepreneur would be expected to encourage
improvement (e.g. EcB1653, cf. also SciA1653), and while all this did not
amount to an Industrial Revolution yet, it clearly pointed in that direction.
The great mass and variety of economic publications reveal clear popular
interest in the matter, and it seems that most people saw business as
something positive and worthwhile (Humphreys 1954:52ff). And they
obviously regarded it as something down-to-earth: all the texts are connected
to one or the other current event or problem, there is nothing abstract or
theoretical about them.
SCIENCE is perhaps the most exciting of all the domains, and that is
because science in our modern sense of the word is only really emerging during this period.17 What one finds in the 17th and 18th centuries, especially
the former, is an overlapping of two scientific traditions, that of the old
academic, tradition-bound approach and that of the new rational and
empirical approach going under the name of real (or natural, experimental)
philosophy. Corresponding to this, there was a clash and transformation of
world-views, with somewhat confused views of metaphysical and nonmechanical causes gradually giving way to a clearly fact-based, rational
understanding of the visible world. However, even the new real philosophy
did not right from the beginning conform to our narrow modern definition of
science, it was rather "centring on natural and mechanical problems but
extending through the life sciences towards medicine and through chemistry
and applied mathematics towards technology" (Hunter 1981:32). As the
terms applied and technology already hint at, there was a strong utilitarian
bend present in the new approach, with the question of the usefulness of
scientific studies for the amelioration of human circumstances being given
due consideration. However, the most defining element of real philosophy
was the methods used, which are all based on Baconian empiricism and
which are still in use in science today. These are the collection of data, the
careful observation of real-world processes and events, the formulation of
hypotheses and the conducting of experiments. Probably the best
embodiment of this new science is the Royal Society founded in 1662. The
domain SCIENCE is supposed to reflect this historical picture, and thus the
variety of texts it includes is only to be understood if one disregards the
narrow modern definition of the term. Astrology (SciA1644), for example,
definitely represents the older approach, but nevertheless is still within the
17

Cf. Hunter (1981) for a good introduction into early modern science.

16

The Lampeter Corpus

confines of science in the 1640s (e.g. Clay 1984:185) after all, even
Newton still dabbled in alchemy! Furthermore, the traditional kind of science
is also represented by such textbook-like treatments of secure knowledge as
are found in SciB1652, SciB1666, or SciA1698. Among the representatives
of the real philosophy one finds texts that even today would be regarded as
prototypical science (SciA1666, SciA1674, SciB1676, SciA1683, SciB1684,
SciA1720, and SciB1722), with some well-known authors such as Hooke or
Boyle. Authors of some other texts must have been well established within
the circle of the virtuosi (as the new scientists were then called), even though
their output might seem too applied or dubious to us (e.g. SciA1653,
SciB1696, SciA1709, SciB1714, SciA1730). Two texts (SciB1701,
SciA1712) are special in so far as they are not scientific as such, but rather
deal with the status of scientific professions, something that is important
from the perspective of the increasing consolidation and closing-up of these
professions during the early modern era. What makes this domain of
additional interest is the fact that scientific texts (together with sermons)
have been suspected to be at the forefront of the stylistic changes taking
place at the time (Jones 1951; Adolph 1968).
Two principal kinds of texts combine to make up the domain LAW . On
the one hand, some texts belong there because of their text type, i.e. they
represent genres that only occur in the legal sphere such as statutes
(LawA1643), petitions (LawB1661) or pleas (LawB1715). On the other
hand, there are those texts that deal with topics or describe events in the
sphere of law; they are rather about law or legal questions than within law.
Some of them give an insight into the administration of law as such
(LawA1680) or, on the basis of this, put the case for certain improvements,
as for instance LawA1653 and LawA1694 do. Others discuss specific legal
cases which either had caused public dispute, such as LawB1688, LawB1697
and LawB1704 (all of them concerned in some way with royal prerogative),
or which were deemed to be of general public interest, e.g. LawA1703 or
LawB1738, the latter one being concerned with the case of a printer and involving the question of freedom of the press. Law texts, as some of the
above already show, can also have a close affinity to politics, be it because
they touch on the question of civil rights (LawB1649, LawA1732), or
because they deal with treason cases (LawA1716, LawA1723, LawB1723).
Trial or court-room transcripts, such as LawA1668 and LawB1678, but also
LawA1716, form a class of their own between those two types and provide a
most vivid picture not only of the workings of the legal system but also of
everyday life in that period. In so far as there is some actual speech,
however filtered through writing, found in them, they are especially
interesting for register or stylistic studies. What is also intriguing about the

The Lampeter Corpus

17

domain LAW in general is the fact that on the one hand it reflects something
so typically English as the Common law system and on the other hand it was
one of the last spheres of public life to officially give up the use of a foreign
language with the abolition of Law French in 1732.
While MISCELLANEOUS might not sound like a very useful name for a
domain, it was thought necessary in order to enable the inclusion of a wide
variety of texts evidently typical of the time and the contemporary press
which fit none of the other categories and are also too varied as a group to be
given a more descriptive name. Quite a few of these texts are what one
would find in the popular press nowadays. Among those there are topics
such as natural catastrophes (MscA1669), the supernatural (MscB1666,
MscA1696, MscA1712), frauds and swindlers (MscB1692), adventure
story (MscA1685), as well as biographies of people of interest (MscB1676,
MscB1729, MscB1739). Other texts would fall rather under the headings of
manuals or practical advice, be it more in the social sphere (MscA1676,
MscB1700) or in garden and household (MscB1718, MscA1722,
MscA1730), the latter combining its advice with a sales advert. Some texts
view matters with political implications from a different, sometimes private,
angle, for example the Civil War from the point of view of a militia man
(MscA1643), ship-building and its effects on the strength of the English navy
(MscB1646), or an important contractor on the rebuilding of London
(MscB1685). Satire, which is so typical of the era, is also found (MscA1650,
perhaps also MscB1700), as well as a self-reflective treatise on the freedom
of the press (MscA1704).
While the corpus thus allows illuminating insights into many aspects
of life in early modern England, the domain structure and the variety of text
types 18 present also make it possible to create sub-corpora in order to study
different registers 19, styles, or formality levels, for instance. The following
pie chart shows the absolute (number of words) and relative sizes
(percentage of corpus) of these domain sub-corpora:

18

The text headers will contain information on what the text calls itself, e.g. essay,
treatise, speech etc. But of course not every text contains a self-description of that
kind, in which case the slot will remain empty. An additional text classification (cf.
Schmied/Claridge 1997 for an early attempt) on our, the compilers, part was considered too subjective in nature and thus dispensed with.
19
As the Lampeter Corpus period is a time of changing social conditions and emerging
institutions, registers should not be seen as monolithic blocks, however. Faircloughs
(1988) concept of multi-registerial texts might be interesting here.

18

The Lampeter Corpus

Science
222,395
words
20%

Economy
173,077
words
15%
Law
204,645
words
17%

Religion
202,802
words
17%

Politics
204,839
words
17%

Miscellaneous
164,344
words
14%

Figure 2.2: The domains of the Lampeter Corpus

The second view into early modern England mentioned above is provided by the authors of the corpus texts and the information about them contained in the text headers. Of course, this is not always the case, definitely
not for anonymous texts (16 in all) and those with corporate authors (4),
but there are also some authors, though known by name, about whom
nothing could be found out (11). However, in all other cases it was attempted
to give as much of the following information as possible: the date and place
of birth, sex, age, places of residence up to the time of writing the text,
educational history, occupation(s), as well as the socio-economic status of
the writer and of his/her father or mother, occasionally supplemented by a
further biographical note (such as Royalist affiliations for James Howell
[PolA1648]). The following is an example taken from the header of text
SciA1674:
<PERSON ROLE="author" SEX="M" AGE="30:39">
<PERSNAME>Robert Hooke</PERSNAME>
<BIRTH><DATE>1635</DATE> Freshwater (Isle of
Wight)</BIRTH>
<RESIDENCE>Freshwater; Oxford; London; Oxford; London</RESIDENCE>

The Lampeter Corpus

19

<EDUCATION>Westminster-School; Christ Church, Oxford: MA

(1663)</EDUCATION>
<OCCUPATION>secretary; Gresham Professor of geometry;
surveyor of London; inventor; professor of Mechanics to the Royal
Society; perpetual curator of experiments to the Royal Society
</OCCUPATION>
<SOCECSTATUS>professions (academic)</SOCECSTATUS>
<SOCECSTATUSPAT>professions
(clergy)</SOCECSTATUSPAT>
From a sociolinguistic perspective it is the classification according to
socio-economic status that is probably of most relevance. Of course, it is
difficult to re-create a sociological profile of a past society and the results of
such attempts always have to be treated with some caution. Nevertheless, the
following model, which is based on the research of such historians as
Holderness (1976), Wrightson (1982, 1986), Clay (1984), Houston (1992),
and Coward (1994), seems to present a fair picture of society at the time of
the Lampeter Corpus.
I. Nobility
Aristocracy / Peerage (dukes, earls, marquises, viscounts, barons)
Gentry (baronets, knights, esquires, gentlemen)
Archbishops & Bishops
II. Landed and Professional Classes
Officers
Government Officials
Clergy
Lawyers
Medical Profession
Merchants and Manufacturers
Yeomanry (rural)
III. The "middling sort"
Freemen (masters, craftsmen, tradesmen)
Husbandmen / Craftsmen / Tradesmen (rural)
IV. Lower ranks
Wage-earners (journeymen, apprentices, servants etc.)
Cottagers / Craftsmen / Tradesmen / Labourers (rural)
V. The Poor

20

The Lampeter Corpus

Factors that play a role in determining social status include birth, title,
wealth and the nature of that wealth, life-style, occupation, form of land tenure, tenure of positions of authority and legal status, not all of which are of
equal weight, however (Wrightson 1982:22). The model should not be seen
as static; there were of course shifts, even if only small, in the relationship
between social groups during the 100 years covered here, and there was also
the not negligible fact of individual social mobility (Wrightson 1986:180;
187).
Naturally, not all members of society as found in this model are relevant with regard to authorship because of the uneven spread of literacy
(especially the ability to write) through society (Spufford 1981:21ff) and also
because access to the printing presses would have been uneven for the
different social classes. 20 Thus the two lowest levels in the above model can
usually be disregarded in the question of (direct) authorship and the middling
sort, so to speak, will also be under-represented in that respect. Most authors
will invariably come from the two top levels, which from a sociolinguistic
point of view is rather deplorable. However, at least the second level and the
existence of social risers (i.e. higher social level than the father) allow for
some possibly interesting variation. Another point which is somewhat
disappointing is the rarity of female authors, only two in the whole Lampeter
Corpus (both in the domain RELIGION ); probably it was difficult for women
to get access to the printing presses. 21 It is noteworthy that one of the
corpuss female authors had inherited a print shop from her husband, which
enabled her to print her material herself. The corpus thus represents the
different possibilities of social and cultural participation for different
members of society.
Looking through the corpus authors one thus finds the following
social spread: in the first and highest class there are 22 authors in all, the
majority (11) of them belonging to the aristocracy, while six are members of
the gentry and five are found in the ranks of the higher clergy. Most authors,
however, are found in the second social class, representing among them all
the possible professions but not the yeomanry (which is only found in the
father generation of some authors). Of the 59 people in this group, the
20

However, Smith (1994:6; 23) remarks that authorship could reach rather far down
the social scale (especially during the Commonwealth), that the capacity to put something into print grew from the 1640s onwards and that in general new kinds of authors
emerged in England in the 17th century.
21
I.e. those that could write at all. In fact, nearly 90% of all women in 17th-century
England could not even write their names (Cressy 1980:41). However, among London
women illiteracy declined rather dramatically down to 44% by 1720 (ibid. 147).

The Lampeter Corpus

21

majority of 24 belong to the clergy. The urban part of the third, middling
group is present in the corpus with 15 authors. About 14 authors could be
characterized as social risers, as they are somewhat higher up in the social
ranking than their fathers were. The opposite process is also found, usually
as a drop from the first into the second class, which is not surprising as
younger sons of the gentry, and to a lesser extent also of the aristocracy, who
did not inherit had to find another source of income. An example, though
probably less out of need than out of inclination, is Boyle (SciB1684), who
was born into the aristocracy, but then became a scientist. Together with the
variety regarding occupations and the various educational courses taken by
the authors, the existing social spread also makes it possible to approach the
Lampeter Corpus from a sociolinguistic point of view.
What distinguishes the Lampeter Corpus authors from most of their
colleagues in PDE corpora is the nature and status of their writing. In the
17th and, to a lesser extent, the early 18th centuries "writing was not yet
regarded as a profession, but rather as a form of civilised communication"
(Bonham-Carter 1978:12). Although there were authors who wrote on
commission for the booksellers and for money (Feather 1988:103f), for the
majority of early modern authors writing was neither their sole occupation
nor even the most prominent part of their life or profession. Eisenstein
(1983:100) calls these authors (until the 18th century) "quasi-amateurs". It is
probably not saying too much if one expects this to have an influence on
their use of the language, e.g. the possible absence of professional group
styles.
The third thing the Lampeter Corpus mirrors is the nature of public
discourse at that time and thus, indirectly, the audience of the texts found in
the corpus. That public discourse and public opinion were taken seriously
then and its machinations and outcome consciously exploited by, e.g.,
politicians is expressly stated by one of the highly contentious texts of the
Lampeter Corpus (PolB1730, my italics):
However the whole Stream of their Malice, for some Time, flowed
only in this Channel, to vilify this Ministers Name, to arraign his
Conduct, depreciate his Services, blacken his Character, and weaken
his Credit, both with his Prince and his Fellow-Subjects; all Hands
were imployed, and all Engines set at Work; Manuscripts were
circulated, the Press loaded, Coffee-House Talkers, Table-Wits, and
Bottle-Companions had their Instructions given them; and the
grossest Falshoods were inculcated in the grossest Terms; ... (p.11)
The Transition was easy from Ministers to Princes; and the same
Methods that had served to defame the one, were now imployed to

22

The Lampeter Corpus

depreciate the other. The whole Artillery of Pamphleteers, Balladmongers, and Libellers was drawn out; ... (p.17)

All the means then possible were used, and while the author of that text mentions them accusingly, he himself is also using the most effective of those
means, the pamphlet, to react to them. Pamphlet publications could be more
effective than, for instance, the newspapers (one of which, The Craftsman,
PolB1730 is directed against), because (a) they could treat of their topics
more exhaustively if they wanted, and more importantly (b) because they
could be less easily traced and suppressed as they did not emanate regularly
from one rather constant source.
As "the pamphlet was (...) the principle [sic] means of reaching a
mass audience" (Feather 1986:38), it can be assumed that most of the
authors, especially those writing about matters of great interest and/or
contention, wrote with the widest possible audience in mind. Pamphlets
usually want to influence and sway public opinion, and this they can only do
if they make themselves clearly understood. Gordon (1966:9) states that
even when print became the normal means of dissemination, much
prose remained oral in conception. The drama, the sermon, and the
pamphlet (...) perpetuate in print what was first conceived in terms of
the spoken word.
It can therefore further be assumed that most pamphlets are not written in
any kind of complicated or intricate style, but rather at a neutral level. To
assume a more colloquial level, in spite of Gordons comment, would be to
expect too much, as the stylistic awareness of the age was too well developed
for that; one of the Lampeter authors even felt it necessary to apologize for
the in his opinion inadequately humble style of his work.22 How aware
authors were of their readers is also shown by the frequency of addresses to
the reader being attached to their main work.23
The natural place of pamphlets was the streets and especially
Londons coffee-house scene (Sommerville 1996:163), as also mentioned in
the corpus quotes above. While pamphlets, as well as everything else, were
22

"... and tho possibly my Stile may appear rough and unpolishd, which the courteous
Reader I hope will a little excuse, ..." (MscA1685, p. 26). But a rather desperate statement by Richard Baxter (Reliquiae Baxterianae, 1696), one of the authors of
MscB1658, contains an implicit admission that the style of most writers is probably still
too complicated: "Indeed, the more I have to do with the ignorant sort of people the
more I find that we cannot possibly speak too plainly to them. If we do not speak to
them in their own vulgar dialect, they understand us not." (quoted in Gordon
1966:125f).
23
Twenty texts contain addresses to the reader; additionally, there are fourteen addresses to specific persons or groups of people.

The Lampeter Corpus

23

in their great majority printed in London (e.g. Feather 1988: 67), they also
reached the rest of the country, partly through pedlars but also through a
network of booksellers (Spufford 1981; Alston 1981; Feather 1988:41).
Nevertheless, the London readership was the most important one (Smith
1994:26); London was not only by far the biggest city in the country (with
575,000 inhabitants (c. 10-12%) from a whole population (England/Wales)
of c. 5-5.5 million in about 1700)24, but also the place where all important
decisions were taken and thus where these could be influenced by pressure
from below (cf. for instance the Saccheverell affair and the riots connected
with it, beginning in 1709). The c. 500 coffee-houses in London were the
places where people congregated not only to drink coffee, but to read
literature, pamphlets or newspapers and to discuss their content (Humphreys
1954:18; Feather 1988:54). Or they did not even have to read them: early
Modern England was still to a considerable extent an oral-based culture or at
least one with a considerable oral residue (cf. Ong 1982). People would still
read things aloud for others to share in the information (cf. Cressy 1980:14;
Feather 1988:94 and Aries/Chartier 1991:150ff, also the illustration p. 130).
Sommerville (1996:125) quotes Charles Leslie as saying that even the
illiterate
will Gather together about one that can Read, and Listen to an Observator or Review (as I have seen them in the Streets) where all the
Principles of Rebellion are Instilled into them, and they are Taught ...
to Banter Religion.25
Authors were aware of these practices, and therefore it is not completely
inappropriate to assume that they not only wrote for readers, but also for
listeners.
Through the practice of reading aloud, illiterate and semi-literate people also gained access to the world of pamphlets, thereby increasing the audience. Though the extent of literacy in societies of the past is extremely hard
to measure (Schofield 1981), and estimates in the extant literature differ (e.g.
Cressy 1980, Spufford 1981), there is reason to believe that literacy, in par24

Figures from Wrightson (1982:128), Borsay (1987:197) and Clay (1984:2; 170).
Urbanization, i.e. the proportion of the nation living in towns, was expanding; by 1700
probably a quarter of the population of England and Wales was urban (cf. also the map
in Clay 1984:168). London was even a real metropolis, definitely the biggest city in
Western Europe and one of the three to four largest in the world (Borsay 1987:200).
An increasing urban population also meant more (active) participants in the public discourse of the time, among other things because literacy was probably more widespread
in towns than in rural areas (Cressy 1980:72).
25
Source given by Sommerville: Rehearsal, Preface to the first collected volume published in 1708.

24

The Lampeter Corpus

ticular the ability to read (both the easier task and the one taught first in
schools (e.g. Schofield 1981:460), was more common than often thought and
that it even trickled down to the lower reaches of society (e.g. Spufford
1981) although there was of course a clear social stratification in literacy
levels. Furthermore, illiteracy certainly declined during the early modern
period, as can be seen in the following graph taken from Cressy (1980:177):

Figure 2.3: The decline of illiteracy in early modern England

(reproduced from Cressy 1980:177)
One important aspect for the amount or increase of literacy is certainly religion: more people in Protestant cultures, such as the British one, have been
shown to possess books at all (an indication of literacy) and also in greater
numbers than their contemporaries in Catholic environments (Aries/Chartier
1991:134ff). In addition, however, print as such was probably not the least
factor in bringing about an increase in literacy by encouraging people in
daily or at least weekly contact with printed matter (an amount of exposure
not possible in manuscript cultures!) to learn to read and write (Eisenstein
1985:21).
While the wide audience thus must have had some checking influence
on high-flying style in pamphlets, there will also have been a reverse influ ence on the audience by the language actually used in the pamphlets. Seen
psychologically, written, more specifically printed language has an inherent
authority never attained by the spoken word and in an age that (a) exhibits
a rather high awareness of linguistic matters, especially of the status of the
English language, and (b) gradually sets out on the course of standardizing
the language, the role played by the language of public discourse is by no
means negligible. Stein (1994:14) has pointed out that "it could well be
argued that inherent in the written printed language of the time there was a

The Lampeter Corpus

25

codifying effect per se" and that it was already the case "long before (with
e.g. Johnson and Lowth) a prescriptivism based on codification proper set
in", which thus gives crucial importance to the 17th century in this respect.
Printed matter not only disseminated specific linguistic features among its
wide audience, but also influenced the future perception of language as such
(cf. Bex 1996:32). It is thus especially the mainstream features of English,
those that are part of the drift (cf. chap.3) and those that are associated with
neutral to moderately conversational styles like the analytic verb forms
examined here which will be illuminated by a closer look at these kinds of
writing.

3. Multi-word Verbs as a Group

3.1 An Attempt at a Definition
The focus here will be on the question of what can count as a verb in the
context of a sentence. Or, how are expressions such as the underlined ones in
the following sentences, taken at random from the BNC, to be treated in this
respect?
(1)
(2)
(3a)
(3b)
(4)
(5)

A small party may get a substantial number of votes, but if they fall
short of the quota it will not normally win a seat. (BNC EW4 700)
You work with your dog so you have to look after him very carefully.
(BNC A17 1502)
She has made a choice not only of person, but of class. (BNC AN4
2928)
What you may have to take into consideration is the well-being of
companies or individuals you are dependent on for your future. (BNC
CBC 4727)
Above all, though, glasnost and greater contact with the West have
brought about a fait accompli. (BNC A2X 432)
We all fell in with what you wanted, we all bent over backwards to do
what you wanted. (BNC FAB 3392)

What they all have in common is that (a) they consist of more than one
word1, i.e. are analytic constructions, and (b) nevertheless represent a
semantic unity that is characteris tic of a single word or lexical unit. While
some elements (especially prepositions and particles) are easier to
integrate into the verb phrase, others, such as a choice (3a) have not found as
ready an acceptance after all they are susceptible to a traditional in terpretation as a direct object. Here, all the elements in the above examples
will be seen as being part of the verb. In all other respects, however, they
clearly differ from each other, most notably in their internal make -up, but
also as a consequence in their syntactic behaviour. Moreover, their
frequencies and thus their impact on the structure of English v ary greatly,
with the type found in (4) certainly being the most prominent one.
Nevertheless, their common characteristics justify combining them into one
larger group for the purpose of investigation (cf. 3.4). In the history of
1

The notion of word will throughout the study be used in an everyday, quasi pretheoretical way (cf. Bauers discussion (1983:7-10)), as a more theoretical definition is
not necessary for the problem in hand.

Multi-word Verbs as a Group

27

linguistics, these structures were mostly treated neither as a group nor in a

systematic way. Therefore statements concerning them in older general
descriptions of English which I will briefly look at now are usually
scattered all over the works in question.
Kruisingas (1925:II/3,72) definition of a compound, which according
to him is "a combination of two or more words forming a semantic unit
which is not identical with the combined meanings of its elements", is of
interest here, as one of the examples he gives for such compo unds, pay
attention, fits in with (3). In other places he explicitly mentions "compound
verbs" (used for a combination of (2) and (4), (ibid. II/1, 113 ff) and
"separable compounds" (reminiscent of German separable verbs),
illustrated among others by cases like (4) (ibid. II/1, 65). Behind these
separable compounds may lie his distinction between "distance compounds",
which he exemplifies by for my brothers sake, and "contact-compounds"
such as schoolmaster (II/3,73). "Semi-compounds" is another of his terms,
used for combinations like laugh at, think fit, take care of that are on the one
hand "closely connected in meaning", but on the other are "not completely
isolated" (II/3, 76). Kruisingas usage of the word compound clearly shows
that he is prepared to give word status to such combinations as in (1)-(5)
above and that his main reason for doing so is their semantic cohesion.
Poutsma (1926:25,118) employs the term "group-verb" for cases in
which there is a close link between a verb and its complemen t and in which
"the component parts form no real separate subjects of thought", i.e. just like
Kruisinga his motivation for recognising a class of compound verbs is
semantic. Jespersen (1928:III,294) carefully states that some phrases, his
examples being taken from the classes of (2) and (3) above, "are now felt as
wholes". In another place (V,6) he explicitly calls them "composite verbal
expressions" and analyses them as a whole as W in his SWO-structures.
Thus he draws syntactic consequences from his observation. Two different
descriptions are employed by Curme (1931:572f), "transitive compound
verbs" for such types as (2) and (3), and "group words" for combinations like
(4). This latter term is used to distinguish some groups of words from other
syntactically similar ones on the grounds that they exhibit the "oneness of
meaning" otherwise only found in a word.
It is clear from the statements and opinions just quoted that the prob lem posed by the structures in (1) to (5) and similar ones has received so me
treatment, albeit mostly rather haphazardly and unsystematically in early
studies. Recently, linguistic treatments of this point have been more
systematic and intensive, as chapters 3 and 4 will show. Nevertheless, with
the exception of Quirk et al. (1985), they have hardly been comprehensive
with respect to multi-word verbs as a group. Thus, the attempt to deal with

28

Multi-word Verbs as a Group

all kinds of multi-word verbs in a more comprehensive, theoretical and

empirical manner seems both necessary and appropriate. This is what the
present work tries to do.
I will take Quirk et al.s (1985:1150) definition of a multi-word verb
as a "unit which behaves to some extent either lexically or syntactically as a
single verb" as a starting point. "To some extent" is symptomatic of
everything having to do with multi-word verbs, as there are no clear -cut
boundaries, only a cline and the cut-off points will always have to remain
based more or less on the subjective feeling of the linguist dealing with the
problem. I do not, therefore, propose to offer a hard and fast theory of the
problem, but simply an account of the matter which seems plausible to me.
Another boundary that multi-word verbs touch or rather straddle is the one
between syntax and semantics, cf. "either lexically or syntactically" in the
quotation above. Some of the complexes one intuitively classifies as multi word verbs will fulfil lexical/semantic criteria, others syntactic criteria, while
a third group will satisfy criteria in both spheres (cf. also
Burgschmidt/Perkins 1985). Fulfilment of all possible criteria in each case
cannot reasonably be expected in this context, in my opinion. I intend to use
surface structure (cf. also Denison 1985b:189) and semantics (similar to
many of the linguists cited above) most of all in my approach to the topic.
"As language is used, meaning is both the beginning and the end point"
(Dixon 1992:5), and syntax is only the means of realizing the intended
meaning.
The following then is an attempt at a definition. First of all, a multi word verb is a group consisting of two or more words, regardless of whether
they form an uninterrupted sequence or are spread discontinuously across the
clause. Secondly, this group is made up of whatever in the context of a
clause or sentence transports the concept of, or information about, the
process itself (cf. Halliday 1985:102), the verbal meaning. The group
should thus exhibit what Cruse (1986:77) terms "the union of a lexical form
and a single sense". Here I am interested in how verbal semantic s may be
enriched, changed or even taken over by additional elements. Notice,
however, that not all its elements have to make a semantic contribution to the
overall meaning; there can be empty or operator elements. Thirdly, the items
making up such a multi-word verb do not necessarily all belong to the
traditional word class verb; possible candidates are nouns, adjectives,
adverbs, and prepositions. It is clear, however, that at least one real verb
must be present to fulfil the necessary grammatical functions associated with
a verb in a clause. Lastly, the internal structure of multi -word verb
combinations is usually such that an alter native syntactic analysis (perhaps
also connected with an alternative meaning) of them and their connection

Multi-word Verbs as a Group

29

with the rest of the clause is perfectly possible (cf. Dixon 1982:39), e.g. the
analysis as a verb-direct object sequence (make a choice in (3a) above) or as
verb + prepositional phrase instead of as a lexical multi -word verb (cf. Quirk
et al.s (1985:1150) two analyses of dispose of N). While the first, third and
fourth points refer to (surface) form, the second one is about meaning, i.e.
function, which is the most important element of the definition. An
additional point is stability over time, the habitual nature of t he combination
(Glser 1986:16;19; Burgschmidt/Perkins 1985:27). This is cer tainly
important, but it can only be verified empirically with other wise pre-defined
multi-word verbs.
Cruses notion of semantic constituents (1986:23 -32), which are formplus-meaning complexes (cf. the elements of the above definition), is, I
think, of interest here. He himself uses the concept to award the status of
minimal lexical units to idioms and with some hesitation to dead
metaphors, but not to collocations (ibid. 37-45). According to this notion,
multi-word verbs could only be considered lexical units if they represent one
minimal semantic constituent. To illustrate this with Cruses examples, on
the mat in The cat sat on the mat is a semantic constituent of the whole
sentence which, however, consists of the further minimal semantic
constituents on, the, and mat. Cook s goose, on the other hand, in This will
cook Arthurs goose cannot be divided into the constituents cook, s, goose,
but is itself already a minimal semantic constituent. Analysing the relevant
part of (6) into its semantic constituents, we get she - ... - looked - into her
big, brown eyes - ..., which can be tested by putting the constituent (here the
last of the three) into another sentential context, to which it should make an
identical semantic contribution, cf. The doctor put the eyedrops into her big,
brown eyes.
(6)

She held Lizzies paw, looked into her big, brown eyes, wishing Lizzie
could live forever. (BNC A17 1097)

The constituent in question here separates further into the minimal semantic
constituents into her- big brown eyes, which could be individually
contrasted with at his bright blue eyes, for example; according
to this theory the exchanging of blue for brown should yield parallel changes
of meaning in different sentences. The substitutions made change the
meaning of the whole sentence, but do not alter the basic meanings of the
other individual constituents, e.g. whether there is the preposition at or into
does not have any effect on she, look, eyes etc. as such.
An analysis of (7), however, yields a different picture: ... a House
of Commons committee had looked into the possibility ....., all of
them further divisible (within limits, cf. House of Commons).

30

Multi-word Verbs as a Group

(7)

Even as early as 1840 a House of Commons committee had looked

into the possibility of connecting Dover with Calais. (BNC A19 1780)

But looked into here is not further divisible. If one substitutes, e.g., stare for
look, or at for into in sentences (6) and (7), they will not undergo parallel
changes of meaning (recurrent semantic contrast), which would be necessary
to prove that look is a minimal semantic constituent in both. Besides, a substitution with at would also change the meaning of look which is an
indication of multi-word verb status as the substitution of one part of a multi word unit changes the overall meaning of the unit (cf. Zgusta 1967:579). The
surface sequence looked into makes a different semantic contribution to each
of the sentences. The semantic contribution of the form to (7) is repli cated in
The engineers looked into the problem, where a substitution with, say,
ignore or discuss also produces an identical semantic contrast. The fact that
ignore could also substitute for look into in (6), and that it is very hard to
describe what identical semantic contrasts or contributions are, points to the
limitations of this procedure. It is neither as straightforward, nor as precise
and non-circular, i.e. non-intuitive, as Cruse makes it out to be. Nevertheless,
it is a more varied and flexible test than the traditional one of substitution
with a simplex synonym especially as such a substitution is often
impossible, as for example in (8) and (9)2.
(8)
(9)

No, a childminder cannot normally take care of a sick child .... (BNC
A0J 307)
I sacrifice everything for cricket, never stop out late and always take
the greatest care of myself. (BNC A6Y 183)

Intuitively, take care of in both sentences is a lexical unit with the same or
almost identical meaning of "restoring/maintaining health". But the substitu tion test will only work indirectly, i.e. for all the other elements of the sen tence, because the discontinuous, modified group in (9) makes it impossible
to substitute another unit and still leave the syntactical structure intact. This
seems to be the way Cruse (1986:37) himself proceeds in the case of cook
s goose (cf. above). Another problem is that one could, e.g., substitute
notice for care (but cf. Zgusta 1967 referred to above), pointing towards the
divisibility of take care of into the minimal semantic constituents take, care,
and of. The substitution results can thus be contradictory in the case of
individual combinations. In my opinion, given the varied syntactical nature
of multi-word verbs, the outwards-in procedure substitution-testing
2

Discarding both look after and care for, as they are themselves multi-word
complexes.

Multi-word Verbs as a Group

31

everything in the sentence until only the suspected complex lexical unit
remains left is a valid testing method.
The approach outlined above admittedly makes multi-word verbs a
rather open, and therefore somewhat unwieldy, class. However, the more one
subdivides this general class and defines those subsections (cf. chap.4), the
less open the approach becomes, although quite a few fuzzy edges will
always remain.
Before continuing with describing several possibilities of subdivision
and proposing the scheme to be employed here, a few more words about the
term used here are in order. As mentioned above, "multi-word verb" has
been taken over from Quirk et al. (1985), basically because it is a very noncommittal cover term that can serve for a whole variety of combinations.
Ultimately, however, these forms are very much context -, i.e. sentence- or
clause-bound. In many respects, therefore, the label multi -word predicate
might be more appropriate, but this would miss the fact that not a few of the
structures in question are lexicalized. Thus, the term multi -word verb, which
I will continue using, should be taken with the caveat pointed out here.
3.2 Classification Schemes for Multi-word Verbs
All individual types of multi-word verbs have received some sort of
treatment in the literature, and while most of this has been done in isolation,
there have nevertheless been some attempts to draw up (more or less)
complete lists of possible types and to classify them. 3
Mitchell (1958)
A classic in this area is the classification given by Mitchell (1958:106), even
though it deals only with a part of all the possible combinations. It has the
advantage of great clarity and simplicity. His whole system is based on
binary contrasts, as is visible in the following scheme:
non-prepositional (to take) (1)
non-phrasal
prepositional (to take to) (2)
non-prepositional (to put up) (3)
phrasal
prepositional (to put up with) (4)

The examples used in section 3.2. are those used by the quoted authors themselves.

32

Multi-word Verbs as a Group

With (1) representing the simplex verb, the classification deals with three
types of multi-word verbs, namely prepositional verbs (2), phrasal verbs (3)
and phrasal-prepositional verbs (4), where phrasal means the inclusion of an
adverbial component. While the term phrasal verb had been introduced long
before that time (Smith 1925:172), Mitchells scheme certainly contributed a
lot to the establishment of the now common terms for the three major and
most common types of multi-word verbs at least.
Quirk et al. (1985)
The most accessible attempt at classification is probably to be found in Quirk
et al. (1985:1150-1168). A major division is made into principal types and
"other multi-word verb constructions", which are obviously regarded as of
minor importance. Inside the principal types a further division selects only
idiomatic types as multi-word verbs proper, whereas the non-idiomatic, i.e.
literal, types (e.g. come in, run away with) are treated as "free combinations"
and thus placed outside the class concerned. The principal types, which are
based on the formula "verb direct object adverb preposition", consist
of the six combinations Phrasal Verb (verb + adverb) Types I ( crop up) and
II (turn N down), Prepositional Verb (verb + preposition) Types I (come
across N, e.g., a problem) and II (take N for N, e.g., a fool) and Phrasalprepositional Verb (verb + adverb + preposition) Types I (come up with N)
and II (put N up for N, e.g., an election), where Type II is in each case the
one containing a direct object. A further three types are listed under "others",
namely verb-adjective combinations (e.g. lie low, cut N short), verb-verb
combinations (e.g. make do with, put paid to) and verbs governing two
prepositions (e.g. develop from ... into).
Several problems may be mentioned in connection with this
classification. Firstly, the principal types are allocated to the class of multi word verbs on semantic grounds (idiomaticity), whereas this does not seem
to apply to the last three minor types. Secondly, the idiomatic approach can
lead to interesting exclusions. Combinations such as come in, and send N
away, which syntactically behave identically to crop up, turn N down, are
thus not treated as multi-word verbs. Cases such as depend on, consist of
with an obligatory preposition also seem to find no place here. Moreover,
idiomaticity is not a clear-cut affair, but is best seen as a cline yielding a not
very happy basis for classificatory purposes. For instance, their excluded
example run away with was found in the present corpus in a sense that could
be glossed by the simplex "steal", while of course the literal meaning would
also still be present in the mind of the speaker/hearer. Fourthly, prepositional
verb types IIb and IIc (subdivisions not mentioned above) contain a further
fixed, unchangeable element besides the preposition, namely a noun as in

Multi-word Verbs as a Group

33

take care of, give way to, and lose touch with. The question is whether the
presence of the noun, which is collocationally and semantically more salient
than the preposition, should not take precedence over the latter in classifying
these types. They are definitely on a different level than Type IIa which
contains structures such as thank N for N, where the N slot can be filled by
many different nouns. Talking of nominal elements in multi-word verbs, it is
also somewhat unclear where combinations such as take into consideration
would fit in with the present classification. They are mentioned only in
passing as "yet another sub-type" of Type IIa prepositional verbs, if
examples given there (lull N to sleep, put N to rights) can be interpreted as
being of the "take into consideration" -type. Another minor point is why verbs
governing two prepositions should be separated so completely from the other
prepositional types in the classification. A last point concerns the verb -adjective combinations, namely the question why instances such as make
sure/certain and see fit (mentioned only in a footnote) are not counted
among them.
Hckel (1968/69)
An attempt to classify the major types of multi-word verbs according to
strictly formal criteria, excluding semantic considerations as far as possible,
is found in Hckels
(1968/9:257-260) article dealing with the
"Wortverband" ( lexical unit). The formal criteria applied comprise
transitivity and word order, as well as the possibilities of passivization and
nominalization. Thus, Hckels first general division is into transitive and
intransitive combinations. The transitive category contains the following five
major types:
1. verb + particle + direct object,
2. verb + direct object + particle,
3. verb + particle + preposition + direct object,
4. verb + reflexive pronoun + particle,
5. verb + fixed direct object.
Type 1 is further split up into A with moveable particle posit ion, either
before or after the direct object (lay (down) the burden (down)), and B
where the particle is fixed in pre-object position, e.g. take out insurance,
strike up a friendship. Type 2 is in a way the mirror image of Type 1B by
requiring the particle to occur in fixed post-object position as in see N off, do
N in. Type 4 is illustrated by give oneself away and brace oneself up. His
Type 3 consists of A which permits movement of the particle and B with
immutable word order, cf. The judge put down the crime to him/put the
crime down to him (A) vs. The banker put the 5 down to my account only
(B). Three sub-classes make up Type 5, two of which (A and C) are called

34

Multi-word Verbs as a Group

"blockiertes Syntagma" (= blocked syntagmatic group), and are illustrated by

the building forms part of a larger estate/the police at once gave chase (A
gerund possible) and the next stories saw print in the following years (C
gerund impossible). Sub-class 5B involves a fixed preposition after the
direct object, such as in EFTA steal a march on EEC.
Four major types are contained in the intransitive category:
1. verb + particle,
2. verb + particle + preposition + noun/pronoun,
3. verb + preposition + noun,
4. verb + adjective.
Type 1 contains combinations like sign on, talk back, and strike home. Structures such as look forward to, bear down upon, and break even with are
included in Type 2. Type 3 is subdivided according to possibilities of passivization, namely A (possible), e.g. the government embarked upon a new policy, see through a trick, vs. B (impossible), e.g. the price lags behind the
costprice. Finally, Type 4 is illustrated by loom large.
The emphasis put on purely formal criteria in this classification is a
nice attempt at keeping things as objective as possible, but the consequence
is an explosion of sometimes confusing types plus the inclusion of dubious
structures, as well as the omission of others. The transitive Types 1, 2, 4 and
the intransitive Type 1, for example, could, in other classifications, all be
subsumed under the heading phrasal verb (verb + adverb). Whether the
position of the particle should be taken as a defining feature, as in Trans. 1A,
1B and 2, is doubtful because this is on the one hand rather idiosyncratic
depending on the particular combination involved and on the other it has to
do with degrees of idiomaticity inhibiting certain transformations (cf.
Frasers (1976) degrees of frozenness). Also, in 1B the nouns insurance and
friendship seem to have already become part of the idiom. Why those verbs
with a reflexive pronoun cannot be part of Type 1A is not clear; Hckels ex ample give away, for instance, also occurs with other objects (cf. Cowie &
Mackin 1975) and the position of itself is sufficiently explained by the rule
that pronominal objects always precede the object (Cowie & Mackin 1975:
xlix, and 5.2. below). Transitive Type 3 and Intransitive Type 2 represent
what elsewhere are called phrasal-prepositional verbs, and again the word
order dividing 3A and B is probably too idiosyncratic to be a basis for
classification. Intransitive Type 3, dealing with prepositional verbs, seems to
be somewhat over-inclusive; using passivization and gerund as criteria (3A)
would even allow such structures as sleep in a bed, where the cohesion
between sleep and in is in all other respects practically nil. Furthermore, 3B
opens the door for virtually all kinds of constructions of the type verb +
prepositional phrase. The inclusion of nominal and adjectival combinations

Multi-word Verbs as a Group

35

as separate types (Transitive Type 5 and Intransitive Type 4) is useful, but

unfortunately incomplete. Like Quirk et al., Hckel omits the nominal take
into consideration-type; moreover, the adjectival type has no transitive
counterpart (e.g. cut N short) and makes no provision for the addition of a
preposition, unless break even with, even being considered a particle by
Hckel, under Intransitive Type 2A is taken to belong here.
Cowie & Mackin, ODCIE, Vol. 1 (1975) and Cowie, Mackin & McCaig,
ODCIE, Vol. 2 (1983)
This is a classification from a lexicological angle, as is to be expected in the
case of dictionaries, but it nevertheless does not neglect syntactical
considerations. Cowie & Mackins classification in their first volume is based
on six basic patterns, which are represented by them in the following
schematic table (1975:xxix):
Table 3.1: Cowie & Mackins classification (1975)
particle
preposition
particle + preposition

Intransitive
[A1]
[A2]
[A3]

Transitive
[B1]
[B2]
[B3]

It takes up Mitchells basic contrasts of phrasal verb (1; go off, tip N off),
prepositional verb (2; bank on N, foist N on N), and phrasal-prepositional
verb (3; fall back on N, put N down to N) and splits these up further into
intransitive and transitive types (A + B). While the classification o f these
major types as illustrated by the examples in brackets is abso lutely logical,
the authors also subsume under these headings other combinations which
exceed the specifications above. Thus, bring to grips with and fall in love
(with) are classified as B2 and A2 respectively, on the grounds that they
"would exactly match those patterns if it were not for an additional
preposition" (ibid.:xxx), i.e. with in the cases concerned. Other examples for
this somewhat over-inclusive procedure are make an example of, take
exception to, bear in mind (all B2) and fall into disrepute (A2). In all these
cases the whole phrase as quoted here is taken as the headword in the
dictionary, i.e. is seen quite rightly as a single idiom. At least one preposition
is present in all of them, justifying their presence in the dictionary (1975) in
the first place and in a way also their classificatory treatment, as it makes
life easier for the dictionary user. In all other respects and contexts, however,
they deserve a more sophisticated treatment, especially as important
differences exhibited for example by all those under B2 are thus entirely

36

Multi-word Verbs as a Group

neglected. The contrast between e.g. bear in mind and make an example of is
obvious, but this latter and take exception to are not identical constructions
either. At least, the verb + prepositional phrase constructions are noticed
here, unlike in Quirk et al. (1985) above. Nevertheless, what has been said in
the section on Quirk et al. about their Prepositional Verb Types IIb and IIc
applies here as well.
The second volume (1983), dealing with phrase, clause and sentence
idioms, contains further types, which could be interpreted as multi -word
verbs, under the heading of clause patterns (xxix -xxxiv). The patterns treated
there have a much wider basis than the approach taken here necessitates. In
the introduction, Cowie (1983:xiv) poses the question "[i]f it is true that
highly idiomatic expressions tend in some ways to resemble single words,
should this unity be reflected in the way they are grammatically described in
dictionary entries?" and decides against it. Therefore, it is not possible to
state which of the entries the authors would regard as more unitary, word like in nature than others. While items such as go berserk, come clean, get
even with, drive N mad, make N plain, make answer/reply, run a risk (of N),
take place, and give N a thought (randomly selected here) are found in the
dictionary (1983), they are not classified in the manner of volume I as lexical
units.
Denison (1981 / 1984)
The classification proposed by Denison (1981:23-34; 1984) is actually not
meant to include anything else apart from verb-particle combinations
(1984:276,n.3). Thus, he uses the pattern verb + one particle (adverb or
preposition) as a starting point and elaborates on this in the following table
(1981:23; 1984:273).
Table 3.2: Denisons classification
class
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8

second
particle
+
+
+
+

direct
object
+
+
+
+

prepositional
object
+
+
+
+
-

name
intransitive phrasal verb
transitive phrasal verb
prepositional verb
phrasal-prep. verb
-

Multi-word Verbs as a Group

37

The first four are the well-known types, which Denison illustrates with the
examples cool off (class 1), use N up (2), deal with N (3), and home in on N,
look forward to N (4). Verbs with two prepositions are not included here, for
he points out (1984:276,n.3) that they behave syntactically like class 3 in
this case they may be taken as being in fact indirectly included. Class 5,
represented by let N in on N and single N out for N, could in my opinion
also be called phrasal-prepositional verbs, in this case transitive ones (cf.
Cowie & Mackin 1975), whereas class 4 comprises the intransitive ones. In
this way they would be analogous to phrasal verbs. Class 6, also nameless
here, might just as well be called transitive prepositional verbs (cf. Cowie &
Mackin), as it consists of such combinations as foist N on N, take N for N.
Come out ahead, get back in (Class 7) and put N back together, read N back
out (Class 8) are unusual insofar as they contain two adverbial particles, but
Denison is probably right in saying that they can be regarded as an extension
of Class 1 and 2 respectively. As an extension, Denison (1981:36f) remarks
that group-verbs with other components can be accommodated into the
above classification, for example take place, go bad (class 1), make clear,
get right (class 2), get to grips with, put paid to, stop short of, take care of
(class 4), and lay N low with (class 5). This approach disregards the
differences in the internal make-up of the combinations, however, something
which also can have consequences for their behaviour as a unit.
Palmer (1965 / 1974)
In his two books on the English verb, Palmer (chap.10) deals with verbal
combinations, using the following rather traditional classification, which
does not offer anything new:
1. phrasal verbs, which can be either transitive or intransitive;
2. prepositional verbs in 1965 only the intransitive type (e.g. look for N),
then in 1974 also the transitive ones such as take N for N. This latter type
moreover includes combinations involving a noun, cf. make a mess of, set
fire to, give way to. In 1965, these latter examples were treated under "other
verbal combinations" and described as verb-noun-preposition units.
3. phrasal-prepositional verbs, of which the 1965 book recognises only
intransitive combinations such as put up with N, while the 1974 approach
also includes transitives like put N down to N.
Furthermore, he mentions get rid of, with rid classified as an adjective in
1965, and put paid to, have done with etc., i.e. verb-verb combinations in the
sense of Quirk et al. (1985). None of these latter units are given the status of
a separate category.

38

Multi-word Verbs as a Group

Vestergaard (1977)
In a brief but very lucid classification, Vestergaard (1977:3) manages to do
more than many larger and more complicated attempts. He recognises four
main groups of multi-word verbs, namely 1. prepositional verbs (verb +
preposition), to which type the book in question is devoted, 2. phrasal verbs
(verb + adverbial particle), 3. verb + object (e.g. give offence), and 4. verb +
prepositional phrase (e.g. fall in love). All four can and do function as
lexical, in this case, verbal units, or as he expresses it, as V in a V(erb)P(reposition)-N(oun) cluster. He does not therefore see any necessity for an
additional class labelled phrasal-prepositional verbs.
Fraser (1976)
Fraser does not offer an explicit classification, but in defining and exactly
delimiting his verb-particle combination, he lists and also discusses other
similar compound verbals in English. While this therefore cannot be a com plete listing, the following discrete types can be extracted from his chapters
one and two:
1. verb-particle combinations,
2. verb-adverbial combinations,
3. verb-preposition combinations,
4. verb-adjective combinations (e.g. cut short, blow open, make good),
5.1. verb-noun-preposition combinations (five types, exemplified
respectively by make reference to, catch sight of, bring word to, make a fool
of, catch hell from),
5.2. verb-prepositional phrase combinations (e.g. bring to light, call into
question, put into effect ),
5.3. verb-noun combinations (e.g. cast anchor, keep peace, take courage).
Both 1 and 2 could be and are often called phrasal verbs in other contexts, with 2 seemingly representing those combinations in which the particle
is used in the literal, quasi-spatial sense. Other types looking deceptively like
phrasal verbs are left out of 1 in his chapter 2; these have not been incl uded
in the list above, either, as their independent status is rather doubtful.
Frasers verb-preposition combination seems to include any verb-preposition
sequence; however, he is not concerned with defining prepositional verbs in
the strict sense, but only with keeping particles and prepositions apart. The
types 5.1 to 5.3. are all treated under one major heading by him, indicating
that he sees them as sub-types of one basic category; nevertheless I have
decided to list them separately.
It should have become obvious in all these classificatory schemes that
there is a kind of hard core of multi-word verbs on which most people can

Multi-word Verbs as a Group

39

agree. This core comprises phrasal verbs, prepositional verbs and phrasalprepositional verbs which are always mentioned and moreover form stable
categories with a rather well-defined membership. Others, such as verbadjective or verb-verb combinations, come up only occasionally and not
often with separate status. Another problematic point seems to be those units
involving a nominal element, which are treated either under prepositional
verb, meaning that those without a preposition are disregarded, or the whole
type is ignored altogether; only Hckel, Vestergaard and perhaps Fraser
recognise them as separate categories.
3.3 Proposed Classification
The classification proposed here is similar to those discussed above, but
shifts the weightings somewhat. Here, only the classification with the
absolute minimum of information about the several types will be given; the
precise definition of the individual categories follows in chapter 4.
(I) Phrasal verbs
Verbs followed by a particle of an adverbial nature in a non-prepositional
use.4 They can be intransitive (fly away) or transitive (take up, e.g. a hobby).
(II) Prepositional verbs
Verbs followed by a preposition in its clear prepositional use. There is only
one type, a transitive one, because if one interprets verb and preposition as a
unit then the following noun (phrase) functions as its direct object. The type
with the sequence verb-free object-preposition (turn N into N) is regarded as
a special sub-type of prepositional verb, but one that will not be treated here
4

I am aware of the problems in allocating unambiguous word class tags to the nonverbal parts of multi-word verbs. On the one hand, one could argue that the question
does not arise, i.e. that they have no word-class of their own if they are part of the
multi-word verb as a whole. Carstensen (1964:326f), e.g., mentions as alternative
descriptors of these elements "postposition", "postverbium", and "postpositives
Prfix", the latter terms being taken from Shlutenko (1955, quoted there). Cf. also
Marchands (1951:74) term of "postpositional verbs" for what are here called
prepositional verbs. On the other hand, the different elements in the various types do
influence the syntactic behaviour of the combination and make different semantic
contributions to the whole unit. The distinction between prepositions, adverbs and
intermediary categories has proven especially problematic (cf. for example Dietrich
1960, Sroka 1962 + 1972, Kaluza 1990, Mitchell 1978, and most recently ODowd
1998). Denison (1981:16) speaks of a principle of gradience between preposition and
adverb. I will decide on a pragmatic surface-structure approach: prepositions, however
closely connected to the verb, need a nominal element to refer to, and whenever this
nominal element is missing, the adverbial interpretation is enforced.

40

Multi-word Verbs as a Group

for practical reasons. Verbs with two prepositions are included under (II) by
virtue of their first preposition, while the second one is ignored.

(III) Phrasal-prepositional verbs

Verbs followed by an adverbial particle (as in phrasal verbs) and a pure
preposition. There are monotransitive (put up with, cf. the explanation given
under prepositional verbs) and ditransitive (put N down to N) types.
(IV) Verb-adjective combinations
Verbs followed by an adjective or a past participle, the latter being taken in
its adjectival quality. They are intransitive (hold good) or transitive (break
open), and, in the case of the latter, can include a final preposition (fall short
of).
(V) Verbo-nominal combinations
They comprise all combinations which contain a nominal element as a fixed
part and can be subdivided into three types, namely (Group I) simple verb noun unit (take a walk), (Group II) verb-noun-preposition unit (catch sight
of), and (Group III) verb-prepositional phrase unit (put in execution).
(VI) Verb-verb combinations
Verbs followed by another verb in a form other than the past participle (cf.
(IV)), i.e. either an infinitive (let go) or a present participle (send N
packing). Both types can be either intransitive or transitive.
Verb-verb combinations will be left out of consideration in the
following analyses. They are certainly a minor category probably slightly
more uncommon than verb-adjective combinations, and as a group more
fragmented than the latter. Furthermore, cursory searches of the Lampeter
Corpus yielded not a single example of this type. Whether this is due to
sheer accidence or to a later, post-18th century development of this category,
cannot be determined at the moment.
I would like to draw attention to a general problem concerning all the
categories above, which is nicely summed up by a quotation taken from
Denison (1981:23):
Trying to draw a clear distinction between group-verbs and notgroup-verbs is unrewarding, however. It must be recognised that
group-verbs vary along many different axis, and that far enough along
any axis of variation there will be collocations which are not groupverbs. No one test can delimit the area clearly and in full accord with
ones intuitive notions, ... (my italics, CC)

Multi-word Verbs as a Group

41

It is actually a (vicious?) circle we are moving in: we all know in some way
what, e.g., a phrasal verb is, but a full and theoretically adequate pr oof of this
intuitive knowledge seems impossible. If in doubt, I will therefore trust my
intuitions more than I will trust any kind of test. Chapter 4 and the data se lected should be considered with this in mind.
3.4 Common Concerns
This is the place to address the important question of why all these different
types should be treated together. It is especially for four reasons, or four
bundles of reasons, that I have decided to examine them as a group.
First, they are exponents of an important trend in the history of the
English language, that from a more synthetic to a more analytic linguistic
system. Multi-word verbs can be seen as both a result of and a reaction to
developments connected with the analytic "drift" (cf. Sapir 1921:chap.VII).
Their most obvious analytic characteristic is of course the fact that one
meaning is expressed by a combination of separate individual words (free
morphemes). The alternatives to this procedure are, or would have been,
compounding and affixation, and in this respect the decline in the
productivity of prefix verbs (e.g. overtake, outrun) is noteworthy when seen
against the rise of phrasal verbs (cf. chap.5). While the analytic approach is
characterized by "semantic spreading", namely the "packing thinner
[semantic] bundles into two or more words" (Bolinger 1971:45; also
Brinton/Akimoto 1999), the synthetic method could be called semantic
concentration, where all the semantic features are crammed into one word.
The first of these two approaches is more flexible and often produces a
semantically more transparent result.
Furthermore, multi-word verbs make use of features that have come
about or have grown in importance as part of the analytic trend, namely
prepositions and zero-derivations. With the loss of inflectional endings, more
prepositions were regularly used, especially following verbs, and this is of
course an important prerequisite for them to merge syntactically and/or se mantically with the verb phrases. Zero-derivation facilitates shifts from one
word class to another, and thus the use of original nouns in e.g. phrasal verbs
or the use of original verbs in verbo-nominal combinations. On the other
hand, multi-word verbs also in some way counteract one consequence of
analyticity, namely the rather rigid word order of English. Within this order,
the verb, or rather the simplex verb, has a definite fixed place leaving little
leeway for thematic re-ordering (except with the help of relatively
complicated syntactic topicalization structures); verbs consistin g of more
than one word, however, especially phrasal verbs, verb-adjective and verbo-

42

Multi-word Verbs as a Group

nominal combinations, can more easily shift (parts of the) verbal predication
to more prominent sentence positions. One could call this syntactic
spreading in analogy to the semantic spreading mentioned above. Liefrink
(1973:47f) neatly captured this connection between typological features and
the use of simplexes or multi-word structures by distinguishing synthetic
sentences ("synthetic verb" = a simplex, e.g. to clean), analytic sentences
(verb + sentence constituent, e.g. make N clean), and periphrastic sentences
(verb + deverbal noun, e.g. give N a clean). While there is a difference
between analytic and periphrastic sentences, on a higher general level they
are both analytic.
Secondly, looking at individual examples of the categories to be
treated and their behaviour, one might receive the impression of a rather
unsystematic assortment of idiosyncracies. Therefore, as stated in the
introduction, they have often ended up in the idiom section of linguistic
description. But the first impression is not correct and the idiom sec tion is
not where multi-word verbs necessarily belong. Rather, they should be
treated as a separate class in their own right.
There is a difference between idioms proper and multi-word verbs,
although non-compositionality of meaning (which I take to be the prime defining feature of idioms here) is also found among the latter. Prototypical
examples of real idioms are kick the bucket "die", beat about the bush "avoid
getting to the real topic", or have blue blood "be a member of the aristocracy".5 The most important distinctions between cases like these and multi word verbs as understood in this study are in my opinion the following:
(i) The several types of multi-word verbs are each based on a clear syntactic
pattern, with the help of which one can relatively freely go on creating such
forms fitting the pattern. There is no such regularity with real idioms, and no
syntactic constraints on the creation of new idioms they can take any syntactic form. Multi-word verbs are basically colligations, because their underlying pattern requires the "mutual accompaniment of grammatical
categories", not just of individual forms (Mitchell 1958:103, fn. 3).
Katz/Postals (1963:275f) "lexical idiom", dominated by one word class, e.g.
a verb, and forming a complex item within that word class, can also serve as
a label for multi-word verbs. Their opposite, phrase idioms, are not thus
dominated by any of their syntactic constituents.

I will leave syntactically not well-formed idioms, such as trip the light fantastic, go
bananas, and those containing unique (not otherwise occurring) elements, e.g. kith and
kin, out of consideration, as they are irrelevant for my concerns.

Multi-word Verbs as a Group

43

(ii) Real idioms always have an opaque, i.e. non-compositional, semantic

make-up. Multi-word verbs, on the other hand, fill the whole range from
completely literal to totally opaque.
(iii) An opaque multi-word verb is different from an opaque idiom, in so far
as the figurative meaning is inferable from the single constituents of the
combination. Even in highly idiomatic units this is possible, provided some
common sense and creativity is used. Analysis of real idioms usually requires
at least some extralinguistic, socio-historical knowledge. Take for example
the euphemistic phrasal verb pass away "die" versus the idiom with the same
meaning, kick the bucket. Not even linguists agree on the exact origin of the
latter, whereas "pass" = "go, proceed, move onward", i.e. onward to heaven
or hell (as the case may be), and "away", i.e. away from the speaker/from
this world, yields up the process of figuration quite easily. 6
The second reason why multi-word verbs are treated as a group thus lies in
their stable syntactic patterns and the fact that their constituents always
retain at least a tiny bit of individuality.
What might also be useful in the context of sorting out the problems
posed by idiomaticity is Melcuks proposal (1960) to distinguish between (i)
idiomaticity and (ii) stability of collocation (cf. Mitchells "colligation",
being a special type of collocation, used above). Among the four types
Melcuk lists, namely (i) stable and idiomatic, (ii) stable and non-idiomatic,
(iii) non-stable and idiomatic, (iv) non-stable and non-idiomatic (quoted
from Lipka 1972:78), the first and the second can apply to different types of
multi-word verbs. The third and fourth are inapplicable as stability is
guaranteed by the underlying grammatical patterns.
Thirdly, some or all of the multi-word types also share other features.
A large proportion of them are lexicalized. And all of them, except for those
prepositional verbs where the preposition is a purely syntactic requirement,
use their composite nature to produce some shifting, changing or enrichment
of meaning. This is achieved not only through the mere presence of the indi6

The argument produced here with regard to multi-word verbs is similar to the
approach taken by Gibbs (1990) to what I call real idioms here. He argues that
"[i]dioms such as pop the question, spill the beans, and lay down the law are
"decomposable" because each of their components obviously contributes to their
overall figurative interpretations" (422-3), in contrast to idioms such as kick the
bucket, shoot the breeze, where this is not the case. Metaphorical mapping motivates
idioms of the former kind for the speaker. While I agree that there is just such an
internal semantic variability within the sphere of idioms, I also think that Gibbs
decomposable idioms are still on a different level from (idiomatic) multi-word verbs. In
the latter, the metaphorical processes involved are usually less complicated and
intricate.

44

Multi-word Verbs as a Group

vidual parts, but also through their different positions in the sentence and
through possible modifications of the individual elements. One special
semantic trait is the development of aspectual or aktionsart meanings in
some of the combinations (especially phrasal verbs and verbo -nominal
combinations). While the overall meaning is enhanced, that of the verbal part
is often greatly reduced (even in some phrasal verbs, cf. Lipka 1972:152),
turning the verb into a functional element. In this respect it is interesting that
the same basic, very frequent verbs are used in all the types (cf. also Liefrink
1973), with certain exceptions for (non-idiomatic) prepositional verbs again.
Thus, there are obviously the same or very similar systematic processes at
work in all these multi-word combinations.
This might further mean that the history of individual combinations
is very similar. They go through an evolutionary process leading to
fixedness: from ad hoc expression to fixed expression and finally to single
word (cf. Hudson 1998:168). Akimoto (1989, quoted in Brinton/Akimoto
1999:16) describes the development of a verbo-nominal combination as a
four-stage process. As this can apply to other multi -word categories as well, I
will describe it here in more general terms:
stage 1: all the constituents are unrestricted;
stage 2: the relation between the constituents becomes sta bilized, the
presence of the single elements becomes fixed, and some component
parts lose certain features of their original word -class, i.e. become
decategorialized;
stage 3: re-analysis of the constituent structure occurs (from, e.g. [ lose]
[sight of X] to [lose sight of] [X]);
stage 4: all of the constituents are idiomatized into a single lexical item.
Traugott (in Brinton/Akimoto 1999:248) doubts whether the first of these
stages really exists; in my opinion, it does for some combinations (e.g. the
take a walk type), but not for others (e.g. rely on). While Traugott (ibid.)
merges stages 3 and 4, I would prefer to keep them separate, reserving stage
4 for really opaque combinations. At any point in time, one will find
specimens at all four stages; while those at stage 3 and 4 represent the more
prototypical cases, sampling in historical contexts should cast its net wider
than just those two cases.
The last point to be mentioned here concerns the simplex (quasi-)
synonyms that exist for most multi -word verbs. This leads to the question of
choice on the part of the speaker/writer and to the various effects produced
by one or the other choice. Consider, for example, choose vs. make a choice
with the alternatives shorter/longer, verbal (dynamic?)/nominal (s tative?),
transitive/intransitive use, possibilities of verbal/nominal modification etc.
Or consider the set find out / discover with its opposition native versus

Multi-word Verbs as a Group

45

Romance vocabulary, and all that this is supposed to entail (e.g. in/formality,
emotional value, hard words). Also consider the relationship between do
over and redo, the latter standing for synthetic derivational word -formation
processes; with cut short and shorten, however, the difference is less
morphological than semantic. These few example s shall suffice here to show
that multi-word verbs raise interesting questions in the fields of semantics
and stylistics.

4. Categories of Multi-word Verbs

This chapter will be devoted to a clarification of how the five multi -word
verb categories are to be understood in this investigation. For this purpose, it
will be necessary to review to a considerable extent the linguist ic opinion
found in the literature so far. The basis of the definitions is the situation
found in PDE; therefore, I will use modern examples, taken from the British
National Corpus (BNC), as illustrations.
4.1 Phrasal Verbs
The term phrasal verb is problematic for two reasons: on the one hand, the
category in question has not always been called that but, e.g., verb -particle
combination (Fraser 1976) or discontinuous verb (Live 1965), and on the
other hand, phrasal verb has sometimes served as a cover term including
also prepositional verbs (e.g. Sroka 1972) and maybe even other categories
(e.g. Dixon 1982). Here, the most common approach will be followed,
namely that phrasal verbs are relatively unitary combinations of a verb and a
particle, which is best of all described as an adverb, but not as a preposition. 1
While any kind of lexical verb could theoretically be a part of a
phrasal verb (which, however, is not the case, as will be seen later), the word
following the verb belongs to a relatively closed class of invariable items.
The following list of possible particles in phrasal verbs is based on those
given in Quirk et al. (1985:1151), Cowie & Mackin (1975:lxxx), and Fraser
(1976:5), as well as my own data (cf. also Bolinger 1971:17f):
aback, aboard, about, above, across, after, ahead, along, apart,
around, ashore, aside, astray, asunder, away, back, behind, by,
counter, down, forth, forward(s), home, in, off, on, out, over, past,
round, through, to, together, under, up
This is not a complete list (which might be hard to achieve anyway,
according to Bolinger); some of the particles given in Cowie & Mackin (or
also in Kennedy 1920) have been left out as irrelevant for the present
1

In the following discussion of phrasal verbs I will ignore all those approaches that do
not regard them as multi-word verbs. Most of them are found in the generative camp
and involve a small clause interpretation, cf. for example Bas Aarts (1989), den Dikken
(1995), or Kayne (1985). While trying to solve some theoretical syntactical problems,
they completely side-step important semantic and communicative/ functional implications. I do not think that a purely syntactical approach to phrasal verbs (or multi-word
verbs in general) can really be fruitful.

Categories of Multi-word Verbs

47

analysis. The italicized items in the list can be used as prepositions as well,
which is the reason why so much trouble is taken in the lit erature to
distinguish phrasal and prepositional verbs.
Which sequences of verb and adverb are then to be accepted as
phrasal verbs here? To start with, I will regard both completely literal types
(verb, or both verb and particle used in their literal or adverbial sense, e.g.
pull away, yield up) and figurative, idiomatic combinations (e.g. fall out
"happen", put off "postpone") as phrasal verbs (similar to Denison 1981; and
cf. Bolinger 1971:16, who mentions Fairclough 1965 as doing the same), in
contrast to, e.g., Quirk et al. (1985; cf. above) or Dixon (1982). Idio maticity,
after all, does not emerge out of nowhere, but is based in some way or other
on the regular patterns of the language. Literal phrasal verbs are the core
from which figurative types are ultimately derived, and to which they are still
connected by an identical, or in idiosyncratically frozen idioms at least
similar, syntactical behaviour. Thus, idiomatic phrasal verbs cannot be
understood without their literal background, and in the less idiomatic cases
the connection, the underlying thought process of semantic idiomaticization,
is still graphically clear. Besides, there is also a very pragmatic reason for
including all kinds of phrasal verbs: there is a gradience or cline, reaching
from completely literal to totally opaque cases, with both shading into the
other (cf. also Bolinger 1971:36,n.12). It would be very hard to draw a clear
dividing line somewhere nor would it be very helpful for the matter in
hand (also Kroch 1979:222f). Fraser (1976:3), on the other hand, does draw
this line, and while he ostensibly does it on syntactic grounds (position in
action nominalizations, constituents in gapped sentences, modification,
contrastive stress), the result is a con trast between more literal types his
verb-adverbial combinations and more idiomatic units his verb-particle
combination. 2
As stated above (chap.3), there is an intransitive and a transitive typ e3
and the most usual indicators or tests for phrasal verbs unfortunately
work with the transitive combinations alone. In order to include both types I
will start the discussion about what phrasal verbs are with the particles and
their function. The particles belong to the class of primary, invariable, oneword adverbs, such as those exemplified by the list above. By primary I
understand that they should not be derived by any regular processes from
2

A good discussion of Frasers approach in this respect is found in Declerck

(1978:314f). Lindner (1981:26-31) also voices her criticism, pointing out e.g. that
Fraser does not actually succeed in separating neatly the things he wants to separate.
3
Fraser (1976:4) claims that intransitive combinations are relatively rare, and Live
(1965:438) seems to share his opinion. However, I am not aware of any empirical
study that has tested this claim.

48

Categories of Multi-word Verbs

adjectives or nouns (e.g. sad sadly, sky skyward i.e. what Bolinger
calls "pure adverbs"). Also, the particles must not be pure prepositions, i.e.
they must either not be followed by a noun phrase at all (ability to stand
alone):
(1)

The next day a high-tech caption machine broke down. (BNC A4N
10)
And the one night, one bright and starlit night, a true free dragon
came by to pay a call. (BNC A6J 839)
Would you like Jenny to go along as well? (BNC A0F 3176)

Or they must not be the head of the following noun phrase, i.e. form a prepo sitional phrase constituent with it:
(2)

These pieces, on view in London, also went along the smugglers

network. (BNC A1Y 492)
... and so every airhead ... rushed out to buy one and take it up a
mountain. (BNC AS3 1314)

vs.
(3)

From 1624 to 1640 Dutton bought up the land round Sherborne

Park ... (BNC Ab4 367)

Also, they must not refer or relate to any noun phrase in another sentence
position as in (4) (stranded preposition, cf. 4.2):
(4)

So, this is the situation you must practise and be able to cope with.
(BNC A0H 1658)

Thus, (1) and (3) are instances of phrasal verbs, whereas (2), and (4) are not.
In many cases, a prepositional phrase can be supplied by the imagination or
socio-cultural knowledge of the reader/hearer (Dixon 1982:9), and the particle could actually be called a reduced prepositional phrase, as in for into the
room in (5) (cf. Bolinger 1971:23). 4
(5)

I had orders not to take in tea until half past ten. (BNC A0D 2238)
i.e. take into the room

Here, it is important that the reduction is not a case of conte xt-determined

ellipsis (cf. Fairclough, as quoted by Bolinger 1971:21), by which I mean
that the missing element should not be mentioned in the same or the
4

There are also other theoretical views of this matter. Declerck (1977) sees it as a
presupposition, and Legum (1968) postulates a rule of "particle incorporation" into a
PP. While the latter is quite nice, because it starts out with the phrasal verb particle, the
exact linguistic way these structures come about does not really matter. The important
point is that a reader/listener can and probably does supply the "missing" information in
his mind.

Categories of Multi-word Verbs

49

immediately surrounding sentences. The simple fact that the particle can also
stand on its own changes its status from preposition to adverbial (Lipka
1972:175); these cases are therefore included in the class of phrasal verbs.
While Fraser (1976:46-49) admits to the similar behaviour of the reduced
prepositional phrase and particles, he nevertheless excludes them from his
verb-particle combination, because they are in his view semantically
independent of the verb. I agree here with Knig (1973:84) that it would in
any case be difficult to sort out prepositional reduction cases from others. 5
Another point of difference between adverbs and pure prepositions is
noticeable in speech (and therefore not that helpful with a written historical
corpus), namely the fact that adverbs can be or are accented, whereas prepo sitions are not (e.g. Fraser 1976:2; but denied by Sroka 1972:146). Lipka
(1972) and Pelli (1976) use this as their main criterion. Furthermore, the pos sibility of contrastive accent can separate phrasal verb particles from other
adverbs (Bolinger 1971:13f).6
Bolinger (1971:chap.2) discusses three types of particles, namely adverbs, prepositional adverbs and adpreps. While adverbs are the clear cases,
i.e. those in the list above that can only function as adverbs (e.g. away,
aside), prepositional adverbs "oscillate between preposition and adverb",
which he exemplifies by "She knocked down the argument. She knocked the
argument down." (ibid. 26). Both these types help to make up phrasal verbs,
and will be accepted in this study as well. Bolingers adprep, which exhibits a
dual constituency, being drawn both to the verb and to the following noun
phrase, is found in sentence c. (his examples):
(6)

He ran down the road.

a. He ran it down. (disparaged it) - adverb
b. He ran down it. (did his running somewhere down the road)
- preposition
c. He ran down it. (descended it) - adprep

Again I agree with Bolinger, so that in the present study adprep cases will be
definitely excluded from the phrasal verb class.
Another interesting question connected with the particles is their se mantic characteristics. Here I am not concerned with semantic features of
5

A special problem in this general context concerns verbs followed by the sequence
"out of". These can be either a verb followed by the complex preposition "out of", or a
phrasal verb with the particle "out" followed by a prepositional phrase headed by "of"
(some out-phrasal verbs may be reduction cases from "out of"). As this is a very hard
and basically extremely subjective decision to make, I will follow Pelli (1976) and
Denison (1981) in excluding those cases altogether.
6
For papers devoted to the question of stress in phrasal verbs, cf., e.g., Eitrem (1903),
and Taha (1960).

50

Categories of Multi-word Verbs

individual adverbs, but with generalisations valid for all adverbs occurring in
phrasal verbs. From an etymological perspective, the items in question all
originally served to denote location and/or direction in space. For literal or
nearly literal uses, Bolinger (1971:chap.7) proposes two necessary features
of phrasal verb particles, namely (i) motion-through-location, and (ii)
terminus or result, thereby excluding all manner, time, place, simple
direction and stance adverbials. Dixon (1982:40) also regards motion as
important, whereas Lipka (1972:177) states that when the particle functions
as a locative adverb (i.e. literal use) it denotes direction and adds the feature
+dynamic to the whole combination. I assume this comes about by different
definitions of the term direction, not through a fundamental difference as
regards the particles. Bolinger wants to exclude, among others, up/down in
the sense of upward(s)/downward(s) with the help of criterion (i) above
and those are items that Lipka excludes as well (similar: Fraser 1976:49 f).7
For some (literally used) particles, however, Bolingers description motionthrough-location seems problematic; there is hardly any motion whatsoever
in, e.g., together, home, by, counter, apart, behind, asunder, whereas about
seems to convey pure instead of directed (i.e. through location) motion.
Some of these have a clear result and are thus saved by his second criterion
(which he sees as the more important one), but this still leaves about (e.g.
blow/carry about) and by (pass/come by literal senses), which are hard to
attach any resultative features to. As I see it, the particle should either have
the feature motion in general (not location and not direc tion in the sense of
-ward(s) adverbials) or the feature result or both with the last perhaps
being the prototypical cases. Both Bolinger (1971:92-95) and Fraser
(1976:22-25) also remarked on the fact that the real verbal force in some
cases seems to lie in the adverb while the verb fulfils the role of a manner de scription, as in (one of) Bolingers examples:
(7)

Comb down your hair. (to down by combing)

The feature result inherent in some particles has given rise to a somewhat
transferred aspectual or aktionsart use of particles in some phrasal verbs, for
example adding a continuative/iterative (Live 1965), perfective (Kennedy
1920; Lipka 1972), intensity/totality (Live 1965) telic (Brinton 1988), or
completive/terminative sense (Fraser 1976; Live 1965) an example of this
would be buy up (3) above. A causative interpretation added by the particle
7

Fraser (1976:51-59) excludes more than most others from his verb-particle
combination class, on the grounds of the basically adverbial nature of their second
constituents. While I tend to agree with the exclusion of his "kiss-back" cases, I would
rather include all his other exclusions ("turn off", "drive back", "babble on" cases) in
the class of phrasal verbs.

Categories of Multi-word Verbs

51

is also possible (Live 1965:436). There is, however, no fixed system and also
no one-to-one correspondence between a certain particle and a certain aspectual meaning (Live 1965:437; Bolinger 1971:chap.8). Particles in
idiomatic phrasal verbs (e.g. blow up "explode") are not affected by any of
the above interpretations.
As regards the (non-semantic) function of the particles, general state ments are harder to make. Sometimes, the addition of a particle changes the
transitivity of a verb, making it either transitive ( stare vs. stare down) or intransitive (e.g. take vs. take off) (Kennedy 1920:26; Fraser 1976:8; Dixon
1982:30). In other cases, it is only the added particle that creates a verb from
words otherwise not used as verbs on their own (Fraser 1966:47 f), for instance ante up, zip up. Another point with regard to phrasal verbs seems to
be active combinations with a passive signification (Kennedy 1920:27).
These occurrences, however, are not part of a systematic whole, and also not
very numerous (Dixon ibid.).
As to the syntactic tests which have been proposed to determine the
class of phrasal verbs, there is one test that works for both transiti ve and intransitive combinations. It concerns the insertion of an adverb be tween the
verb and the particle, which should not be possible for real phrasal verbs
(with certain exceptions, such as right, all, the hell) (Bolinger 1971:11ff;
also 117ff; Fraser 1976:3;25ff). Fraser sorts out the interruptable cases into
his verb-adverbial combination class as opposed to verb-particle
combinations (= phrasal verbs proper), whereas Bolinger points out that
varying degrees of bondage between verb and adverb, as well as the position
on the scale of idiomaticity, play a role. The only thing this test will do is
clearly divide the really idiomatic cases (no insertion possible) from the
completely literal ones (such as (8)), and probably leave an uncertain area of
more or less transferred uses in the middle.
(8)
(9)
(10)

Cadfael picked up the psaltery with due respect, and laid it safely
aside on the little prayer desk. (BNC G0M 1620)
On the day of the wedding, just for a short while, all strife was laid
aside. (BNC G2E 1669)
His mocking manner seemed laid quite aside. (from Declerck
1978:315)

Insertion of e.g. completely in (9) might be acceptable for some speakers, in

some contexts or it might not be. Insertion might be more restricted with
intransitive combinations in general, however (cf. Quirk et al. 1985:1152).
As I will not apply a literal-idiomatic division in the definition of phrasal
verbs, the simple insertion criterion will also not be used here. However,
another insertion test, namely that of whole adver bial phrases, may profitably

52

Categories of Multi-word Verbs

distinguish between phrasal verbs and other verb-adverb combinations, as

Vestergaard (1974:305f) points out.
The remaining four tests then apply only to transitive phrasal verbs. 8
The first of these is the transformation of the phrasal verb into an action
nominal (Fraser 1976:3), such as (11):
(11)

... the most learned and certain Rule for the finding out of the Longitudes of Places (SciB1649)

Verb-preposition sequences cannot be transformed in the same way, i.e. *the

seeking after of the gifts is not possible.
(12)

... the very seeking after the gifts of Gods Spirit (RelA1653)

However, Bolinger (1971:8ff) points out that this test does not work with all
phrasal verbs, whereas it does work with some verb -adprep-combinations,
and that, in general, the nature of the action involved seems to play a role.
This goes to make it more of a semantic than a syntactic test.
The last three tests are very similar and have to do with the relative
positions of particle and object (Bolinger 1971:10f; 15f, chap.5; Fraser
1976:16ff). First, the particle can stand on either side of the noun object (cf.
(13a-b)), which is not true of pure prepositions which can only precede the
noun, nor of pure adverbs which must usually follow it. The weight and
length of the noun phrase might influence this test, however; in (14a) the
placement of about after the object phrase would be highly unlikely. But it is
hard to make general statements about what length of the object phrase
enforces post-verbal position of the particle; clausal and gerundival objects,
however, always do (Wood 1956:19; Van Dongen 1919:329). Secondly, if
the object in question is a pronoun, it will precede the particle (cf. (14b)),
whereas it will follow a preposition.
(13a) Theres no need to nail the shelves down, ... (BNC A16 1079)
(13b) Nail down the central panel ... (BNC AM5 1582)
(14a) ... and bring about an irreversible shift of power and wealth to the
working class (BNC A3T 5)
(14b) Eleanor of Aquitaine, the princess whose marriage to an English king
brought this about, is one of the femmes fatales of the Cantos; ...
(BNC A1B 81)

A possible fifth test is passivization of the phrasal verb, which was used for example
by Live (1965) and Lipka (1972). I will not deal with this test here, because I am not at
all convinced of its usefulness. It cannot distinguish phrasal verb particles from other
adverbs in ways which the other tests could not do as well or even better, nor can it
separate phrasal from prepositional verbs.

Categories of Multi-word Verbs

53

(14c) And it was that lack of hits which probably helped bring about the
suicides. (BNC A6E 1273)
This is a test that always works except when the pronoun receives
contrastive stress for some reason, as then it can follow the particle. Finally,
Bolingers favourite test says that "the particle can precede a simple definite
noun phrase (a proper name or the plus a common noun) without taking it as
its object" (1971:15) (cf. (14c)). Again this sorts out both pure adverbs and
pure prepositions, and it emphasizes the unitary nature of verb + parti cle.
Bolinger (ibid. 112) calls combinations passing this test "compounds of a
sort". The restrictions on the characteristics of the object are the important
point here, as heavy noun phrases could change the results for pure adverbs
dramatically. Also, Fraser (1976:18) states that with very short noun phrases
the particle prefers the position immediately following the verb. Wood
(1956:23;24) thinks that generally the post-verbal position is the more usual
one, but especially so with more abstract and metaphorical expressions; the
latter opinion is shared by Bolinger (1971:96).
It is also important, when applying these tests, to keep in mind that
some phrasal verb combinations have been fossilized with either post-verbal
or post-nominal positions of the particle, with no change being possible any
longer (cf. e.g. the listing in Fraser 1976:19f; Wood 1956:25). Such cases are
included by Bolinger (1971:113) under his second-level stereotyping and
exemplified by take in washing (post-verbal) and bring the victims to (postnominal). A possible test for levels of stereotyping is fronting of the particle,
which works only with completely or fairly literal particles, e.g.:
(15)

Down went the Bluecher [= ship]. (BNC AA9 912)

There is of course the question about the motivation for these

different syntactic positions and transformations. Erades (1961), and
Bolinger (1971), basing himself on the former, find the reason in the
information structure of the sentence and the amount of news value or
newsworthiness inherent in the object. Objects introducing something new
will normally have end-position (following the particle), and these will
usually be nouns or noun phrases. On the other hand, objects that denote
something already known or inferable from the context come between verb
and particle; this applies to nouns which have been mentioned shortly before
in the context, pronouns, and "semi-pronominal nouns" (Erades 1961:58)
such as thing(s), matter.
The unitary or compound nature of phrasal verbs mentioned above
seems to me to be confirmed by their use in non-verbal contexts and in wordformation processes (Live 1965:429). Thus, there is conversion to nouns

54

Categories of Multi-word Verbs

(e.g. take-off n.)9, which Lipka (1972:138) calls an "extremely productive

process", nominalization with the help of suffixes, or as adjectives (cf.
Vestergaard 1974:307), like (16) and (17), just to mention some example s.
(16)
(17)

the total fed-upness with the Tories (Peter Crampton, MEP, June
1997)
badly thought out international marketing programmes (BNC A60 26)

Pre- and suffixation is especially interesting, as it emphasizes word status.

Nevertheless, this fact is hardly ever commented on; the only one who sees it
as important for multi-word verbs in general is apparently Leisi (1985:119).
As hinted at above, something still remains to be said about the verbal
element of phrasal verbs. In theory, any kind of verb would be possible, but
it does not turn out to be that way in reality. Statistically, there are clear
preferences to be found. Monosyllabic or disyllabic verbs with the accent on
the first syllable are the dominant group, and those are usually Germanic
(Anglo-Saxon or Norse) elements (Bolinger 1971:175; Fraser 1976:13f; Live
1965:430). Kennedy (1920:29) even gives tentative figures: of the monosyllabic verbs only 18% were non-Germanic, whereas with the disyllabic ones
the percentage rises to about 55%. Verbs with more than two syllables are
rare: Fraser (1976:14) lists exactly 13. Furthermore, it is the very common
and multi-functional verbs (cf. e.g. Kirchner 1952) which also seem to be the
most common ones in phrasal verbs. On the other hand, there are also many
monosyllabic verbs which never occur together with a particle; while this is
thus an important prerequisite, it is not a guarantee. Fraser (1976:9) lists the
following as the most productive verbs with many different meanings each:
take, put, go, get, turn, lay, set, run, make, and fall. Potter (1965:287) has a
list of the 24 most frequent verbs, which include the ones from Fraser plus
back, blow, break, bring, call, come, give, hold, keep, let, look, send, stand,
and work (but notice that he includes prepositional verbs under the term
phrasal verb!). As regards semantic features of verbs in these combinations,
it seems that in general stative verbs such as know, want, see, hope etc. are
not used to create phrasal verbs (Fraser 1976:11). Furthermore, Fraser thinks
that it is possible to find whole groups of systematic combinations (i.e. those
with consistent meaning alternation brought about by the particle (ibid. 5)) in
which the verbs have identical or similar semantic traits. An interesting case
is also the existence of a group of verbs which seldom or never occur without
a particle (Kennedy 1920:29), e.g. point out.
The result of the union between a verb and an adverbial particle is a
unitary phrasal verb, but the observed differences between exis ting phrasal
9

Srensen 1986, Preuss 1962, Neubert 1973, and Lindelf 1937 are studies dealing
specifically with this point.

Categories of Multi-word Verbs

55

verbs have brought about attempts to look for some ordering principle.
Bolingers semantic-idiomatic system (1971: chap.9), which would have
profited from a clearer description and explanation on the part of the author,
distinguishes between First- and Second-Level Stereotyping as well as Firstand Second-Level Metaphor. While in first-level stereotyping verb and
particle, although forming a unit, retain their individual meanings (e.g. toss
up), the second level is a completely opaque, non-compositional combination
(e.g. throw up "vomit"). The metaphor levels come in between the two
stereotyping levels on the semantic cline, first-level metaphor implying the
non-literal, transferred use of the particle (e.g. buy up), and second-level
metaphor the transferred, figurative use of the whole combination (e.g. make
up a face). Fraser (1966:51f; 1976) differentiates into systematic and
unsystematic combinations: systematic combinations are all those that share
identical co-occurrence restrictions with the simple verb, while the
unsystematic ones are all the rest. Systematic combina tions are further
subdivided into a literal type (adverbial sense of particle, e.g. hand out), a
completive type (i.e. an aktionsart type, e.g. hang up), and a third type with
neither a literal nor a completive particle (e.g. fight off, cross out, note
down). Declerck (1977) bases his classification on semantic features
(especially the underlying CAUSE), producing three types: (i) locomotion
phrasal verb (walk in/out), (ii) instrumental phrasal verb (comb out), and (iii)
manner phrasal verb (cut out). Knig (1973:90) also has three semantic
groups, according to whether the meaning of the whole unit is the result of
(i) meaning of verb + original adverbial meaning of particle, (ii) meaning of
verb + aktionsart meaning of particle, or (iii) non-compositionality, i.e. fully
idiomatic combinations. In my opinion, Bolingers system is the most helpful
one, even if the terms are not very happily chosen. The only thing this
classification seems to miss is those cases where the particle is apparently re dundant, i.e. the verb could actually stand on its own without a (major?)
change of meaning, for example meet up vs. meet. But probably depleted
particle use could be accommodated as transferred under first -level
metaphor, if one stretched the definition somewhat.
To sum up, in the present study, the following approach to phrasal
verbs will be taken as the basis for collecting data from the Lampeter
Corpus. Phrasal verbs are combinations of a verb and a primary, invariable
adverb, the latter including the heads of re duced prepositional phrases but
excluding adpreps. The semantic make-up of these adverbs should contain
the features motion and/or result. Two tests ar e seen as important, namely
(i) if the object is a pronoun, the particle must follow it, and (ii) the particle
can precede a simple noun phrase without taking it as its object. Of course, it
is hard to apply any kind of test of whatever nature in an histo rical context

56

Categories of Multi-word Verbs

after all, there is no native speaker of EModE available to give his or her
judgement. Thus, apart from naturally occurring transformations, the only
way is to use PDE grammaticality statements, and hope that they will not be
completely inadequate for the older period. And finally one more point:
everything in the cline from the completely literal to the totally opaque units
will be accepted.
4.2 Prepositional Verbs
"Since none of the criteria for prepositional or phrasal -prepositional verbs
are compelling, it is best to think of the boundary of these categories as a
scale" is how Quirk et al. (1985:1165f) sum up their treatment of this
category. Certainly, prepositional verbs are the most difficult to define and
the ones nearest the borderline of all possible multi-word verbs. This stems
from the fact that (most, if not all) sentences containing a verb -preposition
sequence allow two different syntactic analyses, depending on the various
possibilities of bracketing of constituents. The first and more straightforward
solution is SVA (cf. (18a)), which involves a simplex verb followed by an
adverbial phrase, i.e. in this case there is no prepositional verb. Certain
peculiarities of English, however, point towards the likelihood of an SVO
analysis as in (18b).
(18a) [All four books] [speak]
[of a "someone other".]
(18b) [All four books] [speak of] [a "someone other".] (BNC A05 493)
The facts favouring (18b) are both structural/syntactic and semantic. The
first involve among others the curious prepositional passive (cf. (19)) and the
various preposition stranding possibilities (cf. (20)), e.g. in relative clauses
and topicalized sentences, while the latter is represented by clearly idiomatic
(mostly semantically opaque) verb-preposition combinations (cf. (21) vs.
literal (22)).
(19)
(20)

Her Birmingham background is hinted at ... (BNC A06 913)

... and never try to lift more than you can easily cope with. (BNC A0G
2204)

(21)

"... and thus we come by those ideas we have of yellow, white, [etc.]"
(BNC ABM 816)
Soldiers from Stirling would have come by Crieff and Amulree, ...
(BNC A0N2171)

(22)

All of these point to a greater cohesion between verb and preposition than
between preposition and following noun phrase, but they nevertheles s

Categories of Multi-word Verbs

57

except for the idiomatic cases do not completely invalidate the SVA
analysis.10
While the SVO solution neatly explains a few things, it also poses a
new problem of its own, namely the necessity of structural re -analysis, from
the bracketing of (18a) which is assumed to be the primary one to that
of (18b) above, creating a complex verb (Denison 1993:124). I will simply
take re-analysis for granted here without discussing it any further.
The following paragraphs will deal with the delimitation of the category prepositional verb to be used in this study, taking up the points men tioned above and a few others of importance as I go along.
Looking at common verb-preposition sequences such as depend on,
look after, wait for, or belong to, it is apparent that certain collocational restrictions (cf. Palmer 1965:180 + 1974:215) or even a collocational fixity is
at work here. According to Davison (1980:48) and Vestergaard (1977:58),
the preposition involved should not be freely substitutable by another, the
latter stating the same condition for the verb. It is for the preposition that this
condition is really important, as one can assume that it is the verb that selects
the accompanying preposition, and not vice versa. Of course, in some cases
the preposition is substitutable, e.g. besides look after there is also look for,
look into, but the exchange in these cases is not free but governed by
different meanings which also affect look itself. Furthermore, this criterion
should not be taken to mean that the verb should never occur without the
preposition, as, e.g., rely on, if it is to be a real prepositional verb. Depend,
look, wait, belong can all stand on their own, but either that involves
different (shades of) meaning(s) or different syntactic environments, e.g.
That depends. That depends what you mean. The important thing is that in a
certain kind of usage the preposition is a fixed member of the sequence.
If collocational fixity is taken one step further, so to speak, one
reaches the stage of lexicalization (e.g. Vestergaard 1977:58), and Bolinger
10

There are indeed approaches which deny the existence of prepositional verbs or at
least think them superfluous. Gtz/Herbst (1989:226) in their review of Quirk et al.
(1985) criticize the view taken there on the grounds that it leads to an increase of both
the syntactical rules and the lexicon. Huddleston (1984:200-202) does not see verbpreposition sequences as a single syntactic constituent, based on two things especially:
(i) the position of an adverbial, cf. Ed relied steadfastly on the minister vs. *Ed relied
on steadfastly the minister, and (ii) the possibility of coordination, or rather repetition
of the preposition, cf. Ed relied on the minister and on his solicitor. The first point is
of course problematic, but one also cannot say, e.g., *Ed trusted completely the
minister adverbs simply do not often intervene between verb, whether simplex or
complex, and a simple direct object. The fact that the adverb can intrude between the
verb and its preposition is due to the janus-faced character of the preposition and the
unresolved, wavering status of the noun phrase. This also applies to the coordination
problem.

58

Categories of Multi-word Verbs

(1977:59) thinks it possible that "the great majority of prepositional verbs are
lexicalized". He does not specify his definition of lexicalization there, but if
one applies Bauers (1983:48f) terminology, for example, many prepositional
verbs can certainly be called institutionalized and a certain amount even semantically lexicalized. This latter leads us to the criterion of meaning. It has
been observed that a verb-preposition sequence is more likely to be a
prepositional verb if it has a unitary (i.e. usually idiomatic) meaning (Palmer
1974:216; Bolinger 1977:58). The question of what constitutes a unitary
meaning is of course a difficult one, but the substitution with a simplex
synonym (despite the problems of synonymity) can be and often has been
used as a valid aid. However, this criterion should not be overempha sized,
but only used in addition to others. 11 Also, it is sometimes over-inclusive
(e.g. go into enter), but on the other hand excludes good candidates, such
as look after, which have no simplex synonym. These considerations are
perhaps of more importance for the internal description of the group of
prepositional verbs and of the gradience or cline observable within it. In this
context, Goyvaerts (1973:560f) identification of several subgroups of
prepositional verbs falling into two broad categories is of particular interest.
These categories are (i) purely prepositional verbs (e.g. look after, believe in)
and (ii) verbs which need a preposition to introduce their object (e.g. consist
of, rely on). I take both kinds to be prepositional verbs, although they exhibit
some differing characteristics.
Instead of concentrating on the verb and the preposition, as done so
far, another approach is to examine the status of the noun phrase following
them. If an SVO analysis is to be upheld, the noun must be independent of
the preposition preceding it. To my knowledge, Vestergaard (1977) contains
the most comprehensive treatment of that problem so far. A few of the
more important points made by him shall suffice here. The noun must be
a role-playing participant in the clause, and it must be interpretable as a "true
participant" rather than as a circumstantial element. He illustrates thi s with
the following example:
(23)

I get up and talk about it in the House of Commons...

where "(about) it" is a true participant, whereas "in the House of Commons"
is not (Vestergaard 1977:46). This is similar to Bolingers (1977:67) ap 11

De Haan (1988:124) doubts even in the case of idiomatic combinations that their
status as prepositional verbs is absolutely clear. This is in clear opposition to Quirk et
al.s stance of including only idiomatic units among their prepositional verb class
(already criticized above). It is also notable here that Palmer changed his mind between
1965 and 1974, excluding non-idiomatic cases in the later edition without stating his
reasons for so doing.

Categories of Multi-word Verbs

59

proach, who uses the "true-patient" status of the noun as an argument for the
possibility of passivization, and as an extension, it seems, also for preposi tional verbs as such. Vestergaards circumstantial elements are in Bolingers
(ibid. + 75) terminology purely spatial, temporal or existential relationships.
Two of Vestergaards (1977:49f) further tests underline the point made
above: the noun alone (i.e. not the preposition-noun sequence) must be
replaceable by a relative pronoun or another pronominal form, and again t he
noun alone can be topicalized in a pseudo-cleft sentence, something which
would not be possible for "the House of Commons" in (23), for example.
The question transformation test is also concerned with the status of
the noun, insofar as it serves to exclude prepositional phrases that are simply
predication adjuncts (i.e. Vestergaards circumstantial elements). These latter
can be questioned adverbially by means of "where, when, how, why" (cf.
(24)), while a noun that is more like a direct object of the verb-preposition
combination would require a non-adverbial question form with "who, what"
(cf. (25)) (Quirk et al. 1985:1165; Diensberg 1988:90).
(24)
(25)

... the one [ladder] that hangs on the side of the potting shed. (BNC
A0D 2329)
Where does it hang?
By now they too knew they could call on me. (BNC A0R 469)
Who could they call on?

While this test is very convenient, it does lead to contradictory results, e.g. in
cases where both questions forms are possible as in (26) (cf. e.g. de Haan
1988:122).
(26)

It was in those far-off days as they strolled through the parks ... (BNC
A08 1356)
What did they stroll through?
Where did they stroll?

Furthermore, the results from this test sometimes collide with those of
another test, namely the possibility of passivization. It is a characteristic of
objects that they can become the subject of a passive clause, whereas this is
not possible for complements (which the question test above would admit) or
adjuncts. If therefore the noun of the prepositional phrase can become the
passive subject, this means that it performs the same function to the verb preposition combination as it would to a simplex transitive verb (Vestergaard
1977:56; similar Bolinger 1977:58; also Kilby 1984). Van der Gaaf (1930:1)
called it direct object in these cases, while the term "prepositional object"
(e.g. Quirk et al. 1985:1156) is probably a better choice in order to highlight
the differences that nevertheless exist between the two types.
(27a-b) are regular prepositional passives, so to speak; for example,
"this" stands in the same relation to "look into" as it would to "examine" in
This needs to be examined.

60

Categories of Multi-word Verbs

(27a) ... I should just hate to see my name on anything that could not be
relied on, ... (BNC AHA 441)
(27b) This needs to be looked into. (BNC A0D 2439)
(28)
(29)

Despite the spread of private pensions, 75 per cent of pensioners lived

on less than 3,500 a year. (BNC A50 516)
*Less than 3,500 a year was lived on by 75% of pensioners.
His bed had been slept in, but there was no sign of Travis. (BNC JY1
427)

In both cases in (27) the question test from above would yield a what-form as
well. While the last is also true of (28) (cf. what did they live on?), the
passive is impossible because of the nature of "a small salary"; it is probably
not "affected" enough by the action to serve as a true patient. (29), on the
other hand, would certainly not pass the question test (taking where?), but
"this bed" can be interpreted as especially "affected", because of the vi sible
result of Travis having slept in it (probably messy sheets); no longer visible
effects, but instead a famous former occupant (e.g. Napoleon) of the bed,
indicated by a by-phrase, would make the sentence acceptable as well (cf.
Diensberg 1988:96; Couper-Kuhlen 1979:9). As Couper-Kuhlen has shown,
the semantic make-up of the noun in question plays an important role for the
possibility of passivization, quite apart from such intracta ble factors as
frequencies and highly fluctuating acceptability ratings of prepositional
passives among speakers. Thus, the passivization test probably does not say
as much about the cohesion between verb and preposition as one might wish
it did. Live on might be suspected to belong to the class of prepositional
verbs (Diensberg 1988:89 puts it into a sort of middle class of verbs with a
"prepositional complement"), whereas sleep in one would definitely want to
exclude and in neither case do the tests help very much.
Preposition stranding in general, i.e. in non-passive contexts, which at
first sight is a good pointer towards the cohesion of verb and preposition, is
called inconclusive by de Haan (1988:123), whereas Denison (1985b:192;
also Dekeyser 1990) goes even further and attributes it simply to the fact that
the (preferred) uninflected relative cannot be preceded by a preposition
and, one should add, that is of course completely impossible in the case of
the zero relative.
A point to be mentioned in favour of a multi-word verb interpretation
is the possibility of coordination of the verb-preposition sequence with a simplex verb, both sharing a common object, which Denison (1985:191; cf. also
Bennett 1980:106f, and Jespersen 1928:III,272, with examples) referred to as
a proof for "structural re-analysis". Later, Denison (1993:124) did not seem
so sure about it, calling it a less secure test than passivi zation. I would sug-

Categories of Multi-word Verbs

61

gest that it also depends on the way the coordination is syntactically realised,
cf. the following sentences.
(30)
(31)
(32)

they tend to choose subjects they like and approve of. (BNC A35 32)
Many people with AIDS have to spend long periods of time in
hospital unless there is someone at home who can help and look after
them. (BNC A00 81)
The 10 per cent or so of the population which votes for Sinn Fein
appears to approve of, or at least to tolerate readily , the IRAs
attempts to kill soldiers and policemen. (BNC A2P 476)

(32) seems to me to make the most convincing case, as the verb -preposition
sequence is separated from its remaining prepositional phrase or object by
the simplex verb, and there is nothing that motivates this particular sequence
other than the choice of the writer. In (31), the V -P-N sequence is still intact,
leaving both interpretations open; moreover, "help" could be seen as bein g
used in an intransitive way although I find that unlikely here. (30) exhibits
the well-established preposition stranding pattern and the addition of another
verb is no major step here. While there is this gradience in importance, I
would nevertheless accept all the kinds of coordination of transitives
preceding the object as proof.
Another point, which is not often mentioned, but which Poutsma
(1926:II,34) claims as a proof for a complete union between verb and prepo sition, is the fact that the past participle and the preposition can be used as an
attributive adjunct/as an adjective, e.g. longed-for peace (Live 1965:429).
Some of the most common of these transformations contain the negative
suffix un-, e.g. unheard-of, unthought-of.
After the foregoing discussion of the situation as found in the litera ture, it is now time to determine what will actually be used as criteria for
identifying prepositional verbs in this study. Collocational fixity is, I think,
an important point, that is the co-occurrence of one verb with one
preposition, either always or consistently in a certain meaning or usage. Both
idiomatic and non-idiomatic combinations will be accepted, on the same
grounds as in the case of phrasal verbs (cf. 5.1. above). The following tests
will be the ones to be applied: the question test, the passivization test, as well
as the test whether the noun is a role-playing participant instead of a
circumstantial element. Of course, not all of them have to work; I am also
inclined to see the first and the last as the more important ones. The
combinations belong to and believe in, for example, will be treated as
prepositional verbs here, as it is only the passivization test that does not work
in their case. The last mentioned test implies certain cha racteristics or
rather absent features of the preposition: it definitely excludes purely
spatial, temporal or other distinctive uses of prepo sitions, such as cause,

62

Categories of Multi-word Verbs

manner, instrument, purpose (cf. Poutsma 1926:II, 32). In general, the

preposition as part of a prepositional verb should have very little or no mean ing of its own independent of the verb and stand in no opposition to other
prepositions (Knig 1973:67-69). This type of preposition has been
described as elements with affix character or function (cf. Leisi 1985:122;
Rauh 1990:486ff + 1992:363), "pure markers" with the function of making
the verb transitive (Allerton 1982: 16f; 59), or as "inherent preposi tions"
(Dixon 1992:271), in each case in contrast to truly lexical elements. Consider
the difference between the following a. (meaningful, i.e. lexical
preposition) and b. examples:
(33a) It should work with a hammer. (instr.)
He will wait at the station. (spatial)
We will meet again on Monday. (temp.)
(33b) It does not consist with the theory.
They finally arrived at a conclusion.
They insisted on another meeting.
Thus (fight) for/against N (34a), for example, will be excluded here, as well
as e.g. talk/deal (in the sense of "trade") etc. with N (34b), but not deal with
in the sense "to act in regard to, administer, handle, dispose in any way of (a
thing)" (OED s.v. deal v., 16+17; cf. (35)). In these excluded cases, it seems
that the preposition has a more explicit, closer connection with whatever fol lows than with the preceding verb.
(34a) I prest my deere Christ not to drown us, for said I, we fight for thy
Kingly office, ... (RelB1650)
(34b) In most places in India, we are in effect our own Law-makers, and
can arrest and imprison any Natives that deal with us, or owe us
money; ... (EcA1681)
vs.
(35) ... reviews within the periphery did begin to deal with the relationship
between form and content in far more radical ways ... ( BNC ARD
598)
In contrast to most approaches to prepositional verbs, I will, like de
Haan (1988:134, n.1), accept only those among that class which he describes
as "strict sequences of a verb and a preposition". Only an adverbial element
is allowed to interrupt that sequence (as in (36)), whereas an intervening
object is a disqualifying feature, i.e. Quirk et al.s Type II prepositional verb
(e.g. take N for N) will not be treated here. As I see it, in the latter case the
cohesion between verb and preposition is often considerably weakened or
even non-existent.

Categories of Multi-word Verbs

63

(36a) Even so, one in five pensioners rely entirely on state benefits for their
income. (BNC A5S 19)
(36b) How you discuss AIDS will depend a great deal on the way you operate in your family. (BNC A0J 779)
It might be assumed that this could lead to doubtful exclusions, but it did so
in only one case:
(37)

... but Justice would be turnd into Gall and Wormwood. (PolA1684)

(37) was excluded because of its verb-object-preposition structure (in the

active voice), whereas (38) has been accepted.
(38a) ... the Metallick Sand of the Bathe, unless corroded with an acid Menstruum, doth not turn to Vitriol. (SciB1676)
(38b) Soviet Russia was turning into a "purely bourgeois republic". (BNC
A64 311)
A last type I would like to include here is one which probably most
falls out of common definitions of prepositional verbs. Verbs that exhibit a
changing usage, for example with accompanying preposition then but not
today (e.g. admit of), or verbs occurring sometimes with, sometimes without
a preposition (cf. Dixon 1992:278ff), can be enlightening and will therefore
be examined as well.12 Their inclusion stems from my interest in the
modifications, however slight, in meaning brought about by these
combinations. (39) is an example of the latter case; "at" here clearly modifies
"play" and does not belong to the following "politics".
(39)

He wants to play at politics. (BNC A8X 1017)

Perhaps Jespersen (1928:III, 252) was thinking of similar cases when he

stated that often the preposition makes the whole expression "more graphic".
This concludes my treatment of prepositional verbs, but before we go
on to the other categories, a few words about the differentiation of preposi tional from phrasal verbs are in order, at least as far as it also applies to writ ten historical data. The most important difference is the position of the
object, especially the pronominal one, in both cases. With prepositional
verbs the preposition cannot be shifted after the following noun phrase,
whereas with phrasal verbs this is possible, and even obligatory in the case of
a pronominal object (with certain idiosyncratic idiomatic exceptions). Fraser
(1976:2) regards this as the main distinguishing criterion. Further, in contrast
12

In EModE many verbs occur both with a prepositional object and with a nonprepositional, i.e. direct, object, e.g. command, favour, forget etc., without obvious
change of meaning. Usually it is the non-prepositional use that survives into PDE (cf.
Rissanen 1999).

64

Categories of Multi-word Verbs

to prepositional verbs, phrasal verbs do not quite as freely allow their

sequence to be interrupted by manner adverbs (with certain monosyllabic
exceptions and those only with literal phrasal verbs).
4.3 Phrasal-prepositional Verbs
This third category of multi-word verbs is in some way an offspring of the
two preceding categories, in so far as it could be described as basic ally a
phrasal verb with a preposition added on to it but in fact it is generally
more than just that. In contrast to both the above, which are very common,
occurrences of this category seem to be much rarer. The under lined
structures in the following sentences can serve as prototypical examples of
this category.
(40)
(41)
(42)
(43)

The doctors voice broke in on her thoughts. (BNC JY0 289)

There was no telling what a girl like that might come up with; they
might beat Mavis Bramley yet. (BNC A1C 1444)
The last years of his life seem to have been largely given over to this
task. (BNC A6S 598)
If I stretch my imagination, I can admit to feeling a little tired lately,
but put that down to the ageing process. (BNC CA9 488)

The first particle in each case is an adverbial (in, up, over, down), the second
a preposition (on, with, to). Just as with prepositional verbs, stranding is
possible, cf. (41), the same goes for passivization; in (42) this is even the
obligatory syntactic form, as this particular combinat ion only ever occurs in
the passive. As with phrasal verbs, there is a semantic cline, with (40) and
(42) being transferred uses, in which the metaphor is still retrievable,
whereas (41) and (43) are completely opaque. In contrast to phrasal verbs,
however, phrasal-prepositional verbs do not extend to the completely literal
end of the cline at least not in the definition of this category to be used
here.
My approach to phrasal-prepositional verbs is much more
semantically, or rather idiomatically, determined than in the case of the
preceding two categories. With three words co-occurring, two of which are
high-frequency functional items one has to make especially sure that they
really form a lexical unit, and do not just happen to be used side by side.
After all, almost any phrasal verb can happen to be followed by a
prepositional phrase (cf. Carstensen 1964:318 f; Palmer 1974:238). Unitary
meaning seems to be the right way of establishing lexical -unit status in this
case; thus, in the above sentences the respective paraphrases could be (40)
"interrupted", (41) "think of, invent", (42) "devoted", and (43) "attribute to".
If one downplayed semantic considerations here, given the frequency of

Categories of Multi-word Verbs

65

phrasal verbs and the ubiquity of prepositions, one might end up with a large
class of phrasal-prepositional verbs, most of them having very little internal
cohesion.
As regards cohesion, Denison (1981:29f) points out that some sequences of verb + particle + preposition display an internal constituent struc ture, whereas others do not. His examples of the two kinds are keep on + at
and put up with, respectively. As regards the first instance, Cowie & Mackin
(1975) have two entries, one "keep (on) at" and the other "keep on (at/in)",
i.e. in both cases one element of the three-part sequence is deletable leaving
either a simple prepositional verb (keep at) or a simple phrasal verb (keep
on) with the same or only slightly changed meaning. With put up with, on
the other hand, no element is deletable and there are no separ ate
constituents; trying to separate with from the rest would enforce a
completely different interpretation on put up. Keep (on) at is explained by
Cowie & Mackin as "worry, pester, harass (continuously) with suggestions,
requests, complaints", i.e. as having a non-inferable, idiomatic meaning, keep
on (at/in) is much closer to the literal end of the spectrum with "not remove
(from), continue to employ (at/in)". In this latter case the prepositional
phrase could be questioned by "where" something which excluded such
cases from the class of prepositional verbs (cf. 5.2.). The same criterion will
also be used here to eliminate some apparent phrasal-prepositional verbs.
Thus keep on (at) is out, whereas keep (on) at and put up with are in, on
account of their idiosyncratic, idiomatic meaning and their use of empty
prepositions (cf. the explanation under 5.2. above). Denison (1981:29f)
mentions another point in favour of their unitary status, namely the fact that
these sequences are rarely interrupted by anything else or inverted in any
way. Pied-piping of the preposition would be highly unusual (Palmer
1974:238). Regarding interruptability, in cases like (43) above, the object
can of course intervene, and according to Cowie & Mackin (1975:xlii)
so can (in principle at least) adverbs and adverbial phrases between particle
and preposition, even if the preposition is non-deletable and the combination
idiomatic. However, interruption does not seem to be very common. The
above then are the reasons for regarding them as a class of their own, a class
of transitive lexical units, and not as intransitive verb -particle combinations
followed by a preposition, as Fraser (1976:4) does.
As regards transitivity, Cowie & Mackin (1975:xlif; lvf) separate the
class into an intransitive pattern A3 (e.g. do away with, come in on) and a
transitive pattern B3 (e.g. fob N off with N, take N out on N). Their approach
is understandable insofar as they include completely literal combinations
such go aground on (e.g. a sandbank) question "where" possible! or
scrape along on (e.g. a low salary), comparable to the prepositional com-

66

Categories of Multi-word Verbs

plement cases (cf. 5.2. above), which could hardly be called transitive in any
sense. As these cases are excluded here, I think it better to think o f all
phrasal-prepositional verbs as being transitive, the pattern A3 (or Quirk et
als Type I) being monotransitive and the pattern B3 (Quirk et als Type II)
being complex transitive.
On semantic grounds, Potter (1965:289) sub-divides the phrasalprepositional class further into three groups, which are (i) transparent combi nations (e.g. come up with N, fall in with, go on with, look forward to ), (ii)
opaque combinations (e.g. do away with, go in for, make up to), and (iii)
combinations with redundant elements (e.g. face up to, meet up with). Group
(i) should, in my opinion, not include really literal ones, but only those cases
where the metaphorical extension is still readily retrievable. I fully agree
with group (ii), as this is the one that will include all the prototypical
combinations. Group (iii) is an interesting case because of the question of
how redundant the particles are, or even if they are at all redundant. The
point here is that one can also face N (instead of facing up to N) or meet N
(vs. meet up with N) and whether it would make a difference. It is true
that the combinations share the same or at least similar co -occurrence
restrictions with the simplexes, and are thus remi niscent of Frasers (1976)
systematic phrasal verbs. However, there are differences in meaning,
certainly more noticeably in face up to than in meet up with, but nevertheless
they are there and will have to be examined in each case.
To briefly summarize, all the relevant criteria for phrasal verbs and
prepositional verbs apply here as well. The only additional feature that is important is the exclusion of completely literal combinations and thus an
emphasis on idiomaticity.
4.4 Verb-adjective Combinations
Although the existence of these combinations was noticed an d remarked on
long ago (e.g. Kruisinga 1925; Poutsma 1926; Jespersen 1928), they have
nevertheless not received any extensive treatment so far. This might be
related to the fact that members of this class are not very numerous and that
they do not pattern internally as neatly as the other categories discussed
already. Adjectives after all are a more unwieldy class than primary adverbs
or prepositions.
After such vague and intuitive descriptions as that the predicative
forms "one sense-unit with the verb" (Jespersen 1928:V,31), or the adjective
forms a sort of compound with the verb (Poutsma 1926:25), Quirk et al.
(1985:734,n.2; 1167f) have definitely accorded these combinations multiword verb status. They point out their similarity to phrasal verbs, esp ecially

Categories of Multi-word Verbs

67

regarding the different positions of the object (cf. 4.1 above and examples
(44a-c) below), which would turn the adjective into a kind of particle (cf.
also Fraser 1976:36).
(44a) Stomach and bowel problems have also laid him low but he shows no
sign of stopping. (BNC K4V 2922)
(44b) A virus has laid some of my horses low. (BNC HAE 365)
(44c) There had been nothing achieved by the expedition save the coachmans cold which now threatened to lay low the rest of her staff. (BNC
H82 2406)
However, Quirk et al. (ibid.) also declare comparative modification to be
possible in some cases, as in their example reproduced here as (45). This
modification emphasizes the adjectival character of the second element.
(45)

John didnt put the cloth as straight as Meg.

In principle, however, I think it is possible for a word to simultaneously

function as a particle syntactically and semantically as an adjective.
Taking a non-multi-word verb stance, the adjective can be seen as
either an object complement or a subject complement. Poutsma (1926) spoke
of a result-relationship, and Fraser (1976:36f) called it a be-relationship 13
between direct object or subject and the adjective, analyses which remind
one of the small-clause interpretations of phrasal verbs (cf. footnot e 1
above). A paraphrase of the above as he is low, the horses are low (44a-b) is
of course only possible if one interprets low in the metaphorical sense that
also applies when taking lay low as a unit. I am clear ... (46) works
somewhat better, especially if one retains the rest of the sentence, but the
result relationship is best of all illustrated by com pletely literal cases such as
(47): the drawer is open.
(46)
(47)

I want to get clear of this mess before anything else happens. (BNC
G3G 2601)
I suspected something, and one day I decided to break open her
drawer. (BNC GWH 1486)

Seen diachronically, the complement analysis is probably valid in most

cases, but where in the course of time the adjective became more and more
attached to the verb and the meaning grew increasingly opaque, this original
relationship is rather obscured nowadays.

13

Sequences which exhibit a be-relationship in surface structure by actually including

the verb to be will not be regarded as verb-adjective combinations here. Often phrases
such as be indicative of are treated under nominal tendencies/combinations and
included in the set, cf. e.g. Rensk (1964) and Hoffmann (1972).

68

Categories of Multi-word Verbs

The attachment of the adjective to the verb, and thus the unitary char acter of the whole combination, can be tested by a variant of the simple noun
phrase test, i.e. the test whether the adjective can stay next to the verb pre ceding a very short object (Bolinger 1971 14; Knig 1973:88). The two following examples pass this test:
(48a) This is a good way to make known the University ... (BNC EE6 313)
(48b) you break, break open the window and get it (BNC KCE 5210)
I am not quite sure whether this test works with all combinations one would
like it to work with; I have not managed to find an authentic example in
which lay low was followed by a simple noun phrase object, for instance.
Naturally, it also does not work with intransitive combinations, which Quirk
et al. (1985:1168) call copular, although it can cover those which occur both
in transitive and intransitive uses, e.g. break open. Nor is it a usable test with
those combinations followed obligatorily or optionally by a
preposition, e.g. get clear of (cf. (46) above), fall short of. Some, but not all,
of the latter can actually be called transitive. Lastly, there are those cases
which have become intransitive by object deletion, e.g. the "it" in see/think
fit, which is not only dropped when an infinitive follows (as Jespersen
1928:V,32 says), but in practically all occurrences. Thus, there is no real test
for quite a number of verb-adjective combinations.
I propose to employ the modification possibilities as an additional
test, which would work for all kinds of verb-adverb combinations. In
combinations to be regarded as real multi-word units, modification should be
restricted to the minimum, i.e. to short ad verbials indicating manner (cf.
(49a)) or intensification (e.g. so, very, completely), as in (49b).
(49a) What I want to grieve is the old Maurice before he was laid so humiliatingly low by whatever it was ... (BNC H9Y 2969)
(49b) If possible, get someone else to fly it before you to make quite sure
that the ASI is working correctly. (BNC A0H 1768)
I would not accept put straight in (45) above as a verb-adjective combination
in the sense of this study. Because of the comparative modification, straight
retains too much of its syntactic adjectival character to become really
attached to the verb and form a unit with it. Comparative modification
including as ... as, or than should thus not be possible, whereas more and
most, if on their own, are allowed, as they can be seen as simple manner adverbs. Reduced modification possibilities make a statement about the
closeness of the bond between verb and adjective; the more habitualized (or
14

Bolinger (1971:chap. 6) treats verbs-adjective combinations as a sub-category of

phrasal verbs. Thus everything he says about the latter (cf. 4.1) applies here as well.

Categories of Multi-word Verbs

69

even fossilized) a combination becomes, the less likely modification will be;
for example it will hardly be possible to find a modified occurrence (in any
way) of see fit in PDE.
At the beginning of this section, I said that this category does not pat tern nicely. But Bolinger (1971:72-76) and Knig (1973:88f) advocate a possible subdivision into three groups. The first is made up of a combination of
a causative verb (e.g. make, keep, leave) and an unknown number of
adjectives, with such results as make known, make possible. In the second
group any kind of verb can combine with an adjective of a closed set, namely
open, loose, free, and clear, producing e.g. let loose. The third and last group
is one that is lexically open, but semantically closed, in so far as any kind of
verb or adjective is possible as long as the resultant combination expresses a
cause-result relationship, as items like bleach white, cut short do. While this
classification works with many, perhaps even the majority of verb -adjective
combinations, there are cases which are not covered by it, in particular, it
seems, not those with a final preposition.
To end this section, these are the features the verb -adjective combinations to be considered here should possess. They are the combination of a
verb with an adjective, and an optional or obligatory preposition at t he end,
in which the adjective carries a prominent, sometimes even the major part of
the meaning of the whole verb phrase. In some instances, the adjective
embodies the verbal process as such, whereas the verb in a way modifies it
by indicating the manner; this is often visible by one adjective occurring with
a number of different verbs. As to the adjectives in question, most belong to
the traditional word class adjective (e.g. good, sure), some are both
adjectives and verbs, regardless of the direction of derivation (e.g. open,
free), and some are past participles of verbs used in an adjectival function
(e.g. known, rid). The criterial tests are simple noun phrase test, the nonadmission of comparative modification, and generally as little modification
as possible. Additionally, in contrast to the situation with phrasal verbs, the
possibilities of passivization might also be of relevance here.
4.5 Verbo-nominal Combinations
One cannot really say that this category has not been given attention, but it
has not been very comprehensive or systematic; in fact, most works so far
have dealt with one specific semantic and syntactic sub-type among the
possible combinations. This is also reflected by the fact that there is no
common, established name for the category in question here. The same can
be said for the verb-adjective combinations just treated, but those at least are
much less common than the units involving a nominal element. Terms used

70

Categories of Multi-word Verbs

so far for this category include "complex verbal structures" (Nic kel 1978),
"complex predicate" (Cattell 1984), "expanded predicate" (Algeo 1995),
"Funktionsverbgefge" (Mller 1978), "take-have-phrasal" (Live 1973),
"verb-object combination" (Firbas 1969), "V-N construction" (Stein 1991),
and "verbo-nominal phrase" (Rensk 1964). The first three are too general
and could also stand for all the other categories treated here, the fourth
ignores the important nominal part, the fifth is confusing because it is
reminiscent of phrasal verbs, and the sixth might be mislead ing because of
its use of the term object (cf. below). The remaining two are really the best
of all, and therefore I have partly taken over the last term, as verbo -nominal
has the advantage of at least clearly describing the cate gory and setting it off
from all the others; phrase/construction has been replaced by combination,
because it seems important to me to lay somewhat more stress on the pos sible unitary character of the sequence.
As already stated above (cf. chap.3), this category is further divided
into three sub-groups, namely (Group I) simple verb-noun units such as talk
a walk, take place, give way, (Group II) verb-noun-preposition units, e.g. set
fire to, catch sight of, put an end to, take care of and (Group III) verb-prepositional phrase units, like come to an end, bring to light, put in execution , cf.
the following example sentences:
(I)

(50) So training must take place with this time period in mind.
(BNC A0M 348)
(51) Table 4.6 takes all those who were able to give an answer at
both first and second assessments ... (BNC B0W 737)

(II)

(52) Teachers ran the risk of looking like idiots or liars. (BNC AA8
496)
(53) Then John made use of his position as director of the Comedy
Theatre and arranged the childrens dances in the pantomime. ( BNC
B34 67)

(III)

(54) What factors would you take into consideration when

assessing a patients nutritional status? ( BNC EV5 937)
(55) ... the helpings put me in mind of "Nouvelle Cuisine meets
Yorkshire portions". (BNC BPJ 400)

From the examples given it should be obvious that there is quite an amount
of internal variation within the three groups (regarding, e.g., type of noun,
articles), which is probably unavoidable whatever kinds of classification
criteria are used, given the variety of verbo -nominal combinations. 15 I haven
15

Live (1973), for example, chose to take the character of the noun as her criterial
element to produce her Types I, II, and III. But she did not fit verb-prepositional
phrase sequences (of which she mentions only those with be) into this classification, so

Categories of Multi-word Verbs

71

chosen to take as the basic classification criterion the absence or presence of

a preposition, and, in the case of the latter, its syntactic position. This also
has the advantage that the resultant types fit roughly in with those di scussed
in the extant literature.
Before proceeding to the discussion of these three categories, a few
more general observations valid for all of them are in order. In all these com binations it is the nominal part that carries the major or even all the c omponents of meaning, i.e. the noun itself embodies the verbal process instead of
being affected by it (as an object would be). This fact is especially important
for the first two groups, where the noun is found in the direct ob ject position.
Quirk et al. (1985:750ff) make the same semantic observations, but neverthe less retain the term object in calling the noun an "eventive object". While
the noun certainly does not represent an object semantically and
functionally, the syntactic surface structure m akes it look like one.
Therefore, Quirk et al.s term, in capturing this double-sided nature of the
noun, seems appropriate. From the above it follows that the verb is of minor
or even of no importance, from the semantic perspective, but of course it is
syntactically necessary as a verbal operator. Therefore, the verbal part is
usually taken from the rather small class of very common, multi -functional
verbs, such as make, take, give, put etc. Somehow verb and noun, plus
perhaps a preposition, coalesce with each other to form a unit. And this is
actually all that can safely be generalised about verbo-nominal combinations;
thus their basic definition is necessarily semantic. A conclusive syntactical
definition, in the form of tests, although some will be discussed below, is
hardly possible; mainly, I think, because the individual behaviour of the
nouns determines very much what syntactical possibilities the whole
combination will have.
Let me start with Group I then, the simple combination of a verb and
a noun, without any preposition being involved. Most people have used a
rather restrictive definition for this category, which is understandable in a
way, because it is only in this way that one gets a set about which neat
generalisations are possible. According to this approach a type of verbonominal combination is formed by the sequence: (operator) verb +
determiner + deverbal noun, as in the prototypical example take a walk.
Among those who have worked with this or a very similar definition are
that it remains incomplete, in my opinion. She also totally ignores the prepositions,
although some of the examples she gives would habitually require the presence of one.
Hiltunen (in Brinton/Akimoto 1999) chose the presence or absence of an article, and
the kind of article present, as a classificatory criterion. But articles in the combinations
seem to behave rather idiosyncratically at any rate, and are especially problematic
within an historical perspective.

72

Categories of Multi-word Verbs

Nickel (1978), Live (1973), Algeo (1995), Wierzbicka (1982) 16, Stein (1991),
Stein & Quirk (1991), Mller (1978) 17, Prince (1972), Dixon (1992), and
Cattell (1984). The verb in this category is purely functional, fulfilling the
syntactic requirements of a verb in the sentence, and belongs to a small
group, of which the most common are give, have, make, and take, i.e. verbs
of Germanic stock (Nickel 1978:67). Algeo (1995:208) even restricts what
he calls the "core expanded predicate" to those four verbs just mentio ned;
Stein (1991:2) further excludes make, leaving a group of three verbs for her
V-N construction. With the loss of most of its meaning, the verb also loses
its potential for receiving any more than weak stress, the main accent fal ling
on the noun (Mller 1978:13) it is a "light verb" in every sense (Live
1973:33). This assumption is challenged by Stein (1991), however, who
attempts to prove that the verbs make very spe cific contributions to the
meaning of the whole combination; Mller (1978:114) also sees some
independent meaning in them (cf. also Poutsma 1926:II,394; Dixon
1992:351ff). The determiner is usually simply the indefinite article (Nickel
1978:66); Algeo, Stein and also Dixon are again more restrictive by strictly
excluding anything but the indefinite article. However, Live (1973:36) points
out that some article-less combinations have to be seen as a sub-pattern of
this category, e.g. take command, make love, give battle; additionally she
mentions the much less common case of the definite ar ticle, e.g. have the
lead (cf. also Mller 1978:140f). As to the nouns, in a narrow sense, they are
zero-derivation nouns which are formally identical with a verb (Lives Type I
and Algeos core expanded predicate; also Stein 1991:2 and Dixon
1992:339), or, in a wider sense, they are either derived from or related to a
verb stem (Nickel 1978:68; Hoffmann 1972:169). They are generally
abstract in nature, in contrast to nouns in typical verb -object constructions,
which are much more often of the concrete type , cf. He gave her a smile vs.
He gave her a book (Nickel 1978:68; Mller 1978:105).
16

Wierzbicka deals only with a very specialized type of the pattern "have (take, give) +
indefinite article + verbal (infinitival) stem", i.e. the last part of the sequence is not seen
by her as a noun at all (also Dixon 1992), even though it is combined with an article
and can be modified. She claims that these cases "can be distinguished from deverbal
nouns with a zero suffix, e.g. smile, cough, or quarrel..." (755), but does not
convincingly show how. In my view, this approach cannot be upheld, as it is impossible
to brush away all the formal nominal features exhibited by the final parts of these
combinations. An additional criterion of Wierzbickas seems to be the existence of a
simple-verb counterpart.
17
Mller makes a difference between preposition-less Funktionsverbgefge with the
nominal part taking the place of a direct object i.e. the category under discussion at
the moment and those containing a preposition in the middle, e.g. bring to an end
(cf. below). Thus he takes a broader view than the other linguists enumerated here.

Categories of Multi-word Verbs

73

Apart from this basic type just described, there are variants (usually
kept very distinct from the core type) regarding the nominal part of the
combination. Mller (1978:128), Live (1973:36f) and Algeo (1995:205f) all
mention nominal elements which, though clearly related to a verb, are
formally noun-marked, e.g. through a suffix, such as apology, comparison,
choice, loss (Lives Type II). Lives Type III, which she calls peripheral, is
made up of combinations where there is no underlying noun-verb correspondence, but which are nevertheless replaceable by other simplexes, e.g. make
an effort, take an oath, have an opinion (similar Mller 1978:120 and Algeo
1995). Live draws attention to the fact that the contribution of words of
Romance stock to her types II and III is very pronounced, even more so in
combinations lacking the article, whereas this is not the case in her Type I.
What has been said so far accounts almost completely for the
members of the first group posited above, simple verb -noun units, but it
leaves some isolated items unexplained which I would like to include,
though. These are in particular take effect, take place, take pains , and make
way, which neither have cognate simplex verbs 18 nor are they really
replaceable by single-word equivalents nevertheless they exhibit a very
unitary verbal character. It seems to me that they are more lexicalized than
most other members of this group, and this might ex plain their deviance in
this respect.
I now come to Group II, the setting up of which is necessary to ac count for the clear (even if at first only intuitively felt) contrast between, e.g.,
take a walk and catch sight of, as well as for the fact that some combinations
fossilize with a fixed preposition. Members of this group are always
transitive (whereas Group I units can be both transitive or intransitive);
semantically they require the presence of an object and the only way to
attach an object to the nominal part is of course with the help of a
preposition which therefore becomes obligatory. The problem is to decide
in which cases the preposition (and thus the object) is really obligatory, as
any simple verb-noun sequence can theoretically be followed by a
preposition. I take the preposition to be obligatory if the combination can
never occur without it 19, and if the nominal element following the preposition
18

There are, admittedly, the verbs to effect, to place and to pain, but none of those has
the relevant meaning for the nominal part in the combination. A kind of exception is
pain, as, at least in the Lampeter period, there was still a relationship between the
simplex and the periphrastic construction, cf. these OED examples (s.v. pain n.):
Eumenes pained himselfe (= took pains, CC) to carrie succour to his left wing.
(1614, Raleigh, Hist. World iv. iii. 9)
While he paind himself to raise his note. (1700, Dryden, Cock & Fox 669)
19
The condition here is that the following element is a noun and not a clause; even
prepositional verbs lose their preposition when preceding a clause.

74

Categories of Multi-word Verbs

can be seen to be affected in the way the direct object of a simplex verb
would be.
(56a) Make love to me, Jay. (BNC A0L 1001)
(56b) You cant make love at pistol point ... (BNC A0L 2392)
While in (56a) the object me is definitely affected (cf. the simplex
construction love me, and the possibility of passivization), (56b) shows that
make love can occur without a further object, and thus without to, especially,
but not exclusively, because it often takes a plural subject. Therefore, make
love will be put into the first group above. The same goes for take part,
which is an even clearer case: it can occur without the preposition (cf. (57b))
and the following nominal cannot be called affected.
(57a) The Conference would wish all who may take part in the referendum
to recognize that Protestant Churches are pro-Life ... (BNC A07 1036)
(57b) Were looking for ten volunteers to take part, each of whom will be
sent five plants (...) to grow. (BNC A0G 390)
Take part with, however, meaning "side with somebody" would lose this
meaning if without the preposition, and therefore belongs into Group II. Put
an end to is also definitely a fixed verb-noun-preposition sequence and as
such part of the second group. The whole combination needs an object,
hence the unacceptability of (58b).
(58a) He would also be expected to pay a premium to put an end to the
chaos. (BNC A3L 629)
(58b) *He would also be expected to pay a premium to put an end.
Sometimes apparent unacceptability in the preposition -less use can be remedied by increasing or changing the context, especially by modification of the
nominal part. But this does not seem to be the case in the present example.
Also, the delimitation of the groups will be clearer if the non -modified
combinations can stand alone.
Besides the two points mentioned above, the nature of the verb and
the noun involved might also play a role in the delimitation of the two
groups. An important question is whether the noun is independent enough to
stand on its own or whether it requires some kind of complementation. Take
for example the word charge, which enters into verbo-nominal combinations
(in the Lampeter Corpus) in the meanings (a) "military attack", (b)
"accusation", and (c) "responsibility, care" (cf. its OED entry). In the case of
(a), e.g. give charge, it is self-sufficient requiring no complementation (i.e.
Group I membership), with (c), e.g. take charge (of), constructions with or
without complement are possible (i.e. Group I as well), but with regard to
(b), e.g. lay a charge to/on N, the presence of an object of the accusation is

Categories of Multi-word Verbs

75

necessary 20 (i.e. Group II membership), lay a charge alone carrying no

complete independent meaning. The verb being lay, and not make, for
instance, may also play a role in this case. With the Lampeter Corpus
examples have defeat (Group I) and give defeat to (Group II) it is definitely
the verbs that make the difference basically by embodying a passive
versus an active sense. On the other hand, both give alarm and take alarm
can stand on their own; whether the (in)transitivity of the underlying or
related verb has a principled influence the verb alarm could be used
intransitively (cf. OED, s.v. alarm 1.a.) is not quite clear to me, and
would need to be looked into further.
In general, it has to admitted that the borderline between Groups I and
II is rather fuzzy and also permeable. There is quite definitely a gradient.
What makes things even more complicated is that some combinations such
as take care (of) and give (an) account (of) belong to both groups, something
which goes together with different meanings:
(59a) Take great care turning right. (BNC A0J 36)
"be careful"
(59b) This will take care of any (...) calcium deficiency too. (BNC A0G
2321)
"deal with"
(59c) Had she simply had Maggie so that someone, somewhere, would have
to love her and take care of her? (BNC A6J 161)
"care for, look after" 21
(60a) I could give you a blow-by-blow account of how England lost to Portugal the other night. (BNC A0U 1061) "tell"
20

The (obligatory) presence of an object does not necessarily always entail a fixed
preposition, cf. the Lampeter Corpus instance give alteration, where the object can
intervene between the two elements (a case of dative shift), thus putting this example
into Group I.
21
Nunberg, Sag & Wasow (1994) propose a "double entry analysis" (523) for such
verb-nominal sequences in order to account for differing syntactic behaviour exhibited
by one and the same combination. The idiom take care of can be analyzed as an
idiomatic phrase ("an idiosyncratic type of phrasal construction that is assigned its own
idiomatic meaning" (507)) or as an idiomatic combination (which "consist[s] of a
fundamentally semantically (typically figurative) dependency among distinct lexemes,
however restricted in distribution these lexemes might be" (ibid.)). This may (as here)
or may not go together with some semantic differentiation. (59b) contains the
idiomatic phrase, which is supposed by them to disfavour the passive with care in
subject position (inner passive), whereas (59c) as an idiomatic combination is said to
permit both types of passive equally well. However, the native speakers I asked found
the inner passive dubious/unsatisfactory in both cases. Besides, the authors go to great
lengths to explain something rather simple: all the elements in these combinations are
janus-faced, looking inward on the combination and kind of merging, as well as
looking outward as individual words. Their individual meaning is retained or retrievable to varying degrees, which may also determine their syntactic behaviour. These
degrees form a cline, not two separate camps.

76

Categories of Multi-word Verbs

(60b) Some four or five-year olds are perfectly able to give a coherent account of themselves, while some 16-year olds cannot. (BNC A2P 695)
"explain, account for"
The "of" in (60a) is not an integral part of the combination 22, although it is
always present when the object is specified (cf. Cattell 1984:5). The
important thing is that it need not always be specified. Combinations with a
completely integrated preposition seem to be not all that common; thus
Group II is smaller than Group I. What has been said about the
characteristics of the verbal and nominal parts above is also valid here. Two
further tendencies are nowadays visible in this present group, namely a
certain preference for the zero-article in the base (infinitive) form of the
combination and a higher percentage of Romance nouns.
The third and last group of verbo-nominal combinations comprising
verb-prepositional group sequences contains both transitive and intransitive
units. Examples for intransitive combinations are come to an end, come to
light, be in doubt; in this group it is the verbal part that determines
intransitivity. With the transitive combinations there are some that require an
additional preposition at the end, either to link to the object of the whole
unit, as in stand in need of N, or to add another object or complement, e.g.
put N in mind of N. As with prepositional verbs above, separation of the
preposition from the rest is not seen as a problem (61a,b); on the other hand,
the phenomenon of the stranded preposition exists here as well (61c).
(61a) This meant that the new "natural philosophy" stood in need, not
merely of practical development, but also of intellectual justification
and explanation. (BNC ABM 666)
(61b) A general system of gardening founded on experience is a work of
which the public has long stood in need. (BNC ALU 923)
(61c) ... both shopping expedition and holiday were what she stood in need
of. (BNC AD1 3234)
The direct object of the combination usually, but not always, intervenes be tween the verb and the prepositional part, i.e. take N into consideration, instead of take into consideration N; the latter becomes necessary, however , if
the object noun phrase is very long or heavy (cf. (62c)). Thus, the elements
of the combinations are usually separated in real language; this is balanced
out by less common nominal modification in this group.
(62a) The judges may even take the owners appearance into consideration
when making their minds up. (BNC A17 1035)
22

Cf. also Nunberg, Sag & Wasows (1994:520, esp. fn. 34) discussion of take
advantage (of), which at first sight looks like a typical preposition case, but empirically
is obviously not.

Categories of Multi-word Verbs

77

(62b) More ominously its size and capacity also took into consideration
future military needs. (BNC AR0 521)
(62c) The judge further invalidated a statute that requires the agency to
"take into consideration general standards of decency and respect for
the diverse beliefs and values of the American public ." (BNC EBV
51)
Apart from the conditions as to the internal make -up of these combinations, other, mainly syntactic criteria have also been applied to them. Most
of them deal primarily with Groups I and II, however. Nickel (1978:68ff;
also cf. Hoffmann 1972) mentions four criteria, which might be useful: the
action denoted by the deverbal noun has the subject of the sentence as its
agent (subject-predicate relationship as with a simplex verb); if a possessive
pronoun accompanies the noun it is dominated by the subject of the sentence
(cf. (63)); it is not the verbal but the nominal part of the combination that
determines which kind of object it can take (cf. also Mller (1978:106), who
says that the combination shares the selectional restrictions of the simplex
equivalent, but he also admits some restricted selectional role to the verb
(115)); and the verb cannot be freely replaced by others (similarly Mller
1978:114 and Hoffmann 1972:170), whereas substitution by members of the
same semantic class is possible in normal verb-object constructions.
(63)

And when youve made your choice, well deliver your new machine
... (BNC AYX 217)

Mller (1978:9; 106), besides stating generally that the combinations are se mantically identical to simplexes, and can as a rule be replaced by the latter
in context, also suggests some syntactic criteria to be used, namely gapping,
pronominalization and certain forms of topicalization (ibid. 107-110).
Gapping should only be possible if the two verbs are either both used in a
verbo-nominal combination or are both used in their literal sense, but not if
usage differs, cf. *John took a cigarette and then a swim in the pond.
Pronominalization of the nominal part of the combination is said to be highly
restricted or completely impossible, i.e. the noun cannot usually be replaced
by it23 (whereas the whole combination can), or be questioned with the help
of "what?".

23

Against this assumption cf. Nunberg, Sag & Wasow (1994:501f, incl. fn. 16), who
quote the following nice example:
The children made a mess of their bedrooms, but then cleaned it up.
According to Krenn (1977:108), the noun must be present in the semantic structure to
be pronominalized, and I would argue that many of the nouns in verbo-nominal
combinations are at least partially, if not completely present semantically. Thus, the
restriction on pronominalization should not be overrated.

78

Categories of Multi-word Verbs

(64)

The government gave way in 1988, then went back on [the] deal ...
(BNC A9N 231)
*What did the government give?

As to topicalization, cleft and pseudo-cleft sentences are claimed to be either

unusual or again wholly impossible with verbo-nominal combinations. Fraser
(1976:44) adds a criterion specifically for Group III types, namely the fact
that the prepositional-phrase part of the combination cannot be preceded by
an adverbial, whereas free prepositional phrases permit this.
The replaceability by a simplex of the same meaning mentioned
above is a criterion that is often employed. Dixon (1992:340) operates on the
sentence level by requiring that two sentences, one with the simplex, the
other with the verbo-nominal combination, should have essentially the same
meaning. Rensk (1964:290) makes substitution by a non-derived verb his
basic condition or criterion. This is intended to exclude on the one hand such
cases as take place, take heart, which he calls intuitively different from, e.g.,
take aim, take hold, from the set of verbo-nominal combinations, and, on the
other hand, to omit cases where the simplex verb is actually derived from the
verb in the periphrastic form, e.g. to be head of > to head. But this criterion
should not be overrated, in my opinion. Although it is deceptively simple in
use in most cases, it usually goes hand in hand with a loss, substitution or
shifting of semantic features, so that the simplex and the com bination are by
no means identical, or a simple "stylistic variant" (Rensk 1964:290); cf. also
Cattell (1984:77), who uses the careful formulation "near paraphrases with
related simple verbs" when describing his basic criterion. Further, the actual
lack of a single-word equivalent might have come about by a historical
development in the course of which the combination simply won out on the
simplex (cf. fn. 18). Also, if a language makes do with just the combination,
and does not bother to create or borrow a simplex, this might be an important
point as well. Non-substitutability does not, therefore, disprove multi -word
verb status.
The question of the status of the nouns in these combinations has
been touched on above; it is of somewhat greater importance for Groups I
and II than for Group III. In principle, the nouns possess all formal
characteristics of nominals on their own, i.e. they can take all sorts of
determiners, or also none, they can be premodified (e.g. adjectives, (65a)) or
postmodified (e.g. relative clauses, (65b)), and they can be pluralized (66)
but of course every combination behaves idiosyncratically in this respect,
allowing some things and barring others. Degrees of lexicalization are
obviously important here. The plural, for example, is relatively rare in these
combinations; some combinations allow it freely, whereas others do not
permit it at all (Stein 1991:13; Mller 1978:114).

Categories of Multi-word Verbs

79

(65a) ... this may lead to generalisations about the group which take little
account of the individual qualities of the artists. (BNC A04 1289)
(65b) it is perhaps the way in which these terms are used by professionals
and others to which the greater attention should be paid if we are to
make progress which is enduring. (BNC GWJ 570)
(66) Over the next days, the girls swam, took long walks, talked, and ate
Cooks meals ... (BNC FNT 1501)
Sheintuch (1981:esp. 333-337), whose concern is with non-idiomatic verbal
units (partly parallel to Groups I and II as understood here), states that, in
order to function as part of such a unit, nouns cannot have unique reference
to something in the real world. Basically, this is certainly correct, but her
added restriction, that this condition is not of equal importance in different
syntactic constructions, is also relevant. For it could be ar gued that the
addition of a personal pronoun or a relative clause produce unique reference
for the noun in question.
Another point that is important for the status of the noun (in both
Group I and II) is the question of transitivity, and thus also the question of
(direct) object-hood of the noun. The first group can be used both intransitively and transitively, as I regard He gave an answer to be intransitive (cf.
also Traugott in Brinton/Akimoto 1999:240), whereas He gave him an answer/He gave an answer to him are seen as transitive uses of the same item. I
think semantically this statement needs no clarification, but in formal,
syntactic terms the situation is of course not that simple: the noun phrase an
answer occupies the direct object position. Normally, it should be possible to
distinguish it from a real object (such as [give N] a book) by a combination
of some of the semantic requirements and syntactical tests enumerated in the
discussion of Group I; the "what"-question test in particular can produce
rather amusing results in the case of verbo-nominal combinations. There are
also the possibilities of passivization, i.e. whether the nominal element of the
combination can become the subject of a passive sentence, but unfortunately
this leads to very contradictory results within t he group of verbo-nominal
combinations. Mller (1978:138) deals with the question by calling the noun
in the combination not a "Wertigkeitsargument", but a "Prdikationskomple ment". Chomsky (1981:37;101), encountering the same problem in take advantage of Bill, treats it by calling advantage a quasi-argument, that is either
a non-argument that has been assigned no actual Q-role, or an argument with
the special role "#"; the same treatment is given to take care of, make much
of. However, in this way one ends up with having quasi-arguments in
subject-position, as both advantage and care, even much, can become the
subjects of passive sentences. Additionally, all this seems to apply only to
idioms. It is probably disputable whether the above examples are idio ms or

80

Categories of Multi-word Verbs

not, but give an answer certainly is not thus this solution would have to be
extended to regular patterns as well. Cattell (1984:52;111) basically agrees
with Chomsky, although his complex predicates are not idioms; but he also
admits that there is no independent way of telling whether a noun phrase is
an argument or part of a complex predicate, i.e. a verbo -nominal
combination.
The problem of passivization has been mentioned before, and now a
few more words about it are in order. The third group of verbo-nominal combinations is perhaps the least problematic in this respect: it has direct objects
which are not part of the combination and can therefore freely passivize (cf.
(67)). Moreover, the noun in the prepositional phrase is not like a preposi tional object, but has more of a complement nature, and thus does not allow
passivization.
(67)

Allegations of such activity were brought to light by Cathy Massiter,

... (BNC ASB 871)

With the other two types of combinations, inner passive, based on the
nominal part of the combination itself, and/or outer passive, based on the
object of the whole combination are possible. The outer passive is in
principle always possible, although Mller (1978:170) calls it rare (68b).
Bolinger (1977:62) points out that the high or low frequency of a
combination may play a role here. The inner passive, however, is more
idiosyncratic (68a).
(68a) Mention should be made of some other urban projects that are designed to improve agency co-ordination. (BNC B1U 974)
(68b) ... therefore the planning considerations that have been mentioned
need to be paid attention to. (BNC J41 27)
Live (1965:37f) explains the differences partly via the characteristics of the
verb (have-/make-combinations) and partly with the features of the dev erbal
nouns (take-/give-combinations), whereas Mller (1978:169) attempts a
semantic classification of the nouns (only for give-combinations). However,
all this has to do with the fact that in all kinds of verbo -nominal
combinations, but probably most of all in the second group, there is an
internal cline to be noticed, from very close units to looser combinations.
Denison (1981:37), for example, remarks that set fire to is to be placed at the
more unitary end of the spectrum, whereas take care of tends towards the
more open end. Fire in the former is not an independent noun any longer, as
it cannot accept modifications or be made subject of a passive sentence.
Care, on the other hand, can do both of these. Nevertheless, both are in my
opinion to be seen as lexical units in their own right, so that lexical/semantic
facts do not necessarily closely correlate with syntactic facts in this area.

Categories of Multi-word Verbs

81

I will close this section, like the others, with a brief summary of which
combinations are to be accepted in this study. The following is to be understood for all three groups. Generally the combination should present a
unitary meaning and there is no denying that semantic intuition will be at
work here, aided by paraphrasability with a simplex yielding a similar overall
meaning. Moreover, the meaning should be centred in the noun, not in the
verb. This does not mean that I assume the verbs to be completely empty; I
think they can make independent semantic contributions to the combinations,
including for example those of an aspectual/aktionsart kind. Therefore I will
not a priori restrict the number of verbs to be included, but accept any kind
of verb as long as it does not completely override the noun in importance.
The only verb that I mostly exclude is to be. Some linguists (e.g. Poutsma
1926, Rensk 1964; Hoffmann 1972) dealing with nominal tendencies have
included structures such as to be an early riser, to be indicative of N as
combinations. I ignored those completely in the case of verb -adjective
combinations above, and will do the same for verbo-nominal combinations
with certain exceptions, however. When be (i.e. the primary notion of
existence) clearly is not present in the semantic structure, as in be of opinion
"think" or be at a loss "not know what to do", I have accepted the unit in
question. As to the nouns, they certainly need to be of the abstract kind, and
this depends on their use in the context in question. "Eyes" in set eyes on N
does not represent the biological entity, but is metonymic for t he faculty of
seeing and therefore abstract. Give evidence, on the other hand, can in
certain circumstances be excluded, namely in those cases (in court, e.g.)
where "evidence" refers to a written statement, i.e. a concrete object. While I
think that most nouns in the combinations are of the deverbal kind
(conversions, suffixal derivations, or otherwise clearly related, e.g. die
death), there are also those with no formal relation to a verb, e.g. way,
liberty. All these kinds will be accepted. There are also no conditions set on
the presence or absence of a (certain kind of) determiner within the
combination. As it is hard even today to find a sufficient number of native
speakers who will agree on the (non-)acceptability of transformations of
verbo-nominal combinations, I will completely refrain from employing
syntactic tests on historical verbo-nominal data except for observing
which syntactic transformations appear in the data as such.
To end this whole section with, I will try to present the basic internal
make-up and the transitivity features of the multi -word categories discussed
above in a somewhat more convenient form:

82

Categories of Multi-word Verbs

Table 4.1: A synopsis of multi-word verbs

verb category
phrasal verb
prepositional verb
phrasal-prepositional
verb
verb-adjective
combination
verbo-nominal
combination: Group I
verbo-nominal
combination: Group II
verbo-nominal
combination:Group III

noun adverb prep. adjective noun prep. noun

(y)
x
(y)
x
y
(x)
(y)
(y)
x
x
y
(y)

(y)

(x)

(y)

(y)

(y)

(x)

(y)

Note: "x" means the element is part of the multi-word verb, (the second "x" for prepositional verbs, given for the sake of comprehensiveness, does not constitute a new
subtype, cf. 4.2); "y" (="yes") makes a statement about transitivity; and bracketed
letters () indicate optionality (depending, e.g, on transitive vs. intransitive combination).

5. The History of Multi-word Verbs

Complex forms with relatively clear syntactic patterning such as those dis cussed in the preceding chapter of course do not appear out of nowhere, but
take time to evolve and also to consolidate. Thus, it is not surprising that
either the types in question themselves or at least te ndencies in their
direction are to be found in earlier stages of the En glish language. Therefore
this chapter is intended to give a brief overview of the development of multiword verb types as far as can be found in the literature, and as far as is
relevant to the present study. It appears that scholarly attention has been very
unevenly spread, with the Old and Middle English stages clearly being overrepresented in the treatment of phenomena related to multi-word verbs.
There is not much information to be found on the later periods. Also, the
different types have not met with an equal amount of interest. It is es pecially
remarkable that such types as phrasal or prepositional verbs have not be en
the object of corpus studies as regards their place in Present -day English. At
least I am not aware of any work done in that area. The following account
will of course reflect these biases in the literature.
5.1 Old and Middle English
The attention accorded these two periods is justified by their (especially the
latters) importance for the phenomena in question. Denison (1981:3) states
that while OE presents a completely different situation from PDE, by the
time of late ME the basic structure of the present position of multi-word
verbs had been established, i.e. most of the syntactic pat terns had come into
existence and there were even some fully idiomatic cases to be found. This
means that in the time span stretching approximately from late OE to ea rly
ME some important developments were taking place, cf. for instance
Hiltunens (1983a:220) statement on phrasal verbs: "The crucial period in the
syntactic and semantic development of the phrasal verb falls within lOE and
eME."
While it is true that OE did not actually possess any of the types of
multi-word verbs discussed in chapter 4, certain facts and tende ncies can be
made out that represent the precursors or roots of the types later to emerge.
Both phrasal and prepositional verbs have their ultimate origins in a highly
complex OE situation exhibiting quite some variation and flexible
boundaries between whatever types there may have been. OE verbs could
and did occur in conjunction with words to be variously termed prepositions,
adverbs, prepositional adverbs, postpositions, separable prefixes, and

84

The History of Multi-word Verbs

inseparable prefixes (cf. Mitchell 1978), which can all look very similar,
even identical on the manuscript page. The following few examples and the
comments on them are taken from Mitchell (1978:255 -56) and are to give a
glimpse of the situation:
(1)
(2a)
(2b)
(3)

a sticode him mon a eagan ut 7 sian him mon slog a handa of

(Or 168.4)
t he for godes lufon eode to reordum mid am tocumendum
mannum (Mart 168.25)
cume to and drince (Hom 5.143)
Gyrstanfen me gelamp, t ic ungewealdes tsporn t anum
fotscamele. (900, Wrferth tr. Gregorys Dial. 22,10; OED s.v.
yesterneven)

Ut in (1) is probably an adverb, and of in the same sentence is either also one
or it is a preposition (in post-position) belonging with him. Alternatively of is
seen by some as a separable prefix, just like to in tocuman in (2a-b). t- in
(3) is a clear case, undoubtedly to be interpreted as an inseparable prefix.
But whatever their status in OE, it is amazing how reminiscent some of them
are of PDE phrasal verbs, e.g. in (1) of take out and cut off, or come together
for (2a-b).
Phrasal verbs
Hiltunens account (1983a) is the most thorough treatment of the
genesis of the phrasal verb, and the following account leans hea vily on it. As
far as one can speak of OE phrasal verbs, they are collocations of a verb and
either a phrasal or a prepositional adverb (ibid. 20), as ut in (1) above. In
contrast to PDE, syntactic possibilities are still more open, with four
positional patterns of adverbial element and verb, two preverbal (1. a V, 2. a
(...) V) and two postverbal ones (3. V a, 4. V (...) a) (ibid. 21; similar Roberts
1936:479, but denying the existence of a (...) V), cf. (4) and (5) respectively.
While the preverbal patterns are still dominant in early OE, there is a quite
noticeable shift towards the postverbal patterns in late OE, a development
which is strengthened in early ME (first in main, then also in dependent
clauses), leading to the final establishment of the postve rbal pattern by 1200
(ibid. 106-11).
(4a)
(4b)
(5a)

He het his heafod of aslean. (lfric, Saints Lives 26, 162, Visser
668)
t eac Ena t sweflene fyr tacnade, a hit up of helle geate
asprong on Sicilia m londe (Or 88.30; Hiltunen 1983a:105))
Ateon ut a horhestan wtan. (Leechdoms II, 222; Visser 668)

The History of Multi-word Verbs 85

(5b)

Ge drehnigea one gnt aweg. (OE Gosp., Mt. XXIII, 24; Visser
668)

Von Schon (1977), who is also concerned with the relative position of
phrasal verb elements, recognizes two separate particle shifts in her data.
The first particle shift, namely the movement to postverbal pos ition with a
finite verb, is said by her to have begun in the 7th century, whereas the
second particle shift, i.e. the same with non-finite verb forms, occurred only
some centuries later. 1 Both Denison (1981) and Hiltunen (1983a) basically,
even if with some reservation, agree with her findings, the latter pointing to a
mere 35 non-finite postverbal examples in OE2, only 10 of which date from
before the 10th century (ibid. 127-133). It can therefore be assumed that the
change for non-finite form took place in late OE. At any rate, the postverbal
position of the particle becomes the norm in ME, cf. for example Denisons
(1981:174) figures for the Orrmulum, where only 6% of all particles are in
preverbal position. By 1250, the phrasal verb construction had definitely
reached its modern shape (Hiltunen 1983a:6) 3. During the ME period the
phrasal verb expands further and in time becomes quite a normal linguistic
pattern (Brinton 1988:225). According to Kennedy (1920:13) it was a
common part of everyday language in the 15th century, cf. the down-to-earth
example in (6).
(6)

He took of hys clothes. (1485, Caxton Chas. Gt. 212; OED s.v. take)

A good sign for its established status is also the appearance of the first nouns
derived from phrasal verbs in the 14th and 15th centuries, for instance the
now obsolete sit-up "surprise" (Srensen 1986:274, also Denison 1981:13133). Burnley (1992:445), for example, cites the agentive phrasal nouns
holder up of Troye (Chaucer) and fynder up of false religions (Lydgate).
While most of these nouns are derived from or related to phrasal verbs, some
also go back to verb-preposition sequences, such as the 15th century lean-to
"a shed", or go-between found in Shakespeare.
As to the reasons for the above development, Hiltunen (1983a:114;
125; 144) sees the changing of the element order of the clause as the single
1

Two problems should be mentioned here. First, Von Schons data base is rather small.
Secondly, and more importantly, the ms. containing her 7th century material actually
dates from much later. It is conceivable that things like the position of particles may be
altered in the process of copying older material.
2
Compare the situation with German particle verbs (or so-called separable prefix
verbs), where the particle remains preverbally attached to the verb in non-finite forms,
but is found in separate post-verbal position in the case of finite forms.
3
Visser (670-671) cites preverbal uses after this time, especially in poetry, which are
partly nonce formations for the sake of rhyme and partly translations of Latin verbs.

86

The History of Multi-word Verbs

most important factor in the establishment of the phrasal verb patterning: the
close relationship between the SV order and the postverbal pattern profits the
latter as the SOV order goes into decline towards the end of the OE period.
Marchand (1951:73) also regards phrasal verbs as one of the results of a
fixed word order.
But the rise of the phrasal verb is also connected with the fall of an other construction, OE prefix verbs. The latters very sudden decline to almost zero productivity and use by early ME left a slot to be filled by the
newer analytic constructions (Hiltunen 1983a:92; 52). Most of the reasons
adduced for the ultimate demise of the prefixal system are at the same time,
if turned round, arguments for the phrasal verb. The push - and drag-chain
process producing the new situation in ME received its briefest and also
clearest account in Samuels (1972:163-65), which I will not repeat here,
instead going through the individual reasons that have been mentioned in the
literature.
(i) Through the prefixes lack of stress their phonological structure became
successively weaker, leading to loss of independent phonetic content (Hiltunen 1983a:52; Samuels 1972:163; Lutz 1997:263). De la Cruz (1975:78)
calls the same fact "morphological weakening". Phrasal adverbs, on the other
hand, as independent elements, can and often do carry full stress, which also
means that they are not likely to be subject to phonetic weakening, and that
they can transport intonational information, e.g. emphasis (Denison
1985a:47f).
(ii) Another kind of weakening was going on in the semantic sphere with the
fading away of the prefixes concrete locative, aspectual and intensifying
meanings (Hiltunen 1983a:94f; de la Cruz 1975:49). Again, phrasal adverbs
would carry a more explicit meaning.
(iii) Preverbal elements are rather obscure and/or a potential s ource of ambiguity in an SOV syntactic order as existed in OE (Hiltunen 1983a:188; Konishi 1958:118). That means that the prefixal system must already have been
drastically weakened in OE, before SV became the predominant element
order in early ME. This argument of course also applies to the preverbal
patterns of OE phrasal verbs mentioned above and explains their ultimate
loss. An additional suggestion in this context is the one made by Marchand
(1969:131) to the effect that the postverbal pattern might be connected with
the normalising of the position of spatial adverbs in general.
(iv) The prefixal system was burdened with too heavy a functional load, in
which no single function was strong or prominent enough to secure its usefulness and thus its survival (Hiltunen 1983a:97). One could probably say the
same about the thriving phrasal verb system today; thus this is not a
decisive factor as long as all other conditions are favour able.

The History of Multi-word Verbs 87

(v) The sheer presence and availability of phrasal types as al ternative, but
more explicit, expressions of the same meanings and fulfilling the same or
similar functions hastened the decline of prefix verbs (Hiltunen 1983a:98ff;
145; de la Cruz 1975:49; Denison 1985a:46ff).
(vi) Lastly, the general trend towards analytic constructions disfavoured the
synthetic prefixal constructions (Hiltunen 1983a:98; van der Gaaf
1930:12,19; Konishi 1958:118f), and profited the analytic phrasal verbs.
While this statement may be true, it contains a certain amount of circularity,
which disqualifies it as a reason.
Whatever the reasons (it is not the purpose of this study to decide the ques tion), it is clear that the OE prefixal system did become extinct and that the
modern phrasal verbs did take over in its place. De la Cruz (1975:77f) nicely
illustrates this fact by citing examples of pre fix verbs in the Ancrene Riwle
together with their modern phrasal rendering, e.g. the prefixal verbs with geare translated as phrasal verbs formed with up or out, and similarly for- =
up/away/off, be- = up/away/off, to- = up/out/away/off, a- = up/out/away.
However, some prefixes survived with modest productivity, especially over-,
under-, out-, fore-, mis-, be-, and un-, and Lutz (1997:279; 281) takes care to
point out that they are those which have a phonologically stable and distinct
form, most of them also possessing a distinct meaning and thus they are
exempt from some of the reasons for decline stated above. Some of those
surviving prefixes are identical with phrasal verb particles, sometimes
leading to contrasting formations with different meanings, e.g. overtake
take over, outlive live out. In ME, prefixal and phrasal variants existed
side by side even with the same meaning, cf. fall by bifallen "happen",
flee out outflee "expel, banish", or look over overlook "survey from on
high" (Burnley 1992:445).
While the reasons against prefixal verbs and in favour of phrasal
verbs dealt with above were purely language-internal, there is also the
question of outside, particularly Scandinavian influence on the latter (and
also on prepositional verbs) (e.g. Burnley 1992:422f, 444f; Roberts
1936:477). Old Norse had advanced phrasal constructions, but direct
influence on OE/early ME has not been or cannot be proven, not least
because the relevant ON texts are only extant in later manuscripts. Hiltunen
(1983a:43) thinks it merely likely that the ON phrasal construction acted as a
kind of catalyst, stimulating the further development of the postverbal
construction type already present in OE. According to Lutz (1997:262, n.8)
the Scandinavian influence worked much more indirectly by accelerating the
reduction of unaccented syllables, including inflectional endings, in the
Northern English dialects, thereby speeding up the fixing of word order in
those dialects which in turn favoured phrasal verbs. Denison (1981:54f,

88

The History of Multi-word Verbs

157, 285-89; 1985a:49-53), while admitting that a purely internal

development is perfectly possible, still goes somewhat further by thinking an
ON influence on the aktionsart usage at least likely and by assuming the
direct borrowing from ON of phrasal verbs of surrendering very likely, cf.
the early instances of give up, (7) being one of them, in the Final
Continuation of the Peterborough Chronicle.
(7)

& sde heom he uuolde iiuen heom up Wincestre (ChrE 266.35,

1140; Hiltunen 1983a:125)

Once present the borrowings would then have served as a catalyst for the
formation of similar combinations. Denison (1981:156) also mentions
another possible foreign influence of an indirect nature: in translations from
Latin into English the many Latin compound verbs could have induced the
translators to render them as native verb -adverb collocations (quasi calques).
Interestingly, Hiltunen (1983a:98) has examples (among them the following
(8)) where exactly this happens, but on top of a prefix verb, showing how
moribund the prefixal system must have appeared to some translators.
(8)

L61.22 quem viri Domini Fortunatus expulissit

GD (CO) 77.11 e se drihtnes wer Furtunatus r onweg adraf
(H) 77.8 e ... r ut adraf

Another assumed foreign influence is of rather a negative kind in so far as

the development of phrasal verbs might actually have been slowed down by
the great influx of loan words, French ones during ME, Latin ones later
(Kennedy 1920; Rot 1988:185). Konishi (1958:120) thinks that to be more
likely of written and formal varieties of the language than of colloquial
English, however. In fact, I think it likely that wholesale borrowing might
even have stimulated the formation of phrasal verbs as a counter-reaction.
The internal development of phrasal verbs in OE and ME also showed
considerable progress. If one follows Brinton (1988:217, 220) some particles
exhibit an earlier development in OE to fully-fledged verbal particles than
others; this goes especially for of and forth, but also for up, t, onweg/aweg,
ofdune/adune (without prefixal counterparts). Regarding the semantics of
phrasal verbs in OE, there are two levels. On the first level straightforward
literal meanings are found, with both members retaining their basic
meanings. This means that the phrasal adverbs mostly occurred with their
original locational or more commonly directional meanings (Hiltunen
1983a:147f; Denison 1981:147), cf. (9). The second level contains
combinations with transferred meanings, i.e. meanings which are
metonymically or metaphorically removed from the literal plane but in which
the literal meaning is still transparent enough, as in (10).

The History of Multi-word Verbs 89

(9)
(10)

hie sian aweg flugon (Or 160.22; Hiltunen 1983a:120)

Do awei e ohtes, at prokien in heorte urh licomliche lustes
(HMaid 11.108; Hiltunen 1983a:148)

Fully idiomatic combinations with opaque meaning are not found in OE (Hiltunen 1983a:148). In ME figurative combinations become more common,
and de la Cruz (1972:116ff) identifies close units on semantic grounds in
that period, such as the transferred combinations lay up "save", bring down
"kill" or the more fully idiomatic figurative units fall out "disagree", stir up
"rebel", and bring forth "produce". As regards aktionsart meanings of
phrasal particles, Hiltunen (1983a:147) finds the resultative use to be rare in
OE, but gradually expanding with the rise of the postverbal pattern. Brinton
(1988:220, 225), on the other hand, says that especially those particles not
corresponding to prefixes (cf. above) "often" exhibit telic meaning; in ME
she sees telic usages to be increasing. According to Denison (1981:147),
particles used with a directional meaning are often ass ociated with an
"effective value", but he cannot find any clear OE example with completive
up (which is so typical of PDE). The first definite examples of this use are
the give up cases (cf. (7)) in the Peterborough Chronicle mentioned above
(Denison 1985a:43f).
Prepositional Verbs
The history of prepositional verbs is similar to that of phrasal verbs in
so far as the roots of the development are found in the OE situation (van der
Gaaf 1930:14), but the breakthrough of the construction happened in early
ME (Hiltunen 1983a:179). One of the precursors of or trends leading to
prepositional verbs is the post-position of the prepositional adverb as in him
(...) com (...) to (11), called Type (C) order by Hiltunen (1983a:186).
(11)

Him com a mycel folc to. (ChrE 224.34 [1087]; Hiltunen

1983a:177)

But on the whole the appearance of the prepositional verbs on the linguistic
stage seems to have been rather sudden. Denison (1981:208) remarks on the
amazing number of new collocations appearing in late OE and ME, which at
once gave a rather unified/unitary impression. To bring about something like
the prepositional verb it was first necessary to have conditions which would
cause closer as well as more frequent contact of verbs and prepositions, and
secondly conditions which would favour the re-analysis as one verbal unit of
two previously separate words.
A decisive role with regard to the first condition was certainly played
by the decay of the OE case system (Denison 1981:209ff; de la Cruz

90

The History of Multi-word Verbs

1973:163, 165f). On the one hand, this led to an increased use of

prepositions, especially after verbs, to some degree taking over the function
of the former inflectional endings (de la Cruz, ibid.), and on the other hand it
is connected to the fixing of the SVO element order, which in turn may have
had a positive effect on the increase of the prepositional verb pattern
(Denison 1985b:201). Foreign borrowing or calquing, i.e. of French, Latin or
ON verbs followed by a preposition (e.g. OF tenir a hold in/of, MedL
dispensare cum dispense with, ON fara me/vi fare with), might also
have contributed to the increased incidence of verb-preposition sequences
(Denison 1981:209ff and 1985b:193); the same goes for the increased use of
prepositional object groups under the influence of French (de la Cruz
1973:168f). Furthermore, the eclipse of the prefix system did not only favour
the rise of phrasal verbs; verb-preposition sequences could also take over
some of the prefixal functions (Denison 1981:209ff). The functions in
question were those of making an intransitive verb transitive and of making
possible a different kind of object from that taken by the uncompounded or
simplex form of the verb (de la Cruz 1973:173). All these factors led to a
much greater variety and frequency of prepositional use in ME than in OE
(Denison 1985b:193).
The second point concerning re-analysis is more complicated and
definitely also more disputed. Without further discussion, I will here take for
granted that re-analysis does in fact occur, but this opinion is not shared by
all linguists.4 The problem of explaining re-analysis is similar to the old
chicken-and-egg paradox: it is hard, if not impossible, to say whether a
construction is a contributory factor to or only a symptom of re -analysis. An
environment favourable to re-analysis is certainly created by the ellipsis of
the noun phrase following the preposition as in (12) (Denison 1981:208; de
la Cruz 1973:169). In the absence of its normal point of reference, the
preposition can be interpreted as having a closer connection to the verb or
even of belonging to it.
(12)

ich ga lihtliche ouer, ne do bute nempni ham (Ancr. (Corp-C.) 53b.3;

Denison 1985b:198)

Of greater importance in this respect, however, are the coordination cases,

i.e. those constructions where a verb-preposition sequence shares a common
object with another verb, cf. (13). Really valid evidence is provided only by
constructions where the common object follows both verbs, which is found
for the first time in early ME; OE coordination cases all have fr onted objects
(Denison 1985b:198f).
4

Cf. e.g. Inada (1981), as quoted in Denison (1993:152); also Huddleston (1984:201205).

The History of Multi-word Verbs 91

(13)

e ueond hate and hunte after hire (a1225, Ancr. R. 128, Visser
395)

Lexicalization and/or semantic idiomaticity of verb -preposition sequences

definitely also has something to do with unitary perception as prepo sitional
verbs (Denison 1985b:194) either as a reason or as a consequence. In this
context, it is interesting that Denison (1981:245) found prepositional verbs
with idiomatic meanings in the Orrmulum, which is very early indeed. The
following are lexicalized and idiomatic ME examples, the latter describing
an adulterous act in a tree:
(14)
(15)

and ye send for me, I shall .. bryng hem with me. (Paston Letters, No.
631; Van der Gaaf 1930:15)
I wende han seyn / How that this Damyan hadde by thee leyn.
(c.1395, Chaucer, MerchT IV.2393; Denison 1985b:193)

There are two other phenomena which can support re-analysis, namely
preposition stranding in general and the typically English prepositional
passive.5 With those two it has to be kept in mind that they reac h far beyond
the range of prepositional verbs proper, that is, not everything concerning
them is also relevant to prepositional verbs.
De la Cruz (1973; also de la Cruz/Saameco 1996) sees the possibility
of passivization as the most crucial event in the development of prepositional
verbs, as it is only this transformation that makes them really suitable to take
over the function and the slot of the former prefix verbs. He dates this
seminal change to the late 13th century, citing as supporting factors most of
the facts favouring prepositional verbs related above, and additionally the
decline of the impersonal pronoun man. His most important point, though, is
the effect of analogy, in the guise of the systemic pressure exerted by the
phrasal verb system towards the filling by prepositional verbs of an empty
functional and formal slot. As de la Cruz/Saameco (1996:175) put it "it is in
the visible signs of verb and particle cohesion, shown by adverbial particles
and prepositions alike, that we should see the primary ground for the analogy
that de la Cruz (1973) proposed ...". This view is criticized by Denison
(1985b:197; also 1993), who claims that the necessary homogeneity and
coherence is lacking in the proposed system and that the "identification" of
phrasal verb particles with prepositions in prepositional verbs is a rather
dubious assumption. His first point is certainly right, as the 13th century is
somewhat early for a fully-fledged phrasal system, but the fact that linguists
would not identify adverbial particles with prepositions does not mean that

Denison (1993) gives the best and most accessible general overview of research done
in this area up to 1993.

92

The History of Multi-word Verbs

the naive native speaker would not either. In fact, I think it rather likely that
the superficial similarity of both constructions is striking for most speakers,
and thus would not completely exclude the possibility that both constructions
can influence each other at times. What de la Cruzs view seems to overlook,
however, is the linguistic extension of the prepositional passive, which also
occurs in environments not even remotely prepositional -verb-like, cf. the
ubiquitous example This bed was slept in by Napoleon. Systemic pressure by
phrasal verbs could not explain those cases, in my opinion. Moreover, it
should also not be forgotten that not all prepositional verbs actually
passivize.
Nevertheless, the possibility of prepositional passives and an
increasing amount of them in the course of history must have had an
influence on the re-analysis of verb-preposition sequences. In OE the
prepositional passive did not exist at all, and the first safe ME examples date
from the 14th century (cf. (16)), according to Denison (1985b:190), who
disputes Vissers (1950) putative 13th-century example. While the
construction is not overly common in the 14th century, it seems to have soon
become established, being used extensively in the 15th century, among other
places in the Paston Letters, e.g. (17), which proves its presence in everyday
language (Denison 1985b:190; van der Gaaf 1930:19-21).
(16)
(17)

tribulacion ne shuld not fro his course with grutching be oght on. (c.
1370, Yorksh. Writers II, 48; Visser 1951)
he shuld ... be kept in prison til he were put to answere of swich
crymes as he were so detect of. (Paston Letters, No. 151; Van der
Gaaf 1930:11)

The emergence of the prepositional passive might also have been supported by the cases of preposition stranding in prior exi stence. Stranding is
already found in OE, especially in WH-less relative clauses and infinitive
clauses (Allen 1977:76-116), but usually the stranded preposition preceded
the verb (van der Gaaf 1930:2-5; Denison 1985b:197), cf. (18, 19). Sometimes, as in the case of fronting in (20), it followed the verb.
(18)
(19)
(20)

ac lc hf be am andefnum e he r fter rna (lfred, Solil.

201,3; Visser 403)
Seo burg ... ws swie fger an to locianne. (Or. 74,13; Visser 404)
Freond ic gemete wi. (MCharm 11.37; Denison 1985b:192).

The ultimate reason for stranding is to be found in the fact that the
uninflected relative, i.e. the non-WH relative (as in (18) above), cannot be
accompanied by a preposition (Dekeyser 1990; Denison 1985b:192). But a
certain feeling on the part of the speakers that the preposition had a close
connection to the verb, or belonged to it, might have played a role as well;

The History of Multi-word Verbs 93

after all, WH-less relatives might have been avoided if stranding had been
thought inappropriate, and cases in which the preposition occurred twice
(once with the WH-relativizer and once with the verb), as in (21) below,
would not exist (cf. Denison 1993:133).
(21)
(22)
(23)

she coniured hym by feythe that he ought vnto hym in whose seruyse
thow arte entryd in. (1470-80, Malory, M. dA. 676, 35; Visser 416)
Judas ... al redi for to fight On him
he suld ha foghten for. (13..
Curs. M. (Cott.) 15735; Visser 412a)
alle et ich chulle speken of (c. 1225, Ancr. R. 2; Visser 410)

However, stranding even spread to new environments in ME, such as WHrelatives themselves, contact clauses and topicalization (Dekeyser 1990;
Denison 1993:132; cf. (22)). The position of the stranded preposition also
shifted to the modern postverbal position as in (22-23), the first examples of
which being found around 1200 (Dekeyser 1990:165) and soon, i.e. from the
middle of the 13th century on, this became the norm, at least in prose (van
der Gaaf 1930:7; Denison 1985b:197).
Phrasal-prepositional Verbs
In contrast to the phrasal and prepositional verbs just treated, there is
hardly any information on phrasal-prepositional verbs. Visser (417) notes
the existence of verb+adverb+preposition+complement in OE and ME, but
doubts whether their complement can be regarded as a prepositional object
and thus whether they are really instances of phrasal-prepositional verbs. At
least two of his ME examples are convincing to me, namely But lat us falle
awey fro this matere (Chaucer, Troil. 3, 1306; c. 1385), and ... til ey sawe
theyre tyme to breke out on hem (Brut. 1436 (Hrl. 53) 580, 10; c. 1437). In
contrast to Visser, Denison (1985b:202f) sees enough evidence even for
idiomatic or lexicalized combinations in ME, quoting for example cry out on
from around Chaucers time, and come off with, fall in with found in the
Paston Letters.
Verb-adjective Combinations
Information concerning verb-adjective combinations is even rarer.
Some, but not all examples listed by Visser (237) under the heading "quasicopulas" fit the definition employed here. None of them belong to the OE
period, and the only clear ME example for me is from 1423, [Thay] breken
louse, and walken at thaire large (Jas. I, Kingis Q. CXV). According to Jespersen (1928: III, 369) cases like make merry, make bold etc. go back to an
old usage with a reflexive pronoun, which was then omitted later. He does
not say when this happened, though. The OED records no examples with

94

The History of Multi-word Verbs

(reflexive) pronouns for make bold, but has both full and elliptical usage for
make merry (s.v. merry):
(24)
(25)

Boe seize he Wi too houndes mirie made. (1320, Sir Tristr 3085)
Make we vs merie for mete haue we at wille. (1350, Will Palerne
1880)

Verbo-nominal Combinations
Verbo-nominal combinations have received somewhat more attention
than the preceding two types. Nominal tendencies in general are of course
connected with this type, and in this context Klaebers (1943:73 f) findings
that OE translations often render a verbally expressed Latin or Greek original
with a combination of verb and noun, in which the noun is usually dominant,
are of interest here. He also claims to have found the same nominal leaning
in indigenous OE prose. Among the types of nominalized expression he lists
(ibid. 77), only the first and, according to him, the most common one
is the combination of a verb with a nominal object, which is usually abstract
and agentive. Two of his examples are gewin drugon "they fought" (Beow
79) and fyl geniman "take a fall, be killed" (Mald 71). Visser (148-149;
151) dates the origin of the usage of verb + etymol ogically related noun
(roughly my Group I), usually without article, with approximately the same
meaning as the simplex, to OE, but mentions only examples with the verbs
habban and niman, for example (26), paraphrased by him as "deliberate".
(26)

He hfde geeaht mid his witum and freondum. (Bede 292,12; Visser
149)

He also finds some OE forerunners of the type including a final preposition

(my Group II), for instance (27), but does not remark on its frequency (703704). It is not clear whether they were phrasal units in the sense the modern
types are.
(27) hwer heora sceolde on orum sige habban. (Or. 156,1;
Visser 704)
Brinton and Akimoto (in Brinton/Akimoto 1999), looking for OE
collocations with (ge)don/(ge)macian, sellan/giefan, (ge)niman/tacan , and
habban + deverbal noun, found quite a variety of don-items, fewer items
with sellan, niman and habban, and very few only with macian and giefan.
The combinations they found are described by them as less grammaticalized,
less idiomaticized, and less lexicalized than their PDE counterparts.
According to Hiltunen (1983a:28), verbo-nominal combinations (Groups I
and II) are numerically a rather limited group in OE, but the type expanded
considerably in ME, partly through French influence. The latter influence

The History of Multi-word Verbs 95

was mainly lexical, i.e. via direct borrowing of phrases (cf. faire paix
make peace), which was supported by the fact that the pattern was already
grammatically established in the language. Both Hiltunen (1983a: 215f) and
Denison (1985b:203) remark on the not uncommon appearance of
lexicalized and/or idiomatic combinations, also those including a final
preposition, in ME (28-30), although the degree of idiomaticization was not
very high according to Matsumoto (in Brinton/Akimoto 1999).
(28)
(29)
(30)

lasse boste it maketh, A beggeres bagge, an an yren-bounde coffre.

(1377, Langl., P.Pl. B. xiv, 247, Visser 150)
ther as men take moore reward to the nombre than to the sapience of
persones (c. 1386, Chaucer C.T.; Visser 704)
The chyuetayns haue at the moost nede of socour yeuen weye to their
enemyes and made the peple proye to them. (1413, Pilgr. Sowle
(Caxton 1483) iv.xxx. 78; OED s.v. give)

The first passives of this type are found around 1400 (Marchand 1951:76) or
later in the 15th century (Denison 1985b:202), cf. (31a-b). Matsumoto and
Tanabe (in Brinton/Akimoto 1999) call passivization infrequent, and the
former notices a preponderance of the inner -passive type.
(31a) Rule vs by rightwisnes ... , at no fawte with vs founden be. (c. 1400,
Destr., Troy 4850; Visser 1986)
(31b) I trowe it shall apeyr, but if it be take hed hate. (c. 1422-1509, Paston
Letters 143; Visser 1986)
The last verbo-nominal type based on verb + prepositional phrase (Group
III) is harder to trace in history. Some examples of this type are found in
Visser (293) under an otherwise both much narrower (only be) and much
wider group. There are no OE examples of that kind, which is not very
surprising given the lower frequency of prepositional groups in that period.
Some few fitting ME examples can be extracted from Vissers listing, e.g.
Youthe and elde is often at debaat (c. 1386, Chaucer Troil. A320) and he ...
fireth all the world aboute, whereof they weren all in doubte (c. 1390,
Gower, Conf. Am. IV, p.187).
The foregoing account of the early development of multi -word verbs
shows that while all necessary single elements, precursor forms, important
tendencies and even embryonic multi-word types were present in OE, it was
the ME period during which all the crucial steps in their evolution were
taken. At the end of ME, the system of multi -word verb forms as dealt with
here was basically in place, forming the basis for further syntactic an d
semantic refinement and especially for numerical expansion. Regarding the
latter, and setting the whole thing into a wider context, the following
statement by Denison (1985b:201f) is interesting:

96

The History of Multi-word Verbs

I would argue that the spread of (a) idiomatic prepositio nal verbs,
phrasal verbs, the HAVE A LOOK type, and so on, and (b) the fixing of
S-V-O order followed by the rise of auxiliary verbs, and the
regulation of DO, would have been mutually supportive. The growth
of verb-complement idioms would encourage syntactic regulation,
and vice-versa, since a complete lexical item could then appear in all
sentence patterns in a fixed sequence without interruption. The real
period of growth of the prepositional verb, for instance, was between
1300 and 1700, which coincides with the rise and regulation of DO.

This leads us on to the next period, Early Modern English.

5.2 Early Modern English
From this period on the phrasal verb seems to have increased steadily both in
frequency and in productivity (Brinton 1988:187). The 16th and 17th centuries especially have been picked out as a first high point in their history, producing a great variety of usages (Kennedy 1920:16; Diensberg 1983:253f).
The development of idiomaticity, and thus the greater internal cohesion of
many phrasal verbs, also makes considerable progress, e.g. (33) (Diensberg
ibid.), although the majority still seem to be semantically concrete like (32)
(Hiltunen 1994:132).
(32)
(33)

Put thy sacchell over thy arme, that it fall not of. (1583 Hollyband
Campo di Fior 51; OED s.v. fall)
All things are now in Readiness, and must not Be put off. (1664 Dryden Rival Ladies i.ii; OED s.v. put)

The aspectual or aktionsart use of phrasal verb particles is also continued,

and perhaps furthered; cf., for instance, Charle ston (1941:100, 110ff), who
found examples of durative/progressive (e.g. go/work/drive etc. on) and
effective/egressive (e.g. give over, sit out, leave off) aspect in her 18th
century material. Phrasal nouns also continue to be formed: Lindelf
(1937:31) lists 25, 27, 34 for the 16th, 17th and 18th century respectively,
for instance run-away, sneak-up (16th c.), turn-over, draw-back (17th c.),
and cut-off, let-down (18th c.).
There are also two studies which point to a less linear, rather an inter rupted picture of the development of phrasal verbs in EModE. Both lead to
the conclusion that there was a temporary decline in phrasal verbs between
roughly 1650/1660 and 1750 or 1800. The first of these studies is found in
Konishi (1958:125), who chose ten common verbs to investigate the first
quotations (in the OED, I presume, although he does not state that explicitly)
of their combinations with phrasal particles and of their new meanings. That
is, he was looking at productivity and not at actual usage but of course it

The History of Multi-word Verbs 97

can be assumed that there is a connection between the two. His findings are
to be seen in Figure 5.1 below. The other study is by Spasov (1966), who
examined 46 plays spread from late ME to modern times (post 1945) to
determine the occurrences of phrasal verbs in them (cf. Figure 5.2 below). 6
His study thus aims at actual usage, and that moreover in a medium which
must be seen as the closest we get to colloquial la nguage in historical
linguistics (with the exception of private letters, of co urse). Therefore it is
remarkable that it corresponds so relatively closely to Konishis results.

Figure 5. 1: Productivity of selected phrasal verbs

(reproduced from Konishi 1958:125)

Unfortunately, Spasovs book proved to be very elusive, and so my discussion of his

findings must necessarily be second hand, based mostly on what Bolinger (1971) says.
I hope that this did not lead to a distortion of the facts here. One tentative point I
would like to make concerns Spasovs textual basis: it seems to me to have been rather
small with only 46 plays over such a long time span. And I have not seen the list of
plays he used, which might also have been enlightening.

98

The History of Multi-word Verbs

Figure 5.2: The frequency of phrasal verbs in 46 plays

(Spasov 1966, reproduced from Bolinger 1971).
In both cases the lowest point lies somewhere in the second half of
the 18th century, i.e. in the great prescriptive period in the history of English.
But the period of decline spans the century preceding that time, and thus
roughly the time covered by the Lampeter Corpus. Therefore it will be important to keep this putative development in mind when looking at the corpus
data later on. Potter (1965:285), for instance, seems to offer contradicting
evidence when stating that phrasal verbs are used "fairly frequently" by
Sterne and Dryden. Dryden, of all people, was very conscious of his
language use, and it is not that conceivable that he would have gone against
the prevailing linguistic trends of his time.
Two other studies have been devoted to phrasal verbs in EModE,
Hiltunens (1994) investigation of the relevant part of the Helsinki Corpus,
and Castillos (1994) of Shakespeares plays. Both came to the conclusion
that their syntactic behaviour then was basically the same as today.
A curious development occurred in the area of prepositional verbs.
Marchand (1951:76) cites attempts to turn some prepositional objects into
also formally direct objects, as in arrive a place, despair thy charm, look
a person (no sources given). In these cases it did not work, but some former
prepositional verbs are nowadays used without a preposition, e.g. congratulate (cf. (34)), join, miss, fail (Visser 399-400). This shows that some internal variation within the groups across their historical development always
has to be reckoned with.
(34)

I congratulate with you, for losing your great acquaintance. (1732,

Swift, Let. to Gay; Visser 400)

The History of Multi-word Verbs 99

But while some items become lost, new ones also develop. The prepositional
passive continued to spread in an amazing way and speed until about 1700,
though losing impetus somewhat in the 18th century, perhaps through the
influence of prescriptivism (Visser 1953-1955).
Phrasal-prepositional verbs consolidated their status in this period,
which is syntactically visible in the first passives occurring with items of this
category, cf. the items (35a-b), which seem to be the two very first ones
(Denison 1985b:202; Visser 1958). If one goes by the list of examples in
Visser (417), they also become significantly more numerous, e.g. (36, 37)
below from among them.
(35a) There was a servant of yours, and a kynsman of myne was myschevously made away with. (1502, Townly, Plumpton
Correspondence 164; Visser 1958)
(35b) if their Neighbors will not follow their example, ... they shall be cryed
out on for disaffected. (1662, Simon Patrick, Account of the Sect of
Latitude-Men, 12; Visser 1958)
(36) whereby he became ... better able to go thorowe with this enterprise.
(1568, Grafton, Chron. II, 32; Visser 417)
(37) All those who do not live up to the Principles of Reason and Virtue.
(1709, Steele, Tatler No. 125, 1, Visser 417)
There is no information about the fate of verb -adjective combinations
and very little about verbo-nominal combinations in this period to be found
in the literature. Visser, for example, yields examples such as the following
(38-41) for the latter type in various places, but next to nothing by way of
explanation.
(38)
(39)
(40)
(41)

I have a great mind to be a lecherous man. (c. 1550, Bale, K. Johan

(Camden) 12; Visser 151))
A Pick-Pocket; who made a Dive into my Pocket. (1700, T. Brown,
Amus. Ser. & Com. 126; Visser 151)
They will still gripe fast, what they haue once caught hold of. (1602,
Carew, Cornwall 2a, Visser 704)
Her husband ... has been in Love with her ever since he knew her.
(1711, Addison, Spect. I no. 15; Visser 293)

Kyt and Hiltunen (both in Brinton/Akimoto 1999) provide some

information on the so far missing EModE link in the history of verbonominal combinations. Working with the EModE part of the Helsinki
Corpus, Kyt finds an increase in the use of these forms over the period
1500-1710. The most common verbs in her data are have and make, the latter
of which must therefore have become more multi-functional and important
since the OE period, when it was rather rare (see above). As in OE, however,

100

The History of Multi-word Verbs

the items found are still generally semantically transparent and not very
idiomatic. Hiltunen concentrated his search on one particular text type,
namely plays, with only some additional pieces of poetry and prose. 1,404
tokens representing 418 types make up his data, in which make, have (cf.
Kyt), and give are the predominant verbs. He also finds that combinations
with zero-article, historically the older type, are in the majority. Both Kyts
and Hiltunens data contain a majority of single-occurrence items, pointing to
the fact that the pattern was well established, but individual comb inations
perhaps less so.
Verb-adjective combinations seem to be very much a development of
the early modern era, at least if the result of my cursory searches through the
OED can be trusted. It is not all that easy to find phrases (especially those
whose unitary status may not be generally acknowledged) in the OED, but all
the ones, existing in the Lampeter Corpus and in PDE, that I checked were
only cited from the 16th century onwards, with the single ex ception of make
good, which yielded two 14th-century citations. Some exemplary items
follow below.
(42)
(43)
(44)
(45)
(46)
(47)

They made light of it and went their wayes. (1526, Tindale Matt.
xxii.5; OED s.v. light)
Rather then bloody Warre shall cut them short. (1593, Shakes. 2 Hen.
VI, iv.iv.12; OED s.v. short)
No gate so strong, no locke so firm and fast, But with that piercing
noise flew open quite. (1596, Spenser, F.Q. I, viii, 4; Visser 237)
Which the bearers therof thought fit not to bestow vpon the sacrifice.
(1611, AV 2 Macc. iv.19; OED s.v fit)
Yet fell they [the Danes] so foule vpon Essex that the King was enforced to compound a peace. (1611, Speed Hist. Gt. Brit. vii.xliv.376;
OED s.v. fall v.)
The chief use, which too many make of the Former, is to devise
wayes to get ridd of the Later. (1665, Boyle Occas. Refl. Ded. Let.;
OED s.v. rid)

Cut short (43) is of further interest, as it is the only one of the verb -adjective
combinations which is a calque, the ultimate source being the French phrase
couper court.
To sum up, it seems as if most multi-word verb types consolidated
their status and even increased during the EModE period. However, a question mark remains as to their fate in the late 17th and e specially the 18th century, and not only with regard to phrasal verbs. If there was something that
was detrimental to them, this could equally have influenced other analytic
constructions as well. One question has to be asked in this context: In what
way did increased linguistic awareness and the following prescriptive urge

The History of Multi-word Verbs 101

affect their development and usage? This is the reason this study does not
only look at a corpus, reflecting the realities of actual usage, but also at the
linguistic attitudes enshrined in contemporary works on the English
language.
5.3 Late Modern English to Present-day English
As already stated at the beginning of this chapter, the small amount of
available information on some types of multi-word verbs, especially in the
modern period, is deplorable. Thus, nothing at all can be said here about
verb-adjective combinations. 7
General statements about the frequency of phrasal verbs and of their
being so typical of modern English abound in the literature. This is obviously
something that is simply taken for granted. For American English, Meyer
(1975:3) states that the phrasal verb pat tern "has been for a century or more,
and is today, the most active and creative pattern of word formation". Pelli
(1976) looked at American plays written in the period from 1765 to 1972,
and has found a steady increase of phrasal verb types (with the exception of
the period 1805-15), and also an overall increase of tokens (with the
exception of the periods 1805-15, and interestingly also 1965-72). From
among his phrasal verb examples from the 19th century are the following:
(48)
(49)

If I could conjure up a rival or two to bear on him it might help.

(1845; Pelli, 29)
Oh, dear, I suppose I may as well work away on these everlasting
reports. (1889; Pelli 40)

Konishi (1958:124, 127), who sees in general an enormous increase of

phrasal verbs in the 19th and 20th centuries, claims t hat this type is far more
common in the American variety of the language. Denison (1998:222f),
while agreeing with the assumption of an increase, nevertheless also points
to pattern-internal turn-overs with particular individual combinations falling
out of use and new ones coming in. He cites go forward, shrug up, mend up
as now obsolete 19th-century instances. Phrasal nouns also became popular
in the 19th century and show much vitality in our present century, both in
colloquial language and in specialist and/or technical vocabularies (Lindelf
7

It should be mentioned that some multi-word verbs, but especially phrasal and
prepositional verbs, have received treatment in the form of special dictionaries, of
which Cowie & Mackin (1975), Cowie, Mackin & McCaig (1983) are probably the
most thorough. Of a more recent date is for example the COBUILD Dictionary of
Phrasal Verbs (1989) covering phrasal and prepositional verbs. But of course
dictionaries cannot be regarded as a sufficient substitute for otherwise missing
research.

102

The History of Multi-word Verbs

1937:31, 39; Srensen 1986:274; 279). Some mid-20th century examples,

taken from Preuss (1962:2), are mark-up "price increase", blowup "enlarged
photograph", and drive-in. A feature which seems to be a typically modern
characteristic or rather prerequisite of phrasal verbs is the phonological
restriction to mono- or disyllabic verbs with initial stress (Denison
1981:148).
A tool which might be of use for finding out about multi -word occurrences in PDE, is the frequency analysis based on the LOB corpus done by
Johansson & Hofland (1989). However, they themselves point out some of
the reasons why this is be a problematic approach, namely that they do not
distinguish between idioms, collocations and free combinations, an d that collocations characterised by internal variation and dis continuity across the
clause would receive separate treatment in their various incarnations (Jo hansson/Hofland 1989:II,11). Going through their lists trying to identify
multi-word types would thus necessarily yield only an incomplete or even
skewed picture. The only promising exception to this is phrasal verbs
because of the separate adverbial particle (RP tag) list (ibid. 370 -376),
which, however, does not contain all instances of phrasal verbs in which the
particle is positionally too far removed from the verb (ibid. 12). Adding up
all the particles (with the exception of inside and outside) one gets a figure
of 8,536 phrasal verbs being used in LOB. Taking instances with intervening
objects and other adverbials into account (the frequency of which is
unfortunately not known), the actual figure is probably even somewhat
higher.
Phrasal-prepositional verbs, at least the monotransitive type, have
been becoming more common in the modern period, according to Denison
(1998:223f). This is partly due to what he calls a "fairly systematic process
of replacement", with phrasal-prepositional structures taking over from
phrasal verbs, e.g. put up put up with.
The most recent empirical treatment of multi-word verbs is to be
found in Biber et al. (1999:403-428).8 They found on average 1,400 phrasal
verbs per one million words, which surprisingly is considerably less than
the LOB figure mentioned above. As to the distribution in different register s,
phrasal verbs are noticeably more common in conversation and fiction (c.
2,000 items/1,000 000 words) than in news texts (c. 1,400), while they are
rare in academic prose (c. 800). Prepositional verbs with an average of 4,800
items/1,000 000 words are on the whole much more frequent than phrasal

This book unfortunately came out too late to be fully taken account of in this study.
However, the frequency information given there for multi-word verbs could be
compared in more detail to the Lampeter Corpus figures found in chapters 6 and 7.

The History of Multi-word Verbs 103

verbs9 and (again in contrast to the latter) also show no clear register prefer ences, except for a somewhat higher figure for fiction. In comparison
phrasal-prepositional verbs are relatively infrequent with only 350-400
items/1,000 000 words in conversation and fiction, c. 200/1,000 000 in news
texts and only 50/1,000 000 in academic prose. Nevertheless, all three
categories are seem to be rather well established in PDE.
Verbo-nominal combinations, which are also remarkably frequent in
PDE (Visser 148), are said by Hoffmann (1972:162) to have spread really
widely only during the modern English period. They are the only type to my
knowledge that has been made the subject of corpus investigations in PDE;
the studies in question are those of Hoffmann (1972), Stein & Quirk (1991)
and Algeo (1995). Hoffmann, who used a considerably wider definition of
nominal expression than I do here, found in a 1,5 million word corpus (plays
1955-1968 + Times Literary Supplement 1968) 732 tokens, of which 82.9%
(= c. 607 tokens) represent his type Ia, roughly corresponding to my Groups
I and III. As the most commonly used verbs he identified have, make, give,
take, do, be, and get (in descending frequency). Of the 594 different nouns
used in his data, 50.5% were zero-derived from verbs. Stein & Quirk (1991)
based their study on a 1.6 million word corpus of contemporary fiction and
were explicitly looking only for verb-noun sequences consisting of the verbs
have, take or give, nouns that are formally identical with a verb and the
whole being replaceable by this latter verb. They found 297 combinations
with give, 72 with have, and 33 with take, that is 402 tokens in all. Algeo
(1995) searched the LOB and Brown corpora for occurrences of verbonominal combinations with do, give, have, make, take and an indefinite noun
that is identical with a simple verb. He found 199 tokens/133 types in Brown,
and somewhat more, 245 tokens/149 types in LOB. Compared to the phrasal
verb figures from LOB above, these numbers do not seem very high. But it
needs bearing in mind here that the latter two studies were very restricted in
scope, making a less restricted approach like Hoffmanns (with significantly
higher figures) seem more promising. Perhaps the domain of speech and text
types also play a considerable role.
This leads me to a fact found very commonly in the extant literature
and in dictionaries: many multi-word verb types, particularly among the
phrasal and phrasal-prepositional verbs, but also a sub-type of verbo-nominal
combinations, are called colloquial or informal in PDE. 10 To give just one
9

It should be noted that Biber et al.s definition of prepositional verb is wider than the
one used here. They include V+N+preposition structures (e.g. accuse N of) and cases
such as look like, serve as under V+preposition structures in their counts.
10
According to Visser (673), this applies from the EModE period onwards, as
literary English will usually prefer the Latinate loan words.

104

The History of Multi-word Verbs

example, Wierzbicka (1982:757) states that "[i]n all dialects, the

construction [have + N] is highly colloquial; technical or high-style verbs
[i.e. deverbal nouns] cannot be used in it at all". 11 Mostly, no proof is offered
for statements of this nature. But in a small corpus study (300,000 words)
Winterov (1993) found verbo-nominal combinations to be twice as frequent
in dialogues in contemporary plays, which she regards as standing for
colloquial speech, than in scientific writing. Potter (1965:286), on the other
hand, claims that both phrasal verbs and verbo-nominal combinations are
used very frequently not only in slang and colloquial speech, but also on the
common (i.e. neutral/core) and literary levels of the la nguage. Mller
(1978:225) even maintains that verbo-nominal combinations with give are
stylistically rather elevated constructions. While I think it likely that many
multi-word verb forms are more common in spoken language, I am also
convinced that this type has thoroughly permeated all levels of the language
nowadays. Academic writing in the humanities, for instance, can bear
witness to this; the following examples were found in a book on the
European Renaissance 12, which are the more remarkable for their interesting
coordination structures:
(50)

(51)

But as writers reviewed the offered models and took encouragement

from or issue with them, they came to hope more self-consciously that
their work would, as Milton was to put it, "fit audience find, though
few". (p.214)
The authors of the torrent of writing that reacted to the lure of print
and the growth of a literate audience, at times looked up to and passed
on to their readers Latin tags or mythological references. (p. 215)

General stylistic pronouncements about multi -word verbs are not

permissible, in my opinion; rather it will be necessary to look at sub-patterns
within them and even individual items for stylistic evaluation and then it
will be found that these items are stylistically as varied as any other group of
words in the language.
I think it can in fact be taken for granted that multi -word verbs are
very vital, not to say frequent, members of the language in PDE, but some
more hard proof for this would have been nice, nevertheless. However, if this
is indeed the case, one could further hypothesize that whatever negative
influence prescriptivism might have had in EModE, it was not of a lasting
consequence.

11

Cf. for example Stein (1991) for a criticism of Wierzbickas opinion.

John Hale. 1993. The Civilization of Europe in the Renaissance. London: Fontana
Press.
12

6. Patterns of the Past:

Multi-word Verbs in the Lampeter Corpus
This and the following chapters will be devoted to the analysis of the data
taken from the Lampeter Corpus. While chapter 7 will be concerned with the
developments and tendencies visible in the data, the present chapter will lay
the foundation by presenting the facts, and describing the lexical, semantic
and syntactic patterns actually found in the cor pus.
However, before setting out on this enterprise, a few more words in
general and about the method of analysis employed in particular are in order
here. Multi-word verbs, at least as I see them, are essentially a lexical phe nomenon, and this of course might raise questions about the size of the data
base. Usually, a corpus of about one million words, such as the one used
here, is considered large enough for studying high-frequency, functional (i.e.
mainly grammatical) items, but not necessarily sufficient for lexical studies.
But as pointed out in chapters 3 and 4, multi-word verbs are a special lexical
case in so far as they follow clearly defined internal syntactic patterns.
Therefore, it does not matter whether a specific individual combination is
found only once, as long as others perhaps also as single occurrences
with the same pattern are found. The size of the corpus (with 1,172,102
words) did prove satisfactory in that respect: of the three main patterns
(phrasal verbs, prepositional verbs and verbo-nominal combinations) a
sufficient number of instances were found to make analysis on a sensible
level possible. Verb-adjective combinations and especially phrasalprepositional verbs, on the other hand, are not that numer ous in the corpus.
Nevertheless, some patterns did emerge with respect to the former, while in
the case of the latter the data really was insufficient, but it may also be
doubtful whether even a much larger corpus (e.g. the BNC) would turn up
large numbers of them.
Finding all the possible instances of the five categories of multi -word
verbs under investigation in the Lampeter Corpus made it necessary to actually read through the whole corpus a traditional, manual approach, in
fact. The corpus is not (yet) grammati cally annotated, so that automatic
searches for, e.g., adverbial particles (cf. the RP -tag in the LOB corpus) or
sequences of verb plus preposition were not possible. I rejected an other
possible procedure, namely that of automatically looking for items usually
found in these combinations, such as prepositions, adverbial particles, and
very commonly used combination verbs, such as make, take, give etc. On the
one hand, this would have produced a lot of unwanted data to be sorted out
again manually. But on the other hand, it was precluded by the much
more serious drawback of having to determine the possible components of

106

Patterns of the Past

multi-word verbs in advance, thus restricting oneself to certain, more nar rowly defined sub-types of these combinations. Some studies on verbonominal combinations in PDE, and also Hiltunens on phrasal verbs in the
Helsinki Corpus, have taken this course (cf. chap.5), but while this may be
justified for modern English with the everyday empirical knowledge of the
researcher of what is possible in general in the background, it is not the best
approach for historical studies. After all, one cannot know at the outset
which items enter into these combinations in the past (they might be a
smaller, larger or otherwise different group than today), and how fixed the
patterns then were. Also, the unexpected items (from the modern point of
view) and the borderline cases might even be the more interesting ones. Thus
the manual search approach chosen here should be well suited to present a
faithful picture of the true extent and characteristics of multi -word verbs in
the 17th and 18th centuries. I will now turn to describing that picture in
detail.
6.1 General Patterns
As already stated several times in the course of this study, the items under
consideration here are not random lexical features, but they are based on
relatively clearly defined patterns. Patterning is of two kinds, on the one
hand lexical (or collocational) patterns and on the other hand syntactic
patterns. Both can be combination -internal or -external, referring to the
internal lexical or syntactic make-up of an item or to its context/surroundings
in the clause. In some areas the lexical and syntactic kinds overlap, e.g. with
respect to the question of prepositions in verbo -nominal and verb-adjective
combinations. The following sections will deal with the patterns ident ified in
the Lampeter Corpus data. In order to give a general overview the
appendices 1-5 at the end list the normalized (i.e. PDE spelling) base forms
of all the combinations found in the corpus. Thus, for every instance treated
here in the text which must necessarily be selective further similar
ones can be found in these lists.
As pointed out in chapter 4, the categories in question here are some what fuzzy, and therefore tricky decisions had to be taken about the inclusion
or exclusion of individual instances in some, though fortunately not too
many, cases.1 Nevertheless, the phrasal verbs, prepositional verbs and verb 1

A few examples for excluded cases should suffice here: break through, die of, feed
on, take a course, make head, be in danger. It is, of course, the context the items
occur in which is important for the decision. Phrasal verbs were, as a rule, not a
problem, except for sequences of verb + out of because it is practically impossible
to conclusively determine the status of out in individual cases, these were all excluded

Patterns of the Past 107

adjective combinations found in the corpus need no further general explanations apart from those given in chapter 4, but phrasal -prepositional verbs are
by the nature of things a more difficult case. Therefore, I want to point out
the less clear or prototypical cases included in that class here.
While all phrasal-prepositional verbs are, strictly speaking, mergers of
a phrasal verb on the one hand and a prepositional verb on the other, there
are some cases in the corpus where this is still more graphically to be seen
than usual. The semantic merger is not quite complete in them, in fact the
two separate multi-word verbs are very apparent and present in the meaning,
cf. look back + look into (2) or call out + call for (3). Some of them are
probably nonce formations in the truest sense of the word: six of those in
question occur only once in the Lampeter Corpus.
(1)
(2)
(3)

And [I] sent in for Captaine Stoakes, the Master, the Gunner, Bennet,
and Marshall, and bad them be of good cheere,... (RelB1650)
... but if we will look back into the Examples of former Ages, we shall
find (...) that never any before went so far out of the way to d efend
their own Countrey. (PolA1672)
Tis matter of Wonder and Astonishment, that there are Men, who call
themselves Christians, (...) are still, for the very same thing, calling
out for new Methods of Vengeance, ... (PolA1702)

Looking at these examples, it appears to me that what we have here are actu ally the prepositional verbs send for, look into and call for (with their transferred or idiomatic meanings left intact), with an extra adverbial particle
added. The particle is more or less superfluous, definitely more in (2), where
former Ages makes the backwards orientation clear anyway, but less so in
(1), where in serves as a directional marker otherwise not present in the
context, and in (3), where out has an intensifying function. It is interesting to
find these hybrid formations, because they show a willingness to make use of
a whole pile of particles for the sake of greater expressiveness, instead of a
dislike of them. The remaining items in the phrasal-prepositional class are of
a more traditional make-up, such as fall in with, given over to or live up to,
and need no special comment. 2

(cf. also Denison 1981). Generally, the trickiest decisions had to be taken in the
category of prepositional verbs.
2
One particular item posed difficulties as to its attribution to which group of multiword verbs, namely give into, as in:
Now that the Vulgar should ascribe every thing thats a little surprizing, to
Witchcraft, is no wonder; but that Clergymen, Men supposd to have made
some Improvement in Physick, should give into the little crude Notions of
Nurses and Old Women, (...), is astonishing; (MscA1712)

108

Patterns of the Past

Three different groups of verbo-nominal combinations have been explained in chapter 4. As a reminder, they are (Group I) simple verb -noun
combination, (Group II) verb-noun-preposition sequence, and (Group III)
verb-prepositional phrase chain. The numerical relationship of the three
groups in the corpus as a whole and in the individual decades is shown in the
following table:
Table 6. 1: Verbo-nominal combinations split up by groups

1640
1650
1660
1670
1680
1690
1700
1710
1720
1730
total
%

Group I
95
130
86
120
93
122
53
75
126
81
981
49.2

Group II
54
94
73
101
67
113
65
71
97
56
791
39.7

Group III
19
29
14
9
28
29
22
19
35
18
222
11.1

total

1994
100

While there is a substantial number of instances of Group I and II verbs,

Group III is a minor category in comparison. The frequency of Group II was
contrary to my expectations at first (cf. chap.4), but it is made up of fewer
types, 105 (T/T ratio 0.1) against 191 (T/T ratio 0.2) for Group I. Thus, sequences including a final preposition indeed tend to coalesce somewhat less
often in multi-word combinations. On the other hand, this group contains a
few very established and therefore frequent items, namely several similar
combinations involving the noun account (62 occurrences), have/take care of
(63 occurrences), take notice of (137 occurrences) and make use of (158
occurrences). Of course, sorting out, or distinguishing between, members o f
Groups I and II is not without its problems; there are cases where empirically
observed syntactic behaviour and especially semantics make a sound
decision possible, but the distinction in less clear cases is some times at least
Despite its prepositional origin (calqued on donner dans) it was here on semantic
grounds attributed to the category of phrasal-prepositionalverbs. By the way, Samuel
Johnson in his dictionary (i.e. about 40 years after the Lampeter examples), while
calling it "a French phrase" and thus being aware of its origin, lists it only with the
spelling give in to (s.v. give v.n. 5.).

Patterns of the Past 109

partly based on intuition. While (4-6) without any doubt belong into Group I,
others were trickier and needed more consideration.
(4)
(5)
(6)

... so there seems no need of making any manner of Apology for engaging in so very laudable an Attempt. (SciA1712)
Upon the 5th. of October (...) we saw a sail to windward of us, which
immediatly we found to give us chace; (MscA1685)
some men have a minde to cavil upon all occasions ... (RelA1653)

Bear witness occurs twice in the corpus, both times with a different
preposition:
(7)
(8)

Blessed be God, this whole Assembly can bear witnesse to the falsehood, let me be bold to adde, to the more then Divelishnesse of this
accusation. (RelA1653)
And for the unlawfulnesse thereof, let Mr Greataricks works bear
witnesse of him. (MscB1666)

Both falsehood (7) and him (8) can be said to have object-status: passivization, for example, is possible. However, a preposition-less variant of the
combination with the same meaning is also found, as the following instance
taken from the OED shows, and it has therefore been put into Group I:
(9)

That Obsignation ... whereby the Spirit it self is said to bear Witness
with our Spirit. (1691, Norris Pract. Disc. 162; s.v. obsignation)

The next examples were allocated to either Group I (10; 12) or II (11; 13)
mainly on the basis of their differing semantics which, however, has syntactic consequences:
(10)
(11)
(12)
(13)

... and accordingly Application is made to the Legislative Power, to

dissolve this Marriage, ... (LawB1715)
"apply to N"
I shall treat of these Heads in as brief and plain a manner as I can, and
then make an Application of the whole, ... (RelA1708) "apply N"
... I shall, for my further information, take leave to propose a few
Queries to those learned Gentlemen of Cambridge, ... (SciB1735)
"assume permission"
Captain Macdonald gave us Certificates of our service in the late Action, and then Mr. Baxter and I took leave of him; (MscA1685)
"leave"

Group III is represented by 222 tokens made up by 43 different types

(T/T ratio 0.19). Except for in the case of semantically intransitive combinations such as (14), the elements of the unit are more likely to be interrupted
by an object than the Group I and II instances, at least in active sentences

110

Patterns of the Past

(cf. (15; 16)) which makes them less liable to merge into a unit and thus
may account for the fewer types found.
(14)
(15)
(16)

I would further ask, how he could prove that the Law it self was at an
End, and that Trials by Juries were taken away when a Governor
pleased; (LawB1738)
And for an instance of what this King is able to doe, without putting
his estates in hazard by drayning them too drye of men to make good
his kingdome; (SciB1652)
whilst we were setting her [= ship] on fire, we heard a noise of some
people in the Hold, ... (MscA1685)

A few types have an additional obligatory final preposition: besides the instances in (17; 18) there is only one further, stand in necessity of, which is a
variant of (17).
(17)
(18)

... he freed the French King from his fears of Spain, inabled him to
subdue all Factions at home, and thereby to bring himself into a
condition of not standing in need of any of them, ... (PolA1668)
This policy of Hugh Peters, puts us in mind of godly Gravener, ...
(MscA1650)

Both of these seem to be extremely stable combinations.

6.2 Lexical Patterns
6.2.1 Verbs
The one component all multi-word verbs have in common is a lexical verb.
Therefore, I want to start the discussion of lexical patterns within these com binations with that element. First, let us take a look at the most commonly
used verbs and the way they are spread across the five different types. The
cut-off point (100+ tokens) is of course a matter of debate; I have based my
decision for or against inclusion here on overall frequency and also on
prominence in individual types. Table 6.2 then lists them foremost according
to their occurrence in how many types (in all five down to in only one) and
then according to their overall frequency.
The 4,557 tokens of multi-word verbs these fifteen verbs help to form
make up c. 48% of the total of 9,467 multi-word verb tokens found, whereas
the remaining c. 52% contain a whole host of different verbs, especially in
the category of phrasal verbs. This goes to show the supreme importance of
these very common verbs. Of Kirchners (1952) ten major or most common
verbs of the English language seven are found in this list, namely take, make,

Patterns of the Past 111

come, give, go, put and have; the three missing ones are
the Lampeter Corpus), do (93 tokens), and get (39 tokens).
Table 6.2: Common verbs in multi-word verbs (tokens) 3
Phrasal Prep. Phrasal
VerbVerboverbs
verbs
-prep. adjective nominal
verbs
comb.
comb.
take
332
49
4
1
491
make
107
6
1
78
530
come
181
24
21
11
5
give
81
2
11
336
lay
159
2
18
32
set
299
6
3
38
look
15
178
8
go
155
14
7
send
112
39
1
put
145
110
think
48
121
bring
233
12
find
139
7
carry
242
have
143
2,200
368
53
232
1,704
total

be (50 tokens in

total
verb
877
722
242
430
211
346
201
176
152
255
169
245
146
242
143
4,557

rank
by
freq.
1.
2.
7.
3.
8.
4.
9.
10.
12.
5.
11.
6.
13.
7.
14.

The most versatile verbs are take, make, come (occurring in all five
patterns) and give, lay, set (occurring in four). What they have in common is
a rather wide range of meaning, which is also relatively indeterminate and
therefore flexible. 4 The same could be said about put, which, while being
found in only two (yet very different) patterns, is among the first five in
simple frequency. Look, go, send, think, bring, find and carry retain a
stronger primary meaning, which restricts them largely to those patterns
where less or no verb bleaching takes place. Have is something of a special
case: it is the only really stative verb in this group and this at least partly
explains its restriction to verbo-nominal combinations. Quite apart from the

There is some overlap with common verbs in Moons FEIs (1998:76), although the
comparison is complicated by her counting inflected forms separately. Among her top
twenty one finds takes, makes, goes/go, puts, gives, and comes, which also play a
prominent part here.
4
Samuel Johnson also mentions this class of verbs as a particular difficulty for the
lexicographer, enumerating many of the verbs in question here. The relevant quote can
be found in chapter 8.1 of the present study.

112

Patterns of the Past

absolutely clear cases have and carry, all the other verbs also have their
preferences regarding the type of multi -word verb (cf. the italicized figures
in Table 6.2). Make, take and give prefer verbo-nominal combinations, while
come, lay, go, send, set, put, bring and find are mostly found in phrasal
verbs. Look is the only verb exhibiting a strong liking for prepositional verbs,
and think is strongest in verb-adjective combinations.
Looking at the performance of these verbs in the individual multiword verb types, it strikes one that their contributions are very unequally
distributed. The ten verbs (of the 15 above) occurring in prepositional verbs
help to form only 13.1% of all instances (tokens), which must be due to the
higher percentage of non-native verbal elements in this group, but perhaps
also to the fact that there is a more equal spread of types. The thirteen verbs
for phrasal verbs, and the seven verbs for phrasal-prepositional verbs make
up roughly more than half of all sampled combinations in these groups,
51.6% and 57% respectively. The highest share, however, that they
contribute is to verb-adjective combinations with 77.8% (five verbs) and to
verbo-nominal combinations with 89.6% (ten verbs); in these classes all
other verbs really become marginal.
An additional perspective on these common verbs can be provided by
comparing their occurrence in multi-word verbs with their overall frequency
in the corpus (Table 6.3). This might give an indication as to how
semantically and syntactically independent they are (cf. occurrence as
simplex) or how dependent they are on semantic and/or syntactic comple tion
by other lexical elements.

Patterns of the Past 113

Table 6.3: Common verbs: simplex and multi-word occurrences
All occurrences
Occurrences in
% of all
multi-word verbs
look
374
201
53.7
set
649
346
53.3
carry
527
285
45.9
take
2,248
877
39.0
lay
548
211
38.5
put
846
255
30.1
send
577
152
26.3
bring
997
245
24.6
go
837
176
21.0
give
2,074
430
20.7
make
4,046
722
17.8
come
1,470
242
16.5
think
1,453
169
11.6
find
1,591
146
9.2
I have counted the corpus instances of all those verbs, with the exception of
have, which, because of its use as an auxiliary, would not have made a valid
comparison possible.Of the generally very frequent verbs (take, give, make,
come, think, find), only take has a high instance of usage in multi-word verb
structures. It is rather the lesser used verbs whose overall frequency is
considerably boosted by their occurrence in multi-word verbs, notably look,
set, carry, and lay. It can be assumed that relatively high occurrence in these
environments also increases the predisposition of speakers to further expand
numerically and with new formations on them. The following
examples contrast simplex and multi-word use of some items:
(19)
(20)
(21)
(22)

... low ordinary Espaliers about Two Foot high, along the several
Rows of Vines, to which their Shoots might be carried horizontally
and fastened, ... (MscB1718)
During that Period, the Spanish Branch carried on a War for above 50
Years in the Netherlands ... (PolB1713)
If, I say, these Republicans will not otherwise be contented, let them
then take it thus. (PolA1684)
... and if this device should take place, the rents belonging to those
two Halls will be lost, because there will be no body to look after
them. (EcA1681)

114

Patterns of the Past

(23)

... yet there are several amongst us who seem to look no farther than
the Counting Tables in Grocers Hall, and so judge of the Bank as
they do of a Bankers Shop, ... (EcA1705)
Without looking into the Conduct of other Nations in such Cases, We
have in our own Examples perhaps of as many Revolutions, as any
other Kingdom in the whole World. (PolA1702)

(24)

(25)
(26)

Upon one of the North Quadrants of this Meridian (...) the Climes are
set to the several Degrees of Latitude; (SciB1649)
If you, Gentlemen, are true Friends of the Government, and Lovers of
your Country, you have now an opportunity of shewing it, and of
serving your selves also, by assisting chearfully to set open the Gates
of Redemption. (EcB1720)

Phrasal verbs
The next point now is to look at all the verbs in the five types of
multi-word verbs separately, starting with the largest group, i.e. phrasal
verbs. 326 different verbs are used to crea te phrasal verbs; the twenty most
common ones are: take (332 tokens), set (299), carry (242), bring (233),
come (181), lay (159), go (155), put (145), find (139), send (112), make
(107), draw (94), cut (81), give (81), keep (70), fall (67), throw (61), pull
(60), cry (55) and turn (55). This list differs to some extent from Frasers
and Potters lists of common verbs mentioned in chapter 4. At the other end
of the spectrum, however, there are also many verbs that occur only once
(120 verbs, equals 36.8% of all) or twice (47 verbs, i.e. 14.4%). Among the
former are found such verbs as assemble, bow, choose, dwindle, gush,
interpret, link, plot, retail, screen, shatter, stop, try, weather, and the latter
are represented by, e.g., buoy, deal, furnish, heal, mount, pin, sell, treasure.
For the more frequent verbs especially, it is not only relevant how often they
occur, but with how many particles they (can) combine; the more flexible
they are in the latter respect the more useful they are for the pattern as a
whole. 26 verbs combine with five or more different particles: bring (16
particles), come (15), go, put (both 14), carry (12), take (10), draw, keep,
run, set (all 9), give, lay, send, throw (8), break, fall, get, turn (7), blow, cast,
drive, fling, pass (6), look, march, and strike (5). Most of the twenty most
frequent verbs are contained in the foregoing list, except for cut, make, pull
(4 particles), cry (3) and the in this respect exceptional find, which
combines only with one single particle, namely out. On the other hand, even
such infrequent (phrasal) verbs as look (15 occurrences), march (8) and
strike (9) prove themselves to be rather versatile. The following selected
examples with bring can exemplify the range somewhat:

Patterns of the Past 115

(27)
(28)
(29)
(30)
(31)
(32)

And then it will be Natural for them to enter upon Contrivances, and
come to Resolutions how to bring about the desird Change.
(EcA1705)
Did they not bring in French Wines for Tory Healths, to the great Detriment of the Herefordshire Trade, ... (PolA1711)
... as appears by Affidavits from the Persons who carryed Kelly to the
Bishops House, and who also delivered Letters from him to the
Bishop, and brought back the Bishops Answers; (LawA1723)
From those so brought up tame, I made the greatest Discoveries.
(MscA1730)
Great things are come to the birth, onely there wanteth strength to
bring forth. (RelA1642)
... but it [missing Pistol] could not be heard of, till the very day the
ship was going out of the Harbour, and then somebody that had it
could not be quiet till he brought it out, ... (RelB1650)

In order to be complete, the other ten particles found with bring are along,
away, down, home, off, on, over, to, together, and under. Less frequent
and probably also less established items can be represented by the combinations with march:
(33)
(34)
(35)
(36)
(37)

But Gustavus, despising his Threats, marchd on with his victorious

Army, ... (MscB1739)
... at last she contrived to feign her self sick, whilst her Knight, under
pretence of a Condoling Visit, was to steal her down Stairs, and
march off with her. (MscB1692)
... the whole Army being drawne up in their severall Regiments, continued there about an houre and then we marched away: (MscA1643)
...the three Regiments of the Auxiliary forces, the Blew, Red, and
Orange, who marched forth for the reliefe of the City of Glocester ...
(MscA1643)
When this was done, my L.Generals forces marched up to our
Brigade: (MscA1643)

In contrast to the mixture of literal, transferred and idiomatic combinati ons

in the case of bring, march forms basically only literal combinations. The
great majority of the verbs, 208 items or 64% of all, combine with one
particle only, which might mean either that they are very established,
lexicalized combinations (such as find out mentioned above), that the data
base is simply not broad enough, or that they are nonce formations, such as
the item in (38) seems to be.
(38)

men are more attentive to new Oaths, and unheard of Blasphemies; to

such as jest, and droll down Religion, that it may no longer interrupt
the pleasant wickedness of a degenerated Age; (RelA1682)

116

Patterns of the Past

A further consideration with respect to the verbal part of phrasal

verbs is the type of verb. There are two major questions, the first concerning
the number of syllables, and the second the etymology of the verb. As to the
first point, in PDE the basic rule seems to be a restriction to monosyllabic
verbs or to disyllabic ones with the stress on the first syl lable. 5 Of the 326
verbs in the Lampeter Corpus, 265 (81.3%) are in fact monosyllables, 58
(17.8%) are disyllabic and only three have more than two syllables. The
latter three are assemble, deliver, and interpret, the first two of which are
also used in phrasal verbs in PDE (cf. BNC). Eleven of the 58 disyllabic ones
violate the stress rule, namely combine, convey, decry, emit, entice, escape,
explain, resign, retreat, return, and unite, which are all stressed on the
second syllable. 6 Some of those are also found in PDE, however; only decry,
emit, and resign seem not to occur in PDE (BNC). What these last eleven
verbs have in common is their prefix structure and their history: all are loan
words. This leads to the second question mentioned above, that of
etymology, which was tackled with the help of the OED. There are basically
two opposing categories, namely that of native versus Romance verbs; native
comprises Germanic, i.e. mainly Anglo-Saxon and Norse material, whereas
Romance means Latin and French loans the latter can include Old
Franconian words loaned via French or Anglo-Norman, but excludes words
already borrowed during the OE period. 203 verbs (62.3%) were classified as
native, and 105 (32.2%) as Romance. A further 18 verbs are of unclear
origin, but, judging from their phonological shape, seem to be mostly native,
e.g. blot, cut, screen, shatter, tramble, wrap. Most of the 105 Romance verbs
are entirely assimilated, usually being monosyllabic as well, e.g. branch, cry,
fade, join, pass, or serve; only the disyllabic and polysyllabic ones
mentioned above really stand out. I can thus sum up the situation by saying
that there is hardly anything unexpected in that area to be found in the
Lampeter Corpus data.
Prepositional verbs
With regard to prepositional verbs the contrast between native and
foreign words is of more importance, as roughly speaking loan words
tend to require the preposition syntactically (with no choice involved),
whereas native words tend to be more flexible and to make use of the seman-

This rule is probably not as definite as it is sometimes made out to be, but rather a
clear tendency, as there are exceptions to the apparent rule found in the BNC.
6
Denison (1985:45, fn.7) noted a "proportionately large number" of polysyllabic verbs
and/or verbs violating the stress rule in the fifteenth-century Paston Letters; in the
Lampeter Corpus, however, the number cannot be called very large.

Patterns of the Past 117

tic potential of added prepositions. Prepositional verbs based on native
verbal elements are those that are closest to phrasal verbs and are the main
reason for the attempts to define them apart syntactically. All in all, 160
verbs are used in prepositional verbs, and the following 53 (33.1% of all) are
native i.e. the relationship of phrasal verbs reversed.
answer, ask, believe, belong, beware, call, care, come, deal, drive,
dwell, fall, fawn, get, give, go, grasp, grope, guess, hear, hint, hope,
hunt, laugh, lay, light, long, look, make, meet, miss, mutter, play,
reach, read, reckon, run, scoff, see, seek, send, set, side, speak,
stand, strike, take, talk, think, trust, want, wish, wonder
Some of them syntactically need the preposition as much as most of the Romance verbs; belong, beware, care and deal are the only ones to represent
this group in my data. The others employ the preposition to create some sort
of difference towards the simplex use. It is a difference in meaning, for
instance, whether you believe N or whether you believe in N, whether you
answer N or answer for N, or whether you drive N or drive at N. Similarly
the following examples:
(39)
(40)

... amidst our Controversies with one another (let Those see to it, who
made them necessary) Gods Controversy with the Nation in general
(...) seems now to be drawing towards a Conclusion. (RelA1721)
... but root up & destroy the Corn abundantly, as likewise any grass,
trees, plants, or whatever corn is in their way, or they can come at:
(SciA1653)

With some others, the difference the preposi tion makes is less clear, e.g. in
the case of join vs. join with, or miss vs. miss of.
Apart from percentage of types, a look at the actual occurrence (in
tokens) of these native prepositional verbs is interesting as well. For that pur pose, I have slightly enlarged the native group; it is after all not only the
etymology that counts, but also the general impression a combination makes
aim at and consist of, for instance, have different linguistic flavours.
Some French verbs form very common, everyday units and were most
probably completely integrated into the language. Besides the verbs listed
above as native, aim, arrive, beg, blench, cope, cry, enter, fail, fix, part,
pass, point, search, tally , turn and wait have also been included within that
category. The result is shown in Table 6.4. The proportion of the more
down-to-earth combinations is consistently around 50%, which is higher than
I had at first expected. As hinted at above, it is those combinations that are
similar to phrasal verbs by using the semantic potential of the non-verbal
element and also by inclining towards the development of transferred or
idiomatic meanings, cf. for instance take upon, look into, stand with, or come

118

Patterns of the Past

by. In many respects, they could form one category together with phrasal and
phrasal-prepositional verbs. They are thus also the more interesting cases
among prepositional verbs in stylistic terms.
Table 6.4: The native element in prepositional verbs

1640s
1650s
1660s
1670s
1680s
1690s
1700s
1710s
1720s
1730s
Total

All tokens
255
277
200
306
358
350
252
253
294
271
2,816

Native tokens
150
155
105
185
170
174
118
121
138
173
1,489

% native/all
58.8
55.9
52.5
60.4
47.5
49.7
46.8
47.8
46.9
63.8
52.9

As with phrasal verbs, the question of how many prepositions a verb

combines with is also relevant here, even if to a lesser extent. The over whelming majority of 124 verbs combines with only one preposition, 25
verbs are found with two, seven verbs connect with three, three verbs are
linked with five prepositions, and one verb even associates with seven
prepositions. Not always does a different preposition indicate a different
meaning or function, however: whether search is followed by after or for
(41-42) does not affect the meaning, whereas the alteratio n between of and
with accompanying consist (43-44) produces a different meaning in each
case.
(41)
(42)
(43)
(44)

yet there is not an occupation or trade of finding them, nor are our
English people very active in searching after them; (EcB1653)
... with power given to your Petitioner, to search for, and seaze on all
course and adultrate Silver, ... (LawB1661)
... our ancient Parliaments (which consisted of the King and Spiritual
and Temporal Lords, without any Knights, Citizens, or Burgesses as
all our Histories and Records attest) (LawB1649)
... supposing that none of the Kingdomes will take any way
concerning his Majesties Person, but such as may consist with duty
and honour, ... (PolA1646)

Patterns of the Past 119

As to the verbs with five respectively seven prepositions, they ar e come (at,
by, of, (up)on, (un)to), go (about, by, (up)on, over, through), stand (by, for,
(up)on, (un)to, with) and look (about, after, at, for, into, (up)on, (un)to ). Not
surprisingly all four of them are native verbs. Instances of the various uses of
stand are to serve as an illustration here:
(45)
(46)
(47)
(48)
(49)

We are told indeed that the Dutch will for their own sakes stand by us
in the Day of Danger. (PolB1713)
It is Mr. Lockes opinion, that every general name stands for a general
abstract idea, which prescinds from the species or individuals comprehended under it. (SciB1735)
But this proud Nation stands so much upon what they call Gentility,
... (LawA1653)
But it pleased God, that by the integrity of the Sea-men (who
faithfully stood to that Noble Lord,) ... (MscB1646)
... and therefore it cannot stand with reason to imagin that the Bloud
in its Circular course is emitted immediately out of the Arteries into
the Veins, these vessels being separate. (SciA1683)

Each of the foregoing five examples represents a different meaning, even the
very similar (45) and (48) exhibit a subtle distinction. Before leaving
prepositional verbs, I should just list those verbs that take three different
prepositions; they are agree, consist, enter, fall, search, ta ke, and turn
again a predominance of the native or at least pseudo-native elements.
Phrasal-prepositional verbs
Phrasal-prepositional verbs in the Lampeter Corpus are build on a
stock of twenty verbs. Considering the type in question, it is not surpr ising
that all of these verbs are those already familiar from the two preceding types
of multi-word verbs. In all three types of the phrasal/prepositional spectrum
occur call, come, fall, give, go, look, make, run, search, send, strike, take ,
and turn, in two types (phrasal + phrasal-prepositional) bear, break, grow,
live, rise, and sit; one verb, part, is common to the prepositional and phrasalprepositional patterns.
The remaining two patterns are clearly distinguished from the three
above as regards their verbal component, because in them the verb tends to
be more a functional element rather than a lexical item in its own right. Nevertheless, it is interesting to see which kind of verbs fulfil this function and
also how much independence there might be on their part.

120

Patterns of the Past

Verb-adjective combinations
Verb-adjective combinations make use of 22 verbs, a variety that is
actually surprising, considering the not very high number of types. Also, it
might indicate that the verb is not quite as purely function al as assumed.
Among those verbs, there are indeed the well-known very general, multifunctional verbs to be found, such as make (78 occurrences), take (only 1),
lay (18), get (7), also keep (1) and come (11). Most of the others, e.g. break,
cut, force, judge or throw, have a more specific content of their own
which, however, does not necessarily mean that their meaning is always fully
or at all realized in the combination. Many of them are also found in the
phrasal/prepositional area. Some verbs, like rip or slit, not only denote a
definite action, but even a highly specific one. The presence of such verbs
has to do with the fact that while the adjectival part carries most of the verbal
meaning, the verb can contribute a considerable amount as well. In the
following instances, for example, the verb and the adjective are of almost, or
even totally, equal importance:
(50)
(51)
(52)
(53)

As also the not cutting straight such watercourses, of such brookes

and gutters that are exceeding crooked, ... (EcB1653)
It was by our Direction, that the Famous Exposition of the Church of
England Articles was written, by which the Inclosure and Pale, that
had been made up by the Tories, was thrown open, ... (PolA1711)
... and if these rules be approved on with such alterat ions as your Majesty, & your Privy Council shall judge fit, ... (LawB1661)
It is also known, that the Kings of England have (...) as occasion re quired, and as they saw meet, exempted Persons and Societies from
the common and ordinary course and way of Church-Discipline and
Inspection. (RelB1667)

Examples where the verb is indeed reduced to a functional element are get
clear, make sure or lay waste. Nine of the verbs in this pattern combine with
more than one adjective, mostly two. In the case of think, it is three, which,
however, are semantic variants of each other. The only verb that is really
versatile is make, associating as it does with ten absolutely different adjectives.
Verbo-nominal combinations
Thirty-three verbs occur in verbo-nominal combinations as a whole,
but because as many as 19 occur in only one of the groups, it will be
necessary to look at the three groups sepa rately as well. Table 6.5 gives an
overview of the distribution of verbs across the groups, using token
frequencies and ordering the sequence by overall frequency. Four verbs are
found in all three groups, namely put, run, set, and take. Put, set, take belong

Patterns of the Past 121

to the semantically empty, or versatile, verbs and their flexibility as to the
groups here is not surprising. Set in the following examples does not carry
much meaning in itself:
(54)
(55)
(56)

... for sailing Eastward, they have, without turning back, arived to the
place from whence they first set Sail, ... (SciA1698)
The ever vigilant Gustavus, (...) attackd the Enem y with his Land
Forces, set fire to, and destroyd several Vessels of the Enemy, ...
(MscB1739)
And therefore, for these reasons, they Voted farther, that the
Prisoners should be set at Liberty without paying any Fees, or
Charges, ... (PolA1668)

Run, on the other hand, was a more unexpected candidate. However, it

occurs only in four combinations altogether, i.e. run a risk, run the hazard
of, run the adventure of, run to ruin, the first three of which are basically
synonymous. Also, even common verbs usually have a preference for one or
the other type, even if they occur in more than one; put, for instance, is
typical of Group III and only incidentally and marginally also occurs in
the others. Ten verbs are found in two groups simultaneously; these are do,
cast, get, give, have, lay, make, render (Group I + II), and bring, keep
(Group I + III).

122

Patterns of the Past

Table 6.5: Verbs in verbo-nominal combinations (tokens)

make
Take
Give
Have
Put
Do
Be
Set
Lay
Beg
Call
Stand
Crave
Run
See
Bring
return
Find
Get
Come
Lose
render
Cast
Keep
Bear
Reap
Catch
Draw
Pass
Pay
pick
receive
Wage

Group I
250
231
249
66
1
90

Group II
280
247
87
77
34
2

7
2
31

3
30

Group III
13

75
50
28

21
16
13
5
13
1
8
1

1
11

7
6
5

2
1
1
2
2

4
2
2
2

1
1
1
1
1
1
1

total verb
530
491
336
143
110
92
50
38
32
31
21
16
13
13
13
12
8
7
7
5
4
4
3
3
2
2
1
1
1
1
1
1
1

Of the 19 verbs that occur only in one single group, seven also occur only
once ever which may mean that they are marginal for the pattern(s). The

Patterns of the Past 123

same probably goes for those occurring only twice. (57) exemplifies such a
singular occurrence:
(57)

And which [laws] have received many alterations (RelB1667)

This seems to be a variation on the variously documented make (an) alteration, in this case to achieve a passive sense (cf. also the passive meaning in
(59) below). Similarly catch hold of is a probably more expressive
variant of the more common lay (also: take) hold of.
Looking at the verbs as such, quite many are familiar from the four
other patterns discussed above, but some are unique to the verbo -nominal
groups. The most important among these are have (Groups I (59) + II (58))
and be (Group III) (60, 61), which from their syntactic and semantic makeup are more or less predestined for this type rather than any other 7, and
which contribute a sizeable amount of tokens.
(58)
(59)
(60)
(61)

Certainly he that Claims by an Abstract, had need of a very good

Counsel at his Elbow, to give him sound and uncontroulable Advice,
in drawing it up; (LawA1694)
The Labours of no Adversary hath had more grateful Acceptance in
the Thoughts of your Reverend Author J. Faldo, then a noted
Socinian, ... (RelB1674)
Least of all am I in love with this Notion of thrift, being rendred so
necessary even to our subsistence: (EcA1668)
... the influence of the last Comet we beheld in 1618. which is now
strongly in operation in all or most places of this Kingdome;
(SciA1644)

The remaining unique verbs to this pattern are crave, lose, reap, receive,
render, and wage.
As to combination with how many nouns, numerous verbs are
attached to only one noun, with Group I having the highest instance of those.
Modestly productive in that respect are get (6 nouns), lay (6), bring (6), set
(7), as well as do (15). Really high combinatory flexibility is only reached by
very few verbs, however. Those are put (I: 1, II: 5, III: 13), have (I: 19, II:
16), take (I: 27, II: 17, III: 2), give (I: 40, II: 14), and especially make (I: 68,
II: 33).8 Once again, and not surprisingly, these are the very common, multi functional ones, that have played such a prominent part in this section.

Remember, however, that be was specifically excluded by me from the other types,
for reasons given in chap.4.
8
There might be some minor overlaps between the groups, especially I and II, cf. the
occurrence of take care (of) in both of these.

124

Patterns of the Past

The following table summarizes some aspects verb frequency and

origin of the foregoing discussion in tabulary format:
Table 6.6: Number of verbs (types) occurring in multi-word verbs
All verbs Native verbs
Phrasal verbs
Prepositional verbs
Phrasal-prepositional verbs
Verb-adjective combinations
Verbo-nominal combinations
Group I
Group II
Group III

326
160
20
22
33
25
16
10

203
53
17
19
25
19
13
10

Romance
verbs9
105
107
3
3
8
6
3
-

6.2.2 The Non-verbal Elements

This is the area where multi-word verb types differ, making use of everything
from rather empty elements to semantically ve ry specific items which
goes together with the varying functions of the verbal parts treated above.
While these elements in themselves are more or less unlike each other, it is
nevertheless interesting to look for possible common features inherent in
them or in their function. One of these items, namely a preposition, is found
in most, i.e. four of the five types, though with different weight or
prominence.
Phrasal verbs
Phrasal verbs in the Lampeter Corpus use the following 24 particles
as formative elements:
about, along, apart, ashore, aside, asunder, away, back, behind, by,
counter, down, forth, home, in, off, on, out, over, through, to,
together, under, up.
Castillo (1994:439) gives a list of 43 particles she found in Shakespeare, i.e.
considerably more than in the present data:
abed, aboard, about, abroad, across, after, again, aground, aloft,
along, aloof, apart, ashore, aside, asunder, away, back, before,
9

"Romance" is here to be strictly understood as etymological origin, regardless of

degree of assimilation.

Patterns of the Past 125

behind, by, by and by, down, forth, forward, home, home and home,
in, off, on, out, over, overboard, over and over, round, round about,
through, through and through, to, together, toward, up, up and down,
upon.
I have underlined those 21 of her items that do not occur in the Lampeter
material. Some of her particles seem somewhat unusual to me, but, given
Shakespeares extraordinary linguistic inventiveness, it is of course possible
that he did use them in a phrasal verb context. This also means that his usage
need not necessarily reflect the everyday use of phrasal verbs at his time, and
that therefore not all of these listed particles were common or used at all by
other speakers. Thus, it is probably not advisable to assume a decline in pro ductivity in between Shakespeare and the Lampeter Corpus period on this
basis. At any rate, I would certainly want to exclude the coordinated particles
(p and p), which pose a definition problem; this would reduce Castillos list
by five to 38 particles.
In order to compare the Lampeter set of particles with those found in
PDE, the LOB corpus can be examined. According to Johansson & Hofland
(1984:370-376), the following twenty particles (i.e. RP-tags) are found there:
about, across, along, around, aside, away, back, behind, by, down,
forth, in, off, on, out, over, past, round, through, up.10
Again, I have underlined those that are not found in the Lampeter Corpus.
Vice versa, there are also eight particles which are used in the latter, but ap parently not in LOB; these are apart, ashore, asunder, counter, home, to,
together, and under. Their non-occurrence in LOB could of course simply be
due to sampling procedures, e.g. ashore is most common in nautical
contexts, and if there are no texts about that thematic area, it is not very
likely to occur at all. Thus, I had a look at the list of particles given in Cowie
& Mackins Dictionary (1975:lxxx), which consists of 56 items. 11 Most of
the missing particles are indeed found there, so that one can assume that they
are in use in PDE, even though perhaps not very frequently. This leaves two
particles as apparently typical of the Lampeter Corpus, or rather of EModE,
as they were also found in Shakespeare by Castillo, namely ashore and
asunder.

10

Excluding inside and outside, as explained in chap.5 above.

I do not want to analyze or even comment on the whole list, but it does seem
somewhat over-inclusive, e.g. I find items such as alongside, backwards, underground,
or upstairs ill-placed in a phrasal verb context. Without a particle index it is, however,
very hard to find the combinations based on them in the dictionary, and thus to assess
their status.
11

126

Patterns of the Past

Figures 6.1 and 6.2 give an overview of the absolute and relative fre quencies of all particles found in the Lampeter Corpus and in LOB. Remembering that the overall frequency of phrasal verbs in LOB is more than
double
up

992

out

932

down

427
356

off
away

335

in

323

on

254

forth

196

together

96

over

94

back

84

about

62

aside

47

by

23

along

13

asunder

10

under

ashore

to

apart

through

behind

home

counter

Figure 6.1: Phrasal verb particles in the Lampeter Corpus (tokens) 12

12

For comparison, Hiltunen (1994:135) in his study of the Helsinki Corpus finds three
groupings of particles in EModE: 1. back, off, forth (with a frequency of less than
100), 2. down, away (over 100), 3. out, up (over 200).

Patterns of the Past 127

that of the Lampeter Corpus, the absolute figures need to be supplemented
by percentages. In both corpora, the two most frequent particles produce
45% of all phrasal verb combinations, and the five most common particles
make up about 70% of all. This more or less marginalizes many of the
remaining particles.
out

2029

up

1754

back

740

on

724

down

706

away

539

in

482

off

431

over

362
179

about
round

138

through

90

around

86

along

71

by

52

behind

43

aside

38

across

34

past

20

forth

18

Figure 6.2: Phrasal verb particles in the LOB corpus (tokens)

Between then and now there have obviously been shifts in the importance of
individual particles. The top eight particles in both corpora are almost the

128

Patterns of the Past

same, with one exception: forth, no. 8 in EModE, has fallen to the very last
position in PDE, whereas back has shot up to rank 3 (from 10 in the earlier
period). Interestingly, they are semantic op posites, but that need not mean
anything. Forth is a victim of linguistic fashion, so to speak; it is nowadays
perceived as archaic and/or formal. According to the OED (s.v. forth) it was
already "[c]riticized as obsolete by Gray in [a] letter to Dr. Beattie 8 Mar.
1771", so that the decline of forth does not seem to be a PDE phenomenon.
While forth in EModE combined with a whole number of different verbs
(e.g. examples (62-63), also break, call, deliver, draw, give, hold, issue, put,
send, set, take etc.), it only occurs in combination with set in LOB.
(62)
(63)

My Lord that man hath sworn I was out on Tuesday, it was Wednes day before I came forth, but staid at home with my wife, because I
would not be among them. (LawA1668)
... he brought forth several very pretty Pieces, with which he
frequently entertaind his Friends in private, ... (MscB1729)

In many cases forth has been replaced by other particles, e.g. out. It is not
quite clear why back has increased so much. Looking at the verbs it
associates with there are a few more types in LOB than in the Lampeter
Corpus, but, in general, they are very much the same kind of verbs, e.g.
bring, give, come, fall, look, turn etc., and they are used in the same ways in
both corpora. It is thus obviously not a question of functional extension.
Denison (p.c.) suggested that the rise of back might be correlated with the
decline of again, i.e. a reason outside the phrasal verb pattern proper.
Although an interesting question, it will for reasons of space not be followed
up here.
As a whole, the greater or lesser use of particles is not something that
lends itself to explanation by general reasons; it is rather due to the changing
preferences for individual words, be it verbs or particles, and thus not very
systematic. Therefore, I will leave these two diagrams now, with one last
remark, however, namely the indication that together has apparently not always been the marginal particle it is today. All the particles that occur in rea sonable numbers at all are also very versatile, combining with many different
of the 326 verbs.
Prepositional verbs
Not surprisingly, the set of prepositions as parts of prepositional verbs
is somewhat smaller than the phrasal particle class, consisting of fifteen
items. From among about, after, at, by, for, from, in, into, of, on/upon, over,

Patterns of the Past 129

through, to/unto, under, and with, the underlined ones13 are also found as
adverbial particles in phrasal verbs. Some of those even occur with the same
verbs in both paradigms, as the following four sample sentences show:
(64)
(65)
(66)
(67)

Surely therefore every Man that hath a good Title, and can possibly
come by the Deed or Evidence by which he Claims it, will Inroll his
Deed at large, ... (LawA1694)
That, replyd my Mother, could not be, for there was none came by at
that time, ... (MscA1696)
It were endless in this to run through the several ages before and until
Luther, God having then in those former times discovered Antichrist
to some here and there; (RelA1679)
Rebeccah Niccols, who also was by, swore, That Watson, when he
came in, run him down into a Chair, and the other run him through.
(LawB1678)

This of course poses the problem, mentioned in chapter 4, of distinguishing

the two types. The prepositional verbs in (64) and (66) are obligatorily fol lowed by their respective objects (deed/evidence; several ages), as the
preposition, however close the connection to the verb (cf. come by), needs
the rest of the prepositional phrase for syntactic completion. The intransitive
combination in (65) therefore must be a phrasal verb; for the above rea son
there are no intransitive prepositional verbs. (67) can only be a phrasal verb
because of the obligatory placement of the pronominal object between run
and through, something that is not possible (with any object) in the case of
prepositional verbs. While (65) and (67) based on the data alone leave no
doubt as to the classification, instances such as (64) and (66) need some
intuition as to whether mid-placement of the object would be possible or not.
All the prepositions, except for under, are found in the corpus with a
number of different verbs, the most versatile one being on/upon attaching
itself to 44 verbs, followed by to/unto (28), of, at (26), and with (24). Some
of the prepositions seem to have prefer ences as to which kinds of verbs they
combine with, e.g. about and through only occur with native verbs, while by
apparently has a restriction to verbs of a certain semantic area, that of "+/ motion" (come, go, pass, stand), regardless of whether the resultant meaning
is transferred or not. The more (concrete) semantic content the prepositions
contain, such as the three just mention ed (also: after, from, into, over), the
fewer verbs they combine with and the more selective they are. Prepositional
verbs with these prepositions tend to be closest to phrasal verbs in style and
in semantics. The prominent on/upon is found with very different kinds of
13

Of might have been underlined as well, as the two forms of and off were not quite
clearly separated in the Lampeter Corpus period, as some spellings in the corpus show.

130

Patterns of the Past

verbs, on the one hand with the expected ones with rather empty/functional
use of preposition, such as depend on, rely on, also (68), and, on the other
hand, with (mostly) native ones producing a transferred or idio matic
meaning, e.g. call on, take on, and (69). Furthermore, it is found in contexts
where it is a variation on another preposition, e.g. treat on (> of), center on
(> in), also (70a,b) indicating that the range of on was wider then.
(68)
(69)

We might have insisted upon having our King obliged to reside as

much amongst us as amongst them: (PolA1699)
I am perswaded you would look upon me as an Injurious Person in so
doing; (RelB1674)

(70a) That no succour or relief in any probable wise could be hoped for.
(LawA1643)
(70b) That whereas Sir Iohn Rainenam K. hath the Licenses for Cornwall
and Devon. it is very fit for you likewise take it in, which may bee
easily done, and hope on reasonable tearmes, ... (EcA1641)
Phrasal-prepositional verbs
The phrasal-prepositional verbs found in the Lampeter Corpus make
use of sub-sections only of the sets of particles and prepositions listed above,
namely of eleven of the former (along, away, back, counter, down, in, off,
out, over, through, up), and six of the latter (by, for, into, on/upon, to, with).
As these combinations are not very systematic in the first place, it would be
futile to try to comment on this particular selection of ele ments. The statement that every word has its own history is very appropriate here even if
they are not words in the usual sense, and even if some of them, being nonce
formations, strictly speaking have no history.
Verb-adjective combinations
Proceeding now to verb-adjective and verbo-nominal combinations,
we come to those elements that, unlike particles and prepositions, are
members of the open lexical classes. They are thus semantically much more
complex than the above, which, however, also makes their combinatory
behaviour less flexible.
The verb-adjective combinations sampled contain twenty-four adjectives, two of which are participles used adjectivally (known, rid). All those
adjectives are common, every-day items (with the exception of void), which
are also short, i.e. monosyllabic or, less frequently, disyllabic ( easy, merry,
open, weary). The native element predominates with eighteen or nineteen
(depending on the origin of fit) words. Many of these adjectives, in addition
to the two participial forms, can be connected to a verbal form, which goes

Patterns of the Past 131

together well with the fact that they carry a large, if not the main part of the
meaning of these combinations. Some have not only the identical form of the
verb, but also the same meaning, for instance break/force/set etc. open open v., make free - free v., also:
(71)
(72)

On the other side, she, having smelt his Plot, begins to grow weary of
him, and plies the Countermine, ... (MscA1650)
She now wearied of passing all her time by herself, and sighed for the
comfort of society. (OED s.v. weary v., 1782 F. Burney Cecilia ii. iv)

Others, while being formally identical, do not quite match semantically; thus
get clear (of), make clear do not conform with the simplex verb clear. However, make clear is very close to the phrasal verb clear up, with make and up
fulfilling similar functions towards clear in both combinations. Also, the
sense carried by clear in both (73) and (74) is almost the same:
(73)
(74)

... he got clear of the Danish Dominions, and arrivd safe at Lubeck.
(MscB1739)
Tis undoubtedly a great Detriment to the Trade of this Nation, to
suffer Ships to sail from the Plantations to the Straits, &c. and return
again, without being obliged first to come home, and to clear out from
hence for the Plantations. (EcA1720)

Other adjectives have related verbs, e.g. (make) easy - ease, (make) sure ensure.
Eight of the adjectives combine with more than one verb, usually with
little or no change of meaning, as it is usually the adjectives that carry most
of the meaning, anyway. An exception here is hold good vs. make good,
where two different meanings are involved. Most of those eight adjectives
are also the numerically frequent ones, e.g. ~ fit (121 instances), ~ good (49),
~ open (29), and ~ short (23). In the latter case, the change of verb is
definitely immaterial; there is no difference to be made out between come or
fall short.
Prepositions also play a role in verb-adjective combinations; eleven of
the 47 types found have one attached to them. These are make bold with*,
get clear of*, fall foul of/upon, make free with, make light of, lay o.s. open
to(*), get rid of, come short of*, fall short of*, make sure of* , and grow
weary of. The variation in the prepositional element of fall foul (without
semantic differentiation), while not very common, is found in some
prepositional and verbo-nominal combinations as well. The starred items
also have counterparts without a preposition (in the case of lay open also
without the reflexive pronoun), which I have counted as separate types because there are different shades of meaning involved, even if they are ve ry
subtle.

132

Patterns of the Past

(75)

This we know to be Law, Rex habet superiorem, Deum & Legem,

etiam & Curiam, and so says the same Author; and truly Sir, he makes
bold to go a little further, Debent ei ponere frnum, They ought to
bridle him pag. 65. (PolA1684)
He indeed did take them, but he thought they had been his Wives, for
they were in her Lodging, who was then newly come from Service;
and he thought he might make bold with them, being hers, and sold
them to the other Prisoners. (LawB1678)

(76)

(77)
(78)

And therefore you that are rich had need double your diligence to
make your calling and election sure. (MscB1658)
Gravener, he that is Commissary to my Lady Fairfax; who hath
pawned his Commission for another couple of Flanders horses, to
make sure of Mistris Luson: (MscA1650)

The meaning in (75) is roughly "dare, have the courage", which is still
present in the background in (76), but the meaning there is wider, it is rather
the resultant action following or based on the feeling of courage. The
meanings in (77) and (78) are extremely similar, but somehow one feels that
in (78) there are more and different connotations involved. There fore, they
have been kept separate.
Verbo-nominal combinations
It is the last of the multi-word verbs groups, the verbo-nominal
combinations, where variety in the non-verbal elements is greatest. Split up
by groups the situation is as follows: Group I contains as many as 154
different nouns, Group II is also going strong with 84 items, and Group III
yields another 35. However, the total number for verbo-nominal
combinations as a whole is not the simple sum of these figures, because
some nouns occur in two or even all three groups; the real total is therefore
241 nouns14 for all verbo-nominal combinations. Nouns as a general rule
occur in combination with only one verb, combinations with two are not very
common, with three are very rare, and association with more than three is
definitely exceptional. In cases where there is verbal variation the verbs are
often (quasi-)synonyms of each other, e.g. give/render an account, put/lay a
restraint upon, i.e. it is actually no real variation. Thus, the difference
between the following three instances is not (denotative) meaning which
is mostly carried by leave, anyway , but rather varying degrees of
politeness:

14

This means that 32 nouns occur in two (e.g. account, end, doubt, part, question) or
some few even in all three (e.g. fire, stop) groups.

Patterns of the Past 133

(79)
(80)
(81)

... so that I must take leave to say, That in Cases where the matter is
dubious, both Lawyers and Divines prescribe rather favour than
rigour; (LawA1680)
I must now crave leave to attempt the recommendation of our duty;
(RelA1682)
I shall only beg Leave to add One Observation, that (...) is but too
well known to that Right Reverend Bench: (LawB1723)

Alternatively, the verbs can be so devoid of independent meaning that the

variation does not matter either, as in give/make (an) answer, have/take (a)
care of. Another possible reason for verbal variation is to achieve the effect
otherwise obtained by using the simplex verb in the active or passive voice,
e.g. give/receive (an) alteration , or also transitive vs. transitive use, e.g.
bring/come to light. (82,83) illustrate both these points:
(82)
(83)

the Court of Chancery, will much call the Judgment of this Nation in
question, to be out-witted by a generation of Lawyers, ... (LawA1653)
but in the point of the Dispensation they all agreed, or else that other
point could never have come in question. (LawB1688)

In one case at least, that of get/lose sight of, the variation is parallel to affirmative versus negated use of a simplex verb. The transitive/intransitive
and active/passive pairs mean that these combinations provide lexical
alternatives to syntactic structures, leaving the author to make his choice
between the two possibilities. As far as I can see, none of the nouns used in
these combinations would preclude this kind of variability.
What is even more important than the way the nouns combine with
verbs is the character of the nouns themselves, i.e. their morphological status
and their etymology. The first of these is the more crucial question, and will
therefore be dealt with first. Many linguists (e.g. Stein 1991, Algeo 1995,
Prince 1972, Wierzbicka 1982) have restricted this type or at least regarded it as the core to cases in which the nominal part is a zeroderivation of or formally identical with the corresponding verb. I prefer to
speak simply of formal identity, as the direction of the derivational proc ess
(verb > noun, noun > verb), or perhaps even the fact of derivation as such
might not always be clear. Looking at Table 6.7 it is indeed true that the
majority of the nouns can be connected to an identical verb, but the
dominance of this type is by no means as pronounced as one might have
expected.

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Patterns of the Past

Table 6.7: Nouns in verbo-nominal combinations: morphology (types)

Group I
Group II
Group III

identical verb
75
56
18

derivation
67
23
13

non-related
12
5
4

total
154
84
35

Group I especially features a nearly equal number of nouns which are morphologically explicit derivations of a verb (or vice versa), usually possessing
an unambiguous nominal suffix. Furthermore, there is a third type of noun in
these combinations, namely those that are not at all related to a verb, but for mally or semantically independent. With regard to the first, and to a lesser
degree also the second kind of noun, the question arises of how strictly semantic equivalence should be interpreted. In my opinion, there need not be a
complete semantic match, which might even be prevented by the influence of
the differing syntactic uses (cf. examples (85, 86) below), but noun and verb
should share a considerable amount of specific semantic features. This
means that the test of substituting the simplex for the multi -word verb would
not always work, and is not regarded as decisive by me.
In the case of noun/identical verb, it is especially important to have
the EModE situation in mind. I would not, for example, have automatically
thought of advantage as both a noun and a verb from the PDE perspective,
but it seems to have been not uncommon as a verb in the past, whereas the
OED does not list a single verbal instance from the 20th century (calling it
obsolete). Simplex and multi-word use of advantage in the Lampeter Corpus
is exemplified in the following two sentences:
(84)
(85)

... though each particular shall be advantaged as well as the whole

body, yet it will not be indeavored as far as I am able to see into mens
minds or practices (EcB1653)
... the young Woman pulld off her shoe to ease her foot, and the Prisoner took advantage of it, and ran away; (LawB1678)

Period, essay, and testimony as verbs are similar cases (cf. OED). On the
other hand, verbal forms that are normal today might not necessarily have
been so in the past. The verb notice, for instance, was not very common before the middle of the 18th century, but the OED lists a sufficient number of
examples to accept it as a verbal form for the EModE period. The Lampeter
Corpus yielded one verbal instance (86), which is here contrasted with its
multi-word counterpart (87).

Patterns of the Past 135

(86)

(87)

... and yet all, (...) to agree to Admiration, as much as when any one
Question in Trigonometry may be wrought many several ways, and by
several Datums, and yet all to agree, with so little Difference as is not
to be noticd. (SciA1709)
For being dressd a little cleaner than ordinary, and the Duke
happening to be behind the Scenes, could not help taking Notice of it.
(MscB1729)

In general, forms to be accepted as verbal should be documented by a

sensible number of instances in the OED; thus, cognizance, for which the
OED gives the single instance of (88), and which was also not to be found in
the Lampeter Corpus, was not accepted as a verb, and therefore the noun
cognizance belongs in the category "non-related".
(88)

Why the Emperour made choyse of the Westerne Bishops to

cognisans the cause. (OED, 1642 Heylin Hist. Episcopie (1657) i.
417)

In contrast to some of the above, sometimes verbs come to mind that did not
exist in EModE. A somewhat exotic example is best v. (in the context of the
multi-word verb make the best of), which the OED documents only from the
19th century. Like the previous example best therefore joined the non-related
class. But of course there were also many cases, of which (89-91) are some
few examples, where the attribution to the first class of noun (identical verb)
was not at all ambiguous and thus unproblematic.
(89)
(90)
(91)

... and yet the Author is of Opinion, Page the 11th. that no Wisdom
can give the Publick effectual help till we can mend the Condition and
Posture of Trade. (EcA1697)
All I shall do, shall be to take thence the Questions which I just now
made mention of, and to speak to them in the best Manner I can, ...
(PolB1724)
... when broken in many set battels by Belisarius and Narses, Lieuten ants for the Emperour Justinian, their Kingdome and name there came
unto an end. (SciB1652)

The second kind of noun, i.e. one clearly related to a verb, but distin guished by formal nominal features, did not pose any significant problems.
Common cases are those with obvious nominal endings or suffixes, such as
appearance, description, examination, inference, payment, necessity , or
pleasure. Others are less systematically (from the PDE perspective), but ne vertheless clearly derivationally related to a verb, e.g. choice, complaint,
descent, thought, trial, or death. Nouns which actually are identical to a
verb, but occur obligatorily in the plural in verbo-nominal combinations (e.g.

136

Patterns of the Past

amends, pains, thanks), were also put into this second group. Some examples
for this class are:
(92)
(93)
(94)

He will not deny that he was there, but he made no resistance at all:
(LawA1668)
How he could repose so much Confidence in a meer Stranger; and
after his Daughter had been so long married to him, to make no
Inquiry into him all this while? (MscB1692)
The Fathers shall not be put to Death for the Children, nor the
Children for the Fathers: (RelB1730)

The last group of nouns are those that bear no obvious relation to a
verb, i.e. there is no formally related verb, or the semantic distance between
noun and verb is too great. Most of these cases are a bsolutely clear, such as
ear, eye, foot, liberty, peace, way, or most, but some might be open to
debate. For example, I have regarded the nouns in (95, 96) as completely
independent of part v. and place v., as they are semantically too far removed.
(95)

(96)

[he] is guilty not onely of his own evils, but whatsoever in others are
thereby occasioned, either in those that take part in this tyranny, or in
the struglings of the people sensible of their oppression, and laboring
for relief. (LawB1659)
First, He may be assurd, if the Inoculation takes Place, of the Time
when he shall have the Small Pox. (SciB1722)

The noun in have recourse to is a similar case. Also, I felt that loss in be at a
loss cannot necessarily be connected to lose v. any more.
The other point of interest with regard to the nouns hinted at above is
their etymology which is not unconnected to the formal characteristics
just discussed. One would expect that those nouns with a typically nominal
suffix are of foreign, i.e. usually Romance, origin. And this is indeed the
case, but additionally many of the other noun types also contain a high
percentage of Romance nouns. In all three groups, there is a prepon derance
of originally foreign words, as Table 6.8 shows, very heavy with nearly 80%
of all in Groups I and II, and still reaching 57% in Group III. Of course,
many of those are on the same or a similar level to the native elements, as re gards linguistic integration, e.g. escape, order, prisoner, doubt, use, surprise.

Patterns of the Past 137

Table 6.8: Nouns in verbo-nominal combinations: etymology (types)

Group I
Group II
Group III

native
32
16
15

Romance
120
66
20

total 15
152
84
35

But with words like consternation, necessity, subjection, signification,

cognizance, countenance, exception, compensation the question arises in
how far they still belonged to the less integrated, hard word section of the
language at the time of Lampeter Corpus. It is components like these that
stylistically split the type of verbo -nominal combinations into two camps,
and also somewhat set off the type as a whole from the other four. In this
respect at least the category cannot be unreservedly treated as a unit.
Live (1973) also took a wider than usual perspective on the nominal
part, moreover documenting her instances, and a comparison with her data
yields a surprising amount of correspondences. Thus, the EModE situation
as documented by the Lampeter Corpus is not that much different from that
found in PDE. Even Lampeter instances which I would have instinctively
rated as typical of the past, crop up in Lives lists, e.g. have/make/give application, make atonement, have/make entrance, have speech, have/make dis turbance, take/give heed which latter, interestingly, vanishes completely
after the first fifty years in the Lampeter Corpus. But today these examples
sound formal and/or archaic, while they seem to have been neutral in the
17th and 18th centuries.
Besides the nouns, other non-verbal elements play a role in verbonominal combinations, as well. Many of the prototypical PDE types, such as
take a walk, give a shout, have been lexicalized with an obligatory indefinite
article. On the other hand, there are combinations like take place, give way,
which under no circumstances ever have an article. Thus, the question of the
article is important for determining the base form of the multi -word
combination in question. However, the decision article vs. zero is not as easy
as it sounds, and this is why a considerable number of types in the appendix
lists feature articles in brackets or with a question mark. Because of this
uncertainty, I will not give any frequency figures here, but the majority of
types seem to prefer the zero-article form which goes contrary to PDE
expectations. Hiltunen (in Brinton/Akimoto 1999) called the article-less
15

The sum of native and Romance does not necessarily agree with the overall total of
nouns, because some have an unclear or mixed etymology, and were therefore not
allocated to any group, but left out of consideration.

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Patterns of the Past

combination the historically older type. The lack of an article may have to do
with the fact that many of the nouns are of an abstract nature (e.g. delight,
leave [= permission], offence, protection etc.), or get a more abstract, or
generalized interpretation when used in a verbal meaning (e.g. battle,
election, gain, order etc.). In spite of the abstract nature of variation, there is
nevertheless an article present in (97), so that this can not be regarded as a
general rule.
(97)

... whereas for the most part elswhere it swerveth, or maketh a Variation from the true Meridian towards the East, or West, ... (SciB1649)

Of course, one could also argue that a (verbal) action or event turns the noun
into something more specific and thus also more concrete (cf. also examples
101-103 below).
Also, the same noun can occur once with and once without an accompanying article, in the following sentences apparently depending on the
verbal part of the combination and perhaps also on the overall meaning?
(98)

And therefore you have good encouragement for further search; in

doing whereof, be pleased to cast an eye upon these following considerations. (LawB1659)
(99) That their Tutours be desired to have a special eye upon them, as to
their godlinesse, ... (MscB1658)
(100) ... a Haberdasher of small Wares passing by, and happening to set Eye
upon our Chapman, made bold to lay hands upon him, and carry him
off to the Cock in Amen corner; (MscB1692)
Due to the adjectival modification in (99) and because this is the only instance of this type it is not possible to be certain in this case, but I assume
it to be parallel to (98) in having obligatory an in the base form, in contrast
to (100) which has not. (101,102) pose the same problem as (99), but make
an alteration is established by occurrences such as (103), whereas give an?
alteration must remain an open question.
(101) ... as I have fully experimented by decocting two parts of the powders
with one of Sulphur in a proportionable quantity of Water, which gave
the water very little alteration, ...(SciA1676)
(102) whereas the Leaves of Oak made little or no alteration in the Water of
the Kings Bath, the Chips (...) make rather a better purple in the
Water of all the Baths, than the Galls; (SciB1676)
(103) ... and I was not willing to be at the trouble of making an Alteration in
them, having so little inclination to this barren Controversy, ...
(RelB1721)
The difference in verb here further produces a grammatical change, that of
transitive (101) vs. potentially intransitive (102,103) combination. But this

Patterns of the Past 139

generally does not seem to influence the presence or absence of the article.
The verb give, however, exhibits a tendency towards zero-article combinations; the only give-units that definitely have an indefinite article are the two
similar Group I items give an account, give a relation.
One combination with give takes an obligatory definite article, namely
give the lie to. There are five other items which also belong in this category
(make the best of, make the most of, have/get the start of, have the trial of ,
and (104)), all of which not surprisingly belong to Group II; their
definiteness makes further complementation necessary.
(104) ... there was little Prospect of getting the Mastery of them [=
diseases]: (SciA1730)
Some other combinations can take the definite article if the (syntactic) occa sion requires it, e.g. run a/the risk of, take (the) liberty . But on the whole, the
definite article in verbo-nominal combinations is a minority phenomenon.
The following examples illustrate typical combinations without any
article.
(105) He ownd he had had general Discourse with Pancier relating to a
Plot, ... (LawA1723)
(106) For example, They cannot design well unto his Majesty, who tell him,
That he must not make haste to conquer his Enemies, until he have
first screwd up his Prerogative; (PolB1689)
(107) ... the first Weapons, our just Fury can lay hold on, may certainly be
lawfully employed against that uncircumcised Philistin that oppresses
us. (PolB1659)
(108) That it is an extream Insolence to pretend to pass judgment on a
Bishop. (RelB1692)
Despite the modification, (105) is a clear case as it lacks the article even in
the modified construction. Group III combinations are also usually zero article units, with some few exceptions, such as end, stop (also with article in
Group II, cf. e.g. (109)), loss, amazement. In the following examples, the
article is an integral component of the unit, with (110) being a clear case, I
think, in spite of the modification.
(109) Now to put an end to all disputes of this kind, I have thought fit to
appeal to any understanding person, ... (SciB1676)
(110) A Presbyterian Lady too, that casts a sad looke with her eies for the
downfall of her Faction, ... (MscA1650)
(111) ... it must be reckond highly impolitick, as well as ungrateful, in our
Neighbours to treat us continually at such a rate, as if they had a mind
to bring us under subjection, ... (PolA1699)

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Patterns of the Past

(112) If the Marshall shall dismisse without Authority, any Prisoner

committed unto his charge, or suffer him to make an escape, he shall
be lyable to the same punishment due unto the dismissed or escaped
offendour. (LawA1643)
A question possibly connected to the presence or absence of an article con cerns the degree of institutionalization (cf. Bauer 1983) or even
lexicalization. It might be assumed that items without article have a more
unitary character than others, cf. for example take care (of), take notice of,
give ear, take part, make prize of, have regard to, make war etc. However,
some combinations with a very idiomatic flavour, such as be at a loss, put an
end to, run a/the risk, make a stand, contain an article, while some others
with zero-article do not make a very established impression, e.g. have
acceptance, take beginning, take inspection . It may be more a question of
chance in what form a particular combination happens to freeze.
Finally, the prepositions in verbo-nominal combinations need to be
mentioned. The predominant prepositions in verbo-nominal combinations
Group II are of, to, and, to a lesser extent, (up)on; if there is a final preposition in Group III combinations, it is, with one exception, of. Of is not surprising as it is the simplest way to connect two nouns (i.e. nominal part of
combination and whatever object/complement following) together, and to is
the usual preposition for dative objects. The other prepositions occurring, i.e.
against, for, into, in, and with, are, except for the latter, idiosyncratic to
single instances.
6.3 Semantic Patterns?
The interest here is not on the semantic structure of the combinations as a
whole, and whether there are any patterns in this respect. Lipka (1972) fol lowed this approach with regard to phrasal verbs with up and out, and even
with only these two particles involved he found ten possible semantic
patterns. Similarly, Wierzbicka (1982) tried to work out a semantic pattern
for verbo-nominal combinations of have + deverbal noun, as in Lipkas case
again a very restricted type, and found a semantic invariant
(subjective/experiential perspective, action/process limited in time and seen
as repeatable, no external goal), which, however, requires nine sub-types to
be fully explicatory. These two attempts shall suffice to indicate how

Patterns of the Past 141

unwieldy and moreover probably not very enlightening an extension of that
approach to all possible combinations would be.16
What I intend to do here is much more modest: it is simply to survey
the rough semantic characterizations of the verbs and other eleme nts forming
these combinations, in order to see which elements are more likely than
others to be found in multi-word verbs. I do not necessarily expect to find
patterns in the strict sense (thus the question mark in the chapter heading), as
the fact that there is a syntactic patterning along with certain (though limited)
morphological restrictions need not imply a corresponding system on the
semantic level, which is after all much more open. Nevertheless, perhaps
there are some tendencies to be found that are also valid across various
categories of multi-word verbs.
The procedure I will follow is the one used by, e.g., Hiltunen
(1983a:146) who sorted the verbs employed in OE and early ME phrasal
verbs into the following groups: verbs of existence (4%), of motion (29%),
of concrete activity (66%), and of mental activity (1%). Such an approach is
not only applicable to the verbs in phrasal verbs, but also to those in phrasal prepositional verbs and to the native ones amongst those in preposi tional
verbs, moreover to some verbs and all adjectives in verb-adjective combinations, and to the nouns in verbo-nominal combinations. That is, basically to
all elements that make an important contribution to the overall meaning.
When allocating these elements to different groups, it is important to use the
meaning of those items when not used in a multi-word verb, although this is
sometimes not easy, especially in the case of nouns. Elements of idiomatic
combinations are included in this procedure, as the semanti c shift only takes
place after combining.
Verbs in phrasal verbs from the present data yield a not dissimilar re sult from that reached by Hiltunen: as much as 78% are verbs of concrete
activity (e.g. carry, fill, lift, rake, trade ), 14% are made up of verbs of
motion or rest (e.g. climb, ride, step, stand), mental activity verbs (e.g. learn,
reckon) come to 3%, 4% are verbs relating to verbal ac tivity (e.g. call,
preach), whereas verbs of existence fall below 1%. Thus, the unwieldy group
of concrete activity verbs is even larger here than in Hiltunens data; attempts
to sort it into meaningful subgroups failed due to the great diversity within
this group. In a way, therefore, the outcome of this investigation is a non result, because it does not say anything in particular. The only thing it
indicates is that almost any English verb is semantically eligible for phrasal
verb formation, with only one exception: purely stative verbs do not occur.
16

However, in individual cases the semantic features of the combination as a whole

(including e.g. aktionsart meanings) may influence its being preferred over the simplex.
These cases will therefore be dealt with in chapter 9 below.

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Patterns of the Past

With regard to prepositional verbs, I have only included the native or

quasi-native verbs (i.e. those also used in Table 6.4 above), as it is only in
their case that the addition of a preposition is more than a simple syntactic
necessity, i.e. there is a choice. The result is as following: concrete activity
verbs are again the largest group with 56% (e.g. look, hunt, catch, play),
17% are mental activity verbs (e.g. believe, wonder, guess), verbs of motion
and rest (e.g. come, fall, enter) as well as those of verbal activity (e.g.
answer, talk, cry) make up 10% each, with 1% remaining for relational
verbs. Thus, as in the case of phrasal verbs, the verbs entering into
prepositional verbs are as a rule dynamic ones.
Not surprisingly, phrasal-prepositional verbs yield a very similar
picture to the two categories just treated. Of the twenty verbs occurring in
them, ten (50%) are of the type concrete activity (e.g. break, search), eight
(40%) denote either motion or rest (e.g. go, run, sit), and the remaining two
(call, live) represent verbal activity and existential verbs respectively.
As verb and adjective make a nearly equal semantic contribution to
the whole verb-adjective combination, both will be included in the
classification here. The verbs fall into the three groups 73% concrete activity
(e.g. cut, hold, throw), 18% motion or rest (e.g. turn, stand), and 9% mental
activity (judge, think). The adjectives make up two almost equally large
groups, one of abstract or mentally perceived state (e.g. fit, void, sure), and
one of concrete, i.e. visible etc. state (e.g. open, low, straight). In this case, it
may also be interesting to see whether there is any semantic trend in the
process of combining. There is only one correlation, in so far as mental
activity verbs only combine with adjectives of the abstract/mental group. The
other two verb groups combine with both kinds of adjectives, although with
the majority taken from the concrete group.
The semantic grouping of the nominal part of verbo-nominal
combinations proved to be the most complicated. The following
classification, tentative as it is, does not fit with the equally tentative one
given by Nickel (1978); should his semantic classes be a correct reflection of
the situation in PDE17, this could mean that there has been a change in
respect of which nominal elements enter into these combinations in between
EModE and PDE. A first, though small, class is the one where the noun
denotes an entity, be it concrete/visible (e.g. eye, prisoner, light) or
abstract/imaginary (e.g. mind). Another, even smaller class is made up by
17

To my knowledge, there is no PDE corpus-study dealing with the semantics of the

noun independent of the combination. Stein (1991) is concerned with the independent
semantic contributions of the verbs, whose complete semantic emptiness she denies;
without discussing them here in detail, I would agree with the points she makes in this
respect.

Patterns of the Past 143

nouns that are best described as denoting a state, e.g. peace, death, end,
liberty. The great majority of nouns describe ongoing activities or pro cesses,
which, however, are of varying nature and have been sorted into four groups.
The first of these are activities which are realized verbally, e.g. answer,
complaint, discourse, exclamation, mention, lie, shout, whisper . Secondly,
there are activities or processes which could be observed when taking place,
i.e. they are immediately visible, e.g. assault, execution, payment, quarrel,
search, return, stop. The third kind is more abstract in so far as the action
itself cannot be seen as such, but only perhaps its effects or concomitant cir cumstances; nouns such as advantage, benefit, cause, hazard, respect,
semblance, success belong to this class. The last group are activities taking
place within a person, so to speak, that is mental or emotional processes, e.g.
consideration, delight, doubt, intent, love, pleasure, pity, thought . The
division into these six quasi-semantic classes in the three groups (I, II, III) of
verbo-nominal combination is as following:
- entity (I: 8.5%, II: 6%, III: 11%),
- state (I: 4%, II: 8%, III: 17%),
- verbal activity (I: 20%, II: 8%, III: -),
- concrete activity (I: 35%, II: 33%, III: 29%),
- abstract activity (I: 24%, II: 33%, III: 6%),
- mental/emotional process (I: 8.5%, II: 11%, III: 34%).
While there is more or less agreement between the groups as regards entity
and concrete activity, there are more significant differences in the other
classes. In Group III, verbal activity is completely absent and abstract
activity is negligible, whereas mental/emotional process becomes more
prominent. The latter probably has to do with the fact that the prepositional
phrase structure lends itself better to the description of internal states. For all
three classes, the concrete and abstract activity segments together make up a
considerable part of the whole, thus linking them with the semantic make -up
of the other multi-word verbs.
Regarding the semantic prerequisites of items entering into multi word verbs, the opting for elements denoting concrete activity on the one
hand, and the relative avoidance of elements with stative content on the other
hand seem to be the only tendencies across the five categories. A subdivision of the large concrete activity groups would be desirable but proved
impossible with the present data. Two further approaches would be possible,
namely taking tokens into account as well, and sorting out all singular and
infrequent occurrences or analyzing separately the collocates of, say, have
vs. take in verbo-nominal combinations, or up vs. out in phrasal verbs etc. As
semantic analysis is not the primary aim of this study, I have, however,

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Patterns of the Past

refrained from following either approach and will leave it at what I have said
so far.
Although I have stated at the beginning of this section that I am not
interested here in the meaning of the combinations as a whole, I cannot leave
this point without saying something about idiomatic meaning in multi-word
verbs. It has been stated in other historically orientated studies of multi-word
verb items that the majority, even the great major ity, of all instances found
are literal (e.g. Hiltunen 1994). This generally also holds true for the present
set of data.
With regard to phrasal verbs, about 53% of all instances (tokens) are
used in an absolutely literal sense, i.e. actually only a narrow majority. The
remaining non-literal cases are not a compact group, however. Some are only
slightly removed from the literal meaning, and the connection to the latter is
immediately obvious, such as in (113, 114) those I have termed
transferred uses. They account for about 22% of all instances.
(113) If I were to draw up (If I could) a New Geographie of the Whole
Earth, This, or the like to this ought to prepare to the Description.
(SciB1649)
(114) Now so soon as the Whole-Sale-Men did perceive this, then he did all
he could to beat down the Weavers price, that so he might keep his
Countrey Chapmen. (EcA1681)
Other items are further removed from the literal and following the course of
the shift requires more complicated thinking, as in (115, 116) for example.
Those are the really idiomatic cases, which make up 25% of the whole. 18
(115) the utmost extent of their Husbands credit (...) being the only limit of
their Expence: otherwise Estates could not be so commonly blown up
without noise, ... (MscA1676)
(116) Thirdly, That if this proceeding fall out to be an invasion of property
(...) then I say every individual person will be interressed in the Fate
of this Cause. (PolB1674)
It is of course also possible for one and the same item to be used in two, or
even all three kinds of meaning.
Prepositional verbs in the Lampeter Corpus seem to have been less
prone to idiomaticization than phrasal verbs. Only 17% of all instances

18

My approach is similar (but probably not exactly identical in each individual

classification) to de la Cruzs (1972:114) postulation of two major types of semantic
development, namely (i) metaphorical or figurative changes, e.g. put s.b. out
(inconvenience), bring up (rear), and (ii) transferences of the type "part/whole",
"cause/effect" etc., e.g. look out (beware, be careful), look down on (despise).

Patterns of the Past 145

(again tokens) occur in an idiomatic meaning. However, if one takes only the
native group as the basis for calculation as this is the one predisposed
towards idiomaticization one reaches a figure of 32%.
(117) Considering how impatient all Mankind are when their prejudices are
looked into, I do not wonder to see you rail and rage at the rate you
do. (SciB1735)
(118) it is a most warm Dissuasive, not only to Physicians (...) not to
practise it at all; and consequently, to deprive them of all Possibility
of coming by Experience. (SciB1722)
(117, 118) belong to this group, with look being especially active in different
kinds of idiomatic combinations.
Phrasal-prepositional verbs are by definition (cf. chap.4) always used
in an idiomatic sense. However, some are more idiomatic than others, e.g.
fall in with is more opaque than call out for. Thus, the difference made with
regard to phrasal verbs of transferred versus completely idiomatic applies
here as well. It is especially the very obvious nonce mergers of phrasal and
prepositional patterns mentioned above that belong in the transferred
category. Also, some idiomatic cases have literal counterparts, for instance
come over to (literal, e.g. from France to England vs. idiomatic "change
sides"), but in contrast to the procedure with phrasal verbs these literal ones
have not been included in the data in this category.
The great majority of verb-adjective combinations are literal; this
goes especially for all cases in which both verb and adjective retain
independent meaning. Combinations with a final preposition are more prone
to idiomaticization than those without. About 34% of all instances are
idiomatic as such or are being used in that way, all of them still being rather
transparent, cf. the following examples.
(119) These things some may make light of, but the Prudent will consider.
(SciB1676)
(120) Do the Illiterate owe nothing to it? Whence have they the Scriptures
laid open to them in the Vulgar Tongue? (RelB1721)
As to verbo-nominal combinations, there are very few types or instances which can be considered in some way transferred or idiomatic. The
overwhelming trend to stay literal may have to do with the fact that the verbal part has to a large extent only a functional role so that the noun stays
dominant and retains its usual semantic content. In contrast to, e.g., phrasal
verbs, this category does on the whole not produce new meanings, thus completely new lexemes, but doubles up existing ones to produce stylistic or
other variants. Group II (with final preposition) seems to produce slightly
more idiomatic cases (122, 123) than Groups I (121) and III (124).

146

Patterns of the Past

(121) The Design of those, that first blew abroad that strang e and
improbable Rumour, was so obvious to all, (...) that I could not
imagine, any Persons of sound Understanding could possibly give Ear
to it: (RelB1692)
(122) Was it not the Fishing Trade gave rise to all your Wealth, ... ?
(EcB1700)
(123) Secondly, if he be, Whether it is lawful to do Justice upon him
without Solemnity, that is, to Kill him? (PolB1659)
(124) ... and I am at a Loss to think what Reason there can be for any new
Convention with that Court, ... (PolA1731)
Combinations with relatively concrete entities, such as (122) and also place,
eye, root, way, mind, light, foot, shipwrack etc., are of course ideal
candidates for idiomaticization. In (124), the idiomatic meaning is nicely
illustrated by the presence of the cruder synonym of "execute", n amely
"kill". All in all, idiomatic instances make up about 15% of all combinations
found in the corpus.
6.4 Syntactic Patterns
This section is devoted to grammatical features and transformations of multi word verbs, especially those that have been of interest in PDE discussions. It
needs to be examined in how far modern regularities apply to the past situa tion as well, and whether there were perhaps different rules at work then.
Some points in this section may be relevant to one particular type only, while
other processes will be found to be at work in several. Concepts, such as
transitivity or syntactic coordination with other verbal forms, are important
for all the five categories.
Transitivity
The question of whether a multi-word verb is transitive or intransitive
is a very fundamental one with consequences for the other features to be
looked at, as these often apply only to transitive combinations. Therefore,
transitivity will be looked at first. Three of the types under investigation here
are by definition (cf. chap.4) always transitive: those are prepositional verbs,
phrasal-prepositional verbs and Group II of verbo-nominal combinations.
The other types are mixed, and have to be looked at in more detail. Transitivity is not necessarily a simple either/or question, as some combinations
can be used both transitively and intransitively. Others are fixed in one or the
other mode, however. With phrasal verbs, 803 items were found in an
intransitive use, which comes to 18.8% of all phrasal verbs and th us, in
accordance with Frasers assumption mentioned in chapter 4, to a clear

Patterns of the Past 147

minority. With (125), it is the verb come as such which determines
intransitivity, while in the case of (126) a transitive use going together
with a different meaning is also imaginable, although it does not actually
occur in the corpus.
(125) My Lord that man hath sworn I was out on Tuesday, it was Wednes day before I came forth, but staid at home with my wife, because I
would not be among them. (LawA1668)
(126) ... when enormous crimes broke out, against which no Provision had
been made, Then a Law, as they thought, might declare the Nature of
such crimes and apply a proportioned Punishment to them;
(LawB1697)
The simplex break also has both possibilities of use. The same goes for live;
but when this latter is combined with the particle out it can only be used transitively.
(127) ... Men, who perhaps never saw Twenty, and had been well educated,
and of honest Parents, being cut of before they have livd out half
their Days. (EcB1731)
The class of verb-adjective combinations has even fewer intransitive
combinations; only eight types (15 tokens) are found in an intransitive use,
such as (128).
(128) Now although what I speak of before (...) will hold good in this Trade
also: (EcA1681)
Some of those also have transitive variants, e.g. get clear get clear of.
With a few of the transitive combinations the complementation is always
clausal, e.g. with make bold and with the ~ fit/~ meet instances, but very
rarely there is also an empty objectival it pres??ent, as in (129):
(129) Because we have thought it fit to defend our Neighbours in Flanders,
we must therefore presently march into the Empire, to defend there
some who are not our Neighbours, ... (PolA1672)
Verbo-nominal combinations of Group I are a special problem with
regard to transitivity, as was already mentioned in chapter 4. According to
the logic of the approach taken here, and especially with a view to the
treatment of Group II combinations, the item give an answer in (130) will
have to be regarded as intransitive but the matter is not quite that simple.
(130) We thought it our duty to give an answer in the just vindication of
those Noble Lords and Commons of the Committee of the Admiraltie,
... (MscB1646)

148

Patterns of the Past

(131) Your Petitioner being commanded by his Majesty to give Sir George
Downing an answer, I was necessitated to make a further Reply;
(LawB1661)
(132) I need not give a particular Answer to every one of these Authorities ;
(PolB1724)
On the syntactic surface, (130) is transitive, but the underlying semantics
point to an intransitive use. Consequently, (131, 132) are formally
ditransitive and semantically monotransitive. Comparing (130) and (133),
basically the same description applies, with the important difference,
however, that (133) is not expandable in any way parallel to (130) above
i.e. it is definitely semantically more intransitive than (130) is.
(133) My Lord, I shall make a Pause here, and stop going on farther in my
Discourse, ... (PolB1706)
But this is not mirrored in the surface structure. Evading the transi tive/intransitive distinction altogether by blurring it seems to me to be
one of the primary purposes of these particular items. Sorting transitive and
intransitive items apart in this group is therefore rather futile, and I have not
undertaken it. Suffice it to say that absolutely intransitive combinations like
(133) are not very common; examples are take beginning, take place, or the
pseudo-passive cases have acceptance, have (a) defeat. Group III verbonominal combinations are an easier case than the preceding one. Only a frac tion of this group is intransitive, which are basically those items formed with
the verbs be and come, but also take to flight. On the whole, no more than
about 8% of all the tokens in this group are intransitive.
While phrasal-prepositional verbs are always transitive, as mentioned
above, there remains the question of mono- or ditransitivity. The overwhelming majority of instances, such as look up to, run away with, are monotransitive. Items such as give N up to N and turn N over to N (5 instances) can be
ditransitive, while (135) is one of three examples for complex -transitive
combinations.
(134) this should Engage us to give up our selves to Him, as the only way to
be Saved from Sin and Death; (RelA1711)
(135) ... all the Family had given over Anne Thorn for dead. (MscA1712)
Position of the Object
Staying with transitive multi-word verbs for the moment, it is
foremost the question of the position(s) of the object(s) that is of interest.
Phrasal verbs, verb-adjective, and verbo-nominal combinations admit some

Patterns of the Past 149

variation in that respect. 19 It is phrasal verbs that have the clearest rules
with regard to object positions, namely in brief the fact that (as a rule)
nominal objects can either precede or follow the particle, while pronominal
objects must precede the particle (cf. chap.4). There are 332 pronominal
objects with phrasal verbs in the corpus, of which 319 (= 96%) indeed
intervene between verb and particle. 20 In thirteen cases, however, the
pronoun follows the particle 21 which is of course possible (in PDE) if
contrastive stress on the pronoun is intended. Contrastive stress is the reason
for the end position of the pronoun in (136):
(136) He will be sure to keep us down, lest we should pluck down him.
(PolB1659)
The contrast is between us (the people, the opponents of the government)
and him (Cromwell, the tyrant according to this text). The other twelve
instances are more ambiguous, or not to be interpreted in a contrastive way
at all. Furthermore, none of the others is a simple personal pronoun as in
(136), but they are reflexive pronouns, demonstrative pronouns, and
pronominal all. The following might be cases of special, (139) even of
contrastive, stress:
(137) Some people contending for one Image, others for another, gave occa sion, that the King tooke downe all. (RelA1642)
(138) So True is That Observation, Nothing can ruin the Church, but the
Church: Meaning by the Latter, Those of her Ministers, who either
openly oppose, or secretly undermine, both her temporal and spiritual
Interests. Setting aside That, we might securely bid Defiance to the
Powers of Darkness, to the Enemies of God and his Church;
(RelA1721)
(139) ... and farther, they make up that in a day, that the customed Tayler
doth not make up in four days at the least. (EcA1681)
In (140) and (141) I can see no emphasis at work. Reflexive pronouns are
also found in preceding position in other instances, but perhaps the fact that
it is still perceived as two words here makes a difference.
19

Also, in a restricted way, phrasal-prepositional verbs, but as all the relevant examples
have been mentioned in the discussion of transitivity, I will not discuss them again
when talking about objects.
20
The empty object it, which according to Rissanen (1999) is common with phrasal
verbs in particular (his examples: hold it out [Shakespeare], make it up [Middleton]),
was not found in the present data. Perhaps this usage was more connected to the
spoken language (cf. the origin of the examples).
21
For comparison, Castillo (1994:442f) found twenty cases of pronominal objects
following the particle in her Shakespeare corpus, i.e. about the same proportion of the
total as in the Lampeter Corpus material.

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Patterns of the Past

(140) Upon this account, I see tis high time to rowse up my self a little,
since the Philistins are so much upon me. (RelB1692)
(141) For, after a full beerglasse, she set down this too for a Maxim.
The Members ought, now Cavaliers are poore,
If they will share a Mistresse, pay the score. (MscA1650)
The postposed this in (141) functions like a lexical colon, introducing the
following maxim, which might have determined its positioning.
Only forty-two nominal objects are found in the position between
verb and particle, which comes to only 1.3% of all transitively used combinations.22 There is no empirical data on this question for PDE, but in spoken
English the pre-particle position seems to be rather common. However, the
length and complexity of the object noun phrase should always play a role.
The majority of the intervening objects are short, as in the following two in stances, and therefore to be regarded as quite normal.
(142) I had once intended to have supported many things in the following
papers by passages of this Writer, but they swelled so much beyond
what I designed, that I was forced to lay that thought aside;
(RelB1721)
(143) Let others raise Millions to end the War, we did it to carry the War
on. (PolA1711)
Nevertheless the order in (143) seems unusual from the modern perspective;
nowadays carry on is preferably not interrupted (cf. Cowie/Mackin 1975).
The following sentences represent the only cases where the object noun
phrase was somewhat longer in nature:
(144) His Father was indeed no better than the Gloucester Carrier; but
having scraped a pretty handsome Sum of Money together, by his own
Industry, and having but this one Son, he was resolved to breed him a
Gentleman, ... (MscB1729)
(145) My reason is, because without that supposition you can never bring
the quantity or expression nx n-1 + nn -n /2 ox n-2 + &c. down to nx
n-1, ... (SciB1735)
(146) ... and resolved at once to throw both the Mask and Scabbard aside,
... (PolB1730)
(147) ... he chased Captain Denton a Scarborough Man of War a shore,
which was then cast away; (MscB1646)

22

Among Hiltunens (1994:133f) 851 examples from the EModE Helsinki Corpus
about 30 cases have a nominal object intervening between verb and particle. In
Shakespeare, this sequence seems to be somewhat more common, as Castillo
(1994:444) found c. 718 instances of it.

Patterns of the Past 151

None of these noun phrases, while being rather long, is too complex for mid position. The only one that sounds really clumsy is the one in (145), which is
caused in particular by the presence of the mathematical formula. Probably
the attraction of to on down plays a role in the choice of this syntactic
ordering.
With some phrasal verbs, the position of the object is conventionally
fixed, i.e. cannot be shifted at will to pre- or post-particle position. This is
especially clearly to be seen in cases where the object has actually frozen as
a part of the phrasal verb idiom, such as cry ones eyes out, where the
sequence cry out ones eyes is not an option any more.
(148 ) [we] were in the very breach of the shore, the sight whereof caused a
great scrick in the ship, and thereupon brought our ship to, ...
(RelB1650)
(148) represents such an instance, in which the object, although it is not a
fixed part of the idiom, needs to be precede the particle (unless it is very long
or complex).
Before leaving the question of objects in phrasal verbs, there is a last
phenomenon to be mentioned, namely that of indirect objects intervening
between verb and particle, as in (149).
(149) That the India Goods Transported do not bring us in near the quantity
of Gold and Silver Exported to carry on that Trade: (EcA1697)
While these instances are rare (seven in the whole corpus), they are interest ing, among other things, because they are not common in PDE. Incidentally,
the direct object in (149) is an example of one too long and complex to be
able to appear in intervening position.
Although it has not received much attention so far, verb -adjective
combinations (without final prepositions) as a rule function very similar to
phrasal verbs with regard to objects. This means that, normally, pronominal
objects intervene between verb and adjec tive, as in (150, 151).
(150) ... all which are so palpable misapprehensions, as there needs no Endeavour to lay them open. (RelB1667)
(151) Sir Greenfield and others make this good. (SciA1644)
(152) All which (...) I must necessarily admit, acknowledge to be just and
legall by my voluntary payment of it, of purpose to maintaine an
Army to justify and make good all this, by the meer power of the
Sword; (LawB1649)
(152) is the only exception to this rule found in the corpus, which, however,
may not be an exception at all. All this sounds emphatic (in fact, the author
of that text is very emphatic throughout) , so that a variant of the contrastive

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Patterns of the Past

stress rule discussed above under phrasal verbs can apply here; moreover,
the coordination of make good with justify may play an additional role in the
word order used here. In contrast to pronouns, nominal objects ca n either
precede (153) or follow (154) the adjective.
(153) And therefore you that are rich had need double your diligence to
make your calling and election sure. (MscB1658)
(154) ... you shall hear the Evidence, and if we make good the Evidence,
you must find them guilty. (LawA1668)
Here it should be remembered that the verb-adjective combination preceding
a simple definite noun phrase as in (154) is an especially good proof of its
multi-word verb status (cf. chap.4). A very long and/or heavy noun phrase,
however, needs to be shifted to post-adjectival position. The few such noun
phrases that there are fulfil this condition (e.g. (155)), with the single excep tion of (156), which, especially because of the relative clause, would not be
possible in PDE.
(155) ... to endeavour all along to lay open what I take to be an important
Truth to us all at this time, and to support it by proper Evidence.
(EcA1705)
(156) Why, we are told, that the Dukes of Berry and Orleance will make the
Title, which they have acquired by this Renunciation of K. Philip ,
good by their own Interest and Force. (PolB1713)
As regards objects in verbo-nominal combinations, there are no such
group-defining rules discussed in the existing literature, but nevertheless
there is variation that does not look altogether irregular. This is clearest in
Group III, as it is a rather compact class.
(157) he freed the French King from his fears of Spain, inabled him to
subdue all Factions at home, and thereby to bring himself into a
condition of not standing in need of any of them, ... (PolA1668)
(158) ... an old Mistresse and a yong Saint; one whose proportion puts us in
mind of her Excellencies, ... (MscA1650)
In the case of final-preposition combinations, such as (157-158) above, the
positional order is fixed, i.e. the object must follow the preposition (cf.
prepositional verbs23), and any second object that may be possible, as in
(158), must intervene between the verb and the prepositional phrase. With all
other verbo-nominal combinations, the situation seems strikingly similar to
23

In fact, every combination that has a final preposition, i.e. phrasal-prepositional

verbs, some verb-adjective combinations and Group II verbo-nominal combinations,
behaves like prepositional verbs (with the exception that the first and the last
mentioned can have an additional intervening object).

Patterns of the Past 153

that found in phrasal verbs and verb-adjective combinations. (159), for
example, passes Bolingers simple noun phrase test familiar to both the
above categories:
(159) ... if you can carry away no more, yet be sure to Remember, and often
call to mind this Text: (RelA1711)
While this is the only Group III instance of this kind, others are not very far
removed in quality, such as (160,161), both of which are perfectly
imaginable with a shorter object noun phrase as well. It has to be admitted,
however, that in (161) the coordination structure (cf. below) will have had an
influence on the word order.
(160) Nay, after the most signal Appearances of God we are apt, like the
Israelites, to call in question the Divine Goodness and Power, ...
(RelA1696)
(161) ... and then tells us (pag. 6.) the Statute provides that all Persons,
Bodies Politick and Corporate, which then were or thence after should
be, should stand, and be disabled, to have use, or exercise, or put in
use any such Monopolies. (EcB1676)
Just as with phrasal verbs and verb-adjective combinations, the object phrase
may also come between verb and prepositional phrase (162, 163), unless it is
too long or complex, as in (164, 165).
(162) And after Scotland hath suffered the heat of the day and winters cold,
have forsaken their owne peace for love of their Brethren, have set
their own house on fire to quench theirs: (PolA1646)
(163) And I charge him that puts the Sentence in Execution, to do it effectually, ... (LawB1678)
(164) ... the Spaniard in the first place, who being enabled by the power of
his Indian Treasure, not onely to keep in subjection many goodly
States and Provinces in
Italy, the Low-Countries, and elsewhere,
... (EcB1641)
(165) it should be lawful for a man to kill another, that doth design, plot,
conspire; or that setteth on foot any thing that tendeth to the erecting
a Tyranny. (PolB1659)
Pronominal objects were always found preceding the prepositional phrase,
cf. (166), so that once again the phrasal verb rule applies here.
(166) ... that no one Person (...) may ever be deprived of the Pleasure or the
Profit of a Fruitful Garden, for want of Rules and Instructions, or of
knowing Times and Seasons when to put them in Practice.
(MscB1718)

154

Patterns of the Past

With the most common verbs in Group I combinations, make, take,

give, and have, one notices that there is variation of the object position only
in the case of give. While this may also partly be due to the kinds of noun
these verbs combine with, the reason lies mainly in the differences between
the verbs as such. Whereas make, take, and have can only take a direct
object, give can, but need not, both take a direct and an indirect object. This
may also explain why the former three are all at least slightly more common
in Group II, and especially why give is so much more prominent in Group I
(cf. Table 6.5 above). One-place verbs thus either have a tendency to occur
as semantically intransitive, or they make use of an optional preposition to
attach the usually single object of the whole combination:
(167) Campanellas Advice to King Phillip to make speedy payment of that
Debt. (PolB1674)
(168) ... Sir Robert VViseman, Sir VVilliam Turner, and Sir Timothy Baldwyn, made their report to his Majestie, ... (LawA1673)
Also, notice the difference between (169), where the water is an indirect object, and (170), where it is expressed as a prepositional phrase of place.
(169) ... as I have fully experimented by decocting two parts of the powders
with one of Sulphur in a proportionable quantity of Water, which gave
the water very little alteration, ...(SciB1676)
(170) ... the Leaves of Oak made little or no alteration in the Water of the
Kings Bath, ... (SciB1676)
While quite a number of give-combinations are found with internal objects,
as in (169) above, the majority of which are made up of pronominal objects,
such as give him battle (MscA1643), gave them three shouts (MscA1685),
this kind of object is exceedingly rare with other verbs. If it occurs at all, it is
usually with verbs that can be regarded as stand-ins for give, like render or
return in (171).
(171) But why should any be unwilling to return the King Thanks, I think it
is no more than what every one is obliged to; (RelB1687)
(172) But being her self a Woman of Principle, and naturally faithful to her
Trust, she could not forbear making him this Answer: (MscB1692)
Only three times and only with pronominal objects is this construction found
with make (172), not at all with take or have. It has already been mentioned
that with give the majority of internal objects are pronouns; in fact the latter
were not found as external, prepositional objects at all which again is
reminiscent of the phrasal verb rule. As to internal nominal objects, they are
always simple, mostly definite, noun phrases never exceeding two words,
e.g. your Honours, the World, the Publick. Long internal objects seem to be

Patterns of the Past 155

prohibited. Thus, there is some regularity in the treatment of objects in
Group I verbo-nominal combinations, even though the situation may not be
quite as fixed as with other types.
Intervening Elements: Modification and the like
Objects are one type of units that can interrupt the sequence of multi word verbs, but there are also other types, namely those that in some way
modify the non-verbal elements of the combinations. With phrasal verbs,
prepositional verbs, and phrasal-prepositional verbs, it is intervening adverbials. These, and additionally comparative structures, are of interest with
regard to verb-adjective combinations; in the case of verbo-nominal
combinations, it is modification of the nominal part, i.e. adjectives, negation
(as long as it is nominal) and also the noun occurring in the plural.
Intervening adverbials are of special interest, as their occurrence in
phrasal verbs has been seen as very restricted and as they are the only ele ments allowed to interrupt prepositional verbs (cf. chap.4). Indeed, there are
only twelve instances of adverbials in phrasal verbs in the whole corpus,
while 145 adverbials are found in prepositional verbs, which are less
restrictive in that respect. Quite in (173), as well as totally, entirely, all,
which also occur in phrasal verbs, serve an intensifying function and do not
seem completely out of place from a PDE perspective.
(173) No Doubt ont, Mr. Considerer; but you seem to think that you have
cut us quite down in what follows. (PolA1731)
(174) I knew not how to bring this more home, then by propounding a President for it in our Neighbors the Hollanders; (EcA1652)
(175) To help him therefore out, (...) may it not be an Instance, that if the
East-India Company did admit all Merchants to trade with their par ticular Stocks, (...) it would have increased and augmented the East India Trade five times more than now it is? (EcB1676)
Furthermore, there are adverbs like softly, fast, close, and well, which have a
more clearly qualifying function. (174), and especially (175), which involves
a sentence adverbial, not a modification of the phrasal verb, sound rather unusual to the modern ear. Adverbial insertions in prepositional verbs occur
equally with verbs of Romance and of Germanic extraction, and also equally
with idiomatic and non-idiomatic combinations. In some few cases this leads
to unusual examples like the idiomatic (176).
(176) I shall not stick to declare (...) that in my judgment I am for a New
Stock, provided we can come honestly by it, that is, without Injustice
to the new Adventurers ... (EcB1681)

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Patterns of the Past

As a preposition cannot be modified in the way a particle can, these

adverbials refer either more to the verb (i.e. manner, e.g. loud, carefully,
earnestly), more to the following noun (e.g. solely, entirely, but, more
particularly), or actually to the whole clause (e.g. then, now, thus, here), in
which latter case a different position would have been perfectly possible, or
even desirable (cf. (177)). Further, there are more lengthy intrusions, such as
(178), also consisting before the Reformation of seven Bishopricks
(SciB1652), they partake, in common with us, of Nature (EcA1705), which
might not be found like that today.
(177) ... In which although that Pope failed then of his end, yet was that
after attained. (RelA1679)
(178) As for Example; Suppose I look in a Map for London, whose Longitude from St. Michaels is about 27d. 30m. (SciA1698)
Those are not very common, though; they come to no more than fifteen in stances in all among 149 adverbial insertions as a whole.
Phrasal-prepositional verbs, in spite of their small number, yielded the
surprising number of seven adverbial interruptions, showing that the
cohesion of the types found was not yet strong enough. Four adverbials
(readily, directly, quite, so) preceded the phrasal particle, while three
followed the prepositional pattern intervening between particle and
preposition. Two of the latter were of the longer kind already found in
prepositional verbs, namely give himself up for some time to those Exercises
(RelA1711), and come up in every tittle to the reason (LawB1688).
Fifteen modifications in all were found in verb-adjective
combinations, occurring in seven types and showing a special preference for
combinations involving short (10 instances), usually qualifying it with far,
but also, e.g., much, vastly. Potentially more problematic are cases with a
comparative structure (cf. chap.4), such as the following two.
(179) Nor will our neighbors therefore (as it is hoped) take it more ill from
us, if wee (...) see the Necessitie of providing for the Defence of this
Common-wealth by Shipping ... (EcA1652)
(180) ... being prevailed with after for publishing it, I thought it fittest for
your Lordships Patronage, in whose hand is the Government of that
people for whom this is particularly designed. (RelA1679)
But neither of these examples actually contains an explicit compariso n with,
e.g., than; rather, the comparatives serve a generally intensifying function,
such as adverbials like highly, exceedingly would do as well. This kind of
comparative therefore does not exclude those instances from the class of
verb-adjective combinations. The following example should, I think, also be
regarded as modification.

Patterns of the Past 157

(181) And now the case is altered from what it was, when it was thought
unfit, that the King should come to his Parliament, ... (PolA1646)
In a way it is a parallel to nominal negation treated below. It only occurs with
the pair fit/unfit .
The possibilities offered by modification of the noun in verbonominal combinations are both greater and simpler than those in the other
types just treated. Taking this into consideration, the actual level of
modifications 24 found is surprisingly low: it applies in 319 of 981 instances
in Group I (32.5%), 207 of 791 instances in Group II (26.2%), and in only 23
of 222 instances in Group III (10.4%). The figures just given concern pre modification; additionally, there are also 27 instances of post-modification in
Group I, three in Group II, but none in Group III. As pre- and postmodification in the great majority of cases occur together in the same item, I
have left post-modification out of account in calculating the percentages, so
as not to skew the picture. The amount of modification found in the
Lampeter Corpus is in stark contrast to the situation described by Kyt (in
Brinton/Akimoto 1999:183) for the Helsinki Corpus. As her figures, given
singly for the verbs in these combinations (take (54%), give (60%), make
(72%), do (74%), have (75%)), show, modification is by far more common
in her EModE data. Why this should be the case is not clear to me, but I
think that a register-/text-type-approach might ultimately yield some
answers. There is, however, not the space to follow this up here.
It may be assumed that different degrees of institutionalization or
lexicalization will play a role with regard to the question of modification,
with more lexicalized combinations tending to prohibit them, for instance.
Thus, combinations such as take effect, take heed, make shift, take revenge,
give way (to), make way (for), have recourse to, get/lose sight of, give
rise/occasion to, take part with, etc., which are certainly single lexical items,
are indeed, and in accordance with expectations, never found modified in the
Lampeter Corpus. On the other hand, this assumption might not be always
correct, as units which I would have regarded as very instituti onalized even
then are found with modification, sometimes of a rather extensive kind (e.g.
(184)), for example:
(182) And so true we find his words, (for they take full place in Mr. Wings
Nativity) that, as Mr. Wings Life did not cross or Contradict the I nfluences of the Stars, neither did his Death. (MscB1670)
(183) ... for what do we do, that you find so much Fault with us?
(RelB1687)

24

The figures for modification given here include the use of possessive pronouns.

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Patterns of the Past

(184) Therefore the Petitions humbly Pray you Lordships and the Honourable House of Commons, to take the annexed Articles (or any other)
into your most grave and wise consideration, ... (EcB1641)
Similarly, modification is found in very established units like take pains, take
care (of), make mention of, make use of, and take notice of, even though not
very often. While all of these are institutionalized, the noun is nevertheless
salient and to a certain degree independent enough to make modification
possible. With some combinations, however, modification is prohibited by
the internal structure as such, as it would rather h ighlight those semantic
aspects that are inappropriate to the verbal meaning, e.g. the concrete
meaning in set sail, take prisoner, or give ear.
Similarly, the semantic make-up of the noun, partly also the rest of
the combination, is decisive for the possibility of pluralization. Thus, while
one can theoretically make several mentions or uses of something, neither
*take notices of or *take cares of is thinkable at all. Both semantic and
lexicalization constraints therefore make plural occurrences not ve ry likely.
In fact, there are none at all in Group III, and only 48 and 19 in Groups I and
II, respectively. None of the Group I plurals are surprising, except for the
example in (185), comprising such nouns as discovery, preparation, quarrel,
answer, alteration, observation, resolution, claim, risk, order, attempt , etc.
(185) And that all actions, pretentions, and grants whatsoever for the same
should be voyde, and for ever renounced, and revoaked, giveing every
man liberty to take advantages of his owne wronge, ... (LawA1673)
(186) Further progresse may be made as before, without any losse of time
and charge, except the contrary party take Exceptions unto such Certificate, ... (LawA1653)
In Group II, the nouns thought, boast, application, enquiry, return, reflection, restraint, use, leave (we took our leaves ... of each other RelB1650),
the slightly unusual account and exception, the only really extraordinary one
(cf. (186)), were found in the plural.
Finally, there is the question of negation, or more precisely nominal
negation as opposed to verbal negation, as part of the modification of the
noun. This is definitely only applicable to Group I and II combinations, while
Group III does not offer that possibility at all. There are cases of nominal
negation such as (187, 188) in the corpus, but not very many, only 42 in
Group I and somewhat more, 57, in Group II.
(187) As to my timeing this Charge; why now and not before, since I had
published Hints thereof many Years ago? Surely I am obliged to give
no Account of this: (SciB1735)

Patterns of the Past 159

(188) But the said Treaty taking no effect, the said Plenipotentiaries
removed from Uytrecht before Mr. Carew arrived at Amsterdam.
(LawA1673)
Thus, nominal negation seems to have been rather uncommon.
Passives
All transitive verbs should passivize, and sometimes even strictly
speaking intransitive ones do (thinking of This bed has been slept in, for
example). Transitive phrasal verbs as a rule passivize normally, with no
problems or interesting features to speak of. Therefor e they need not be
discussed with regard to this aspect. All prepositional verbs, being regarded
as transitive, ought to be passivizable, but not all are. Quasi existential ones,
such as abound in/with, amount to, belong to, consist of/in , or some others
like acquiesce in, look to, take upon, tally with , etc. cannot accept a passive
sense.25 Passive occurrence can, however, be seen to be a sign of a strong
bond between verb and preposition, something that emphasizes the unitary
status of the item. The same can be said of preposition stranding in general,
i.e. also in other than passive contexts (cf. below). Passives make an
additional semantic point, first and foremost about the semantic features of
the object (which is actually of less interest here), and secondly about the
semantics of the (multi-word) verb. If a sequence of several words is
perceived as a single lexical item (all other things being equal) it should have
on average the same amount of passive occurrences as a simplex has. Thus,
passives are not defining, but nevertheless interesting char acteristics of
prepositional verbs. In total, there are 332 passive occurrences of preposi tional verbs (of a total of 2,816 instances) in the Lampeter Corpus, quite a
normal amount, especially taken those into account that do not passivize at
all. Svartvik (1966), for instance, found a frequency of 13% passives in texts
from the humanities, and the prepositional figure with 11.8% seems
reasonable in this respect. 26 There is no difference between those
prepositional verbs formed on native (190) or Romance (189) verbs, nor be tween idiomatic (191) or non-idiomatic combinations.

25

This is of course a consequence of the sampling criteria as defined in chap.4, while

other researchers might not see these as prepositional verbs at all.
26
I am here comparing Svartviks text-based percentage figure to percentage of tokens
of a multi-word type found which is certainly not unproblematic. However, it is
only meant to provide a general impression. Furthermore, a pilot study of passives in
the domain SCIENCE has yielded considerably fewer instances than is common
nowadays, so that lower passive figures can probably be assumed for the Lampeter
Corpus than for PDE texts.

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Patterns of the Past

(189) but besure you be not catchd in a Lie, for People are too apt to
believe that Courtiers Servants Lie; tho they speak T ruth, if their
Desires bent Complyd with. (MscB1700)
(190) That no succour or relief in any probable wise could be hoped for.
(LawA1643)
(191) And if these Papers have given any Light into a Subject, which (...)
has lain so much out of the way of some, and been so overlookt by
others, that it has scarce
been duly searchd into by any;
(EcA1705)
(192) ... he would have told him that she [ship] was stranded about Arundell
by five States-men of warre, and seized on by Sir William Wallers
army, ... (MscB1646)
(192) is one of those cases where the preposition is strictly speaking
superfluous (seize also occurs on its own in the corpus), but nevertheless it is
not left out in the passive even though this would have been an easy way
to avoid a stranded preposition.
It should also be mentioned that there are multi -word units which
have frozen in the passive form, i.e. never occur in the active voice at all,
such as given to, with its phrasal-prepositional variant given over to. Apart
from this latter, there are five further passive instances among phrasalprepositional verbs; while the passive sounds quite natural in an idiomatic
case like break in upon, in nonce-like formation such as (193) it makes a
somewhat inelegant impression.
(193) This Place of Scripture was turnd down to in the said Bible.
(MscA1696)
There are thirty-four passive occurrences of verb-adjective combinations, representing c. 12% of all instances. None of them involves a unit with
a final preposition, although semantically this would have been possible.
These sound rather idiomatic, however, and thus it is probably only due to
generally low frequencies and chance that no passives with them occur. The
preposition-less cases behave in the passive just like phrasal verbs, with the
adjective staying attached to the verb, as in (194).
(194) if ever any Protestant Countrey, should be so farr forsaken of the
Lord as to be suffered to turn unto Popery, these Observations will be
made good in their visible losse of the Splendor, Riches, Power, and
Greatness, that they now know. (PolA1668)
The various groups of verbo-nominal combinations behave differently
with regard to passivization. First, with respect to frequency: Group I has the
lowest passive count (8.8%), while Groups II and III score higher than expected (17.3% and 22.1% respectively). Secondly, there is the question of

Patterns of the Past 161

which types of passives, i.e. inner and/or outer passives (cf. chap.4), a
combination allows. As the noun of Group III combinations occurs within a
prepositional phrase it is not available for passivization, and thus only outer
passives are possible with this type. Those are quite regular, the
combinations behaving just like phrasal verbs or verb -adjective
combinations, i.e. the prepositional phrase remains attached to the verb (cf.
(195, 196)).
(195) For that Destruction of Three Kingdoms, and the Death of the Best of
Princes, is Writ in Gods Book, and who shall be called to an Account
for it, God Almighty knows, ... (RelB1687)
(196) If then this were once put in execution, all Parishes would quickly
finde their Collections for the Poor to be much less then now they are.
(EcA1681)
In cases with a final preposition, the passive need not automatically produce
a stranded preposition, cf. they will ... be put in mind of Religion
(RelA1708). With (transitive) Group I and with Group II combinations there
are two possibilities: either the object of the whole multi -word unit becomes
the subject of the passive sentence (197), or the nominal part of the
combination itself shifts to subject position (198), i.e. outer or inner passive
respectively.
(197) Pinks and Carnations will hold very well in London, in open Places, if
they are taken care of in the Winter. (MscA1722)
(198) My Lord, they asked if the Duke of York were there, and answer was
made, Yes, thinking they would have been satisfied and dispersed, ...
(LawA1668)
The outer passive, as in (197) is the less common one, with only twelve instances in Group I, but as many as 57 in Group II, where more cohesive
items are found. The inner passive, as in (198), is found 74 times in Group I,
and 80 times in Group II.
The likelihood and/or preference of one or the other kind of passive
depends very much on the individual combination. A greater degree of
institutionalization or lexicalization does not necessarily go along with
decreased freedom for the noun in that regard, cf. for example the numerous
inner passive examples of make use of, take notice of.
(199) And a like account must be given of particular accidents in other
places, from the particular situation of those places, as Bays, Chanels,
Currents, &c. (SciA1666)
(199) is an example of a very lexicalized combination with both inner
passive and modification, and nevertheless the idiomatic meaning stays

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Patterns of the Past

intact. In fact, inner passive and modification quite often go hand in hand;
perhaps, the presence of the latter forces this type of passive. With outer
passives, modification of the noun seems to be very uncommon or almost
non-existent, the following being one of the few instances:
(200) ... Commons, Mores, Heaths, Fens, Marishes, ... some being made a
little better use of then others; but all capable of very great Improve ment, ... (SciA1653)
There are also combinations for which the passive types are not a matter o f
preference, but which have only one, namely the outer passive choice;
among those I would rate e.g. take prisoner, bear witness of, see cause, give
battle, take root, take cognizance of, take place, take effect, give ear, give
the lie to, give occasion to, take part etc. Again, this is probably due to very
individual reasons, e.g. the derived nature of the noun (prison-er), or the
possible activation of the wrong, i.e. more concrete, meaning, e.g. in *root
is taken.
Preposition Stranding
Preposition stranding has already been mentioned in the discussion of
the previous section, but it is in itself a wider phenomenon than the passive.
It occurs in passive constructions, of course, but also in infinitive
constructions (201), relative clauses (202, 203), in questions, and others such
as (204).
(201) Because that after the Manufacturers have carried their Commodities
a great way to a Fair, they have only one single Market to depend
upon for the selling thereof; (EcA1681)
(202) for the Domini electi ad causas, whom we so often meet with in the
Records of Parliament, (...) were such Members at every respective
Parliament elected from within their own Walls, ... (PolB1689)
(203) For Men who have attained more than perhaps they ever aimed at,
(...) have commonly for a while strong desires to secure their
possessions, ... (RelB1667)
(204) This you dwell upon and examplify [sic] to no other purpose, but to
amuse your Reader and mislead him from the Question; (SciB1735)
While the illustrations given here are all prepositional verbs, stranding can of
course occur in any combination with a final preposition, i.e. also in phrasalprepositional verbs, some verb-adjective and Group I verbo-nominal combinations, as well as all of the Group II of the latter. Some of th ese stranding
environments are more interesting than passives, be cause they leave a
choice. With relative clauses, as well as infinitive clauses functioning as
such, there is the possibility of pied-piping, e.g. the rewriting of (201) as ...

Patterns of the Past 163

Market upon which they can depend ...; the same goes for questions, cf. who
does he depend on? versus. on whom does he depend?. Even the fronted
structure in (204) could be reformulated i.e. if one disregards the second
verb for the moment as upon this you dwell. Those stranding types say
more about the perception of multi-word verbs as lexical units than the
passive alone and as such does.
There is not much to be found in this respect with the less numerous
types. The single stranding example for verb -adjective combinations (205)
occurs in a fronting context; there is no pied-piping with this type.
(205) These things some may make light of, but the Prudent will consider.
(SciB1676)
Nor is any pied-piping found with phrasal-prepositional verbs, which yield
four stranding cases, only one of which does not occur in a passive, but in a
relative construction:
(206) If there were any whose Manner he could not fall in with, he had the
Wisdom not to attempt it. (RelA1711)
Verbo-nominal combinations of Group I are also of interest here, as they can
take an optional preposition and as we have seen above, the borderline
between Group I and II is not exactly watertight. 185 Group I items indeed
occur with a preposition, of which two are stranded and four are pied -piped.
The two stranded ones are give an account (of) "tell", and give way (to), both
of them in relative constructions. Both are very well-established and tight
combinations, and the first is probably also influenced by its Group II
variant meaning "explain, account for". Interestingly, however, give an
account (of) is also responsible for two of the pied-piped examples. From
among Group II verbo-nominal combinations, 115 examples involve
stranding and only eleven pied-piping. The latter are supplied by seven
combinations, five of which (give (an) account of, make (a) doubt of (cf.
(207) below), make mention of, have recourse to, have regard to, lay stress
upon) also occur in a stranding construction; the remaining make question of
is not found with a stranded preposition. Stranding is not evenly spread
across all the occurring types, apart from those mentioned above already, it
is also found with find fault with, give assent to, lay/take hold on, have need
of, give/make proof of, give countenance to, take cogn izance of, lay claim to,
make boast of, make choice of, and especially with the three combinations
take care of, take notice of (208), and make use of.
(207) ... as if it were a Capital Sin to be assured of what a Christian ought
not to make a Doubt of, ... (RelB1674)

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Patterns of the Past

(208) The last thing I shall take notice of is, the Delay used by Sir John,
after his Apprehension; (LawB1697)
Those are mostly the prototypical ones that usually come to mind first when
thinking of verbo-nominal combinations. It may be of importance that they
are all zero-article combinations (with the semi-exceptions of give (an)
account of, make (a) doubt of, which occur both with and without); this fact
and stranding together stress the high degree of internal cohesion these types
exhibit.
If one takes preposition stranding as indicating the unity of the verbal
combination, there is also a prepositional usage that points to the opposite
interpretation, namely the repetition of the preposition which sometimes oc curs in the case of prepositional verbs. Structures such as those in (209, 210)
seem rather to stress the unity of the prepositional phrase, i.e. the connection
of the preposition with the following noun.
(209) So that, though som of the 12 Moneths, answering to the 12 Signs,
consist of one Daie more then thirtie, and one of 2 Daies less, ....
(SciB1649)
(210) ... and as Circumstances occur, occasionally in some few Instances
observe, how far their Assertions tally with Truth, their Questions
with History, and even their Writings with Themselves. (PolB1730)
In a way the prepositions function as pro-forms, which are necessary in the
above sentences because they carry the transitivizing force of the whole
verb. There are only twenty-three instances of repeated prepositions in the
corpus, and more than half of them (14 instances) occur in the first three
corpus decades.
Coordination
A last major point among the syntactic features of multi -word verbs is
the aspect of coordination, i.e. the question of whether within the verb phrase
of a clause a multi-word verb is coordinated with a simplex verb. While in
chapter 4 coordination was explicitly discussed only with regard to prepositional verbs (mainly because their status is usually most in doubt), it is a fea ture that is of importa nce for all multi-word verb types. But as also pointed
out in chapter 5, the coordination test applies only to transitive cases, since it
involves the sharing of an object. Moreover, the surest cases are those where
the object follows the two (or more) coordinated verb forms (in whatever
sequence they are), as opposed to passive or relative clause contexts, where
(if applicable) well-established stranding occurs. Nevertheless, I have
decided to count all these transitive cases.

Patterns of the Past 165

The actual amount of such coordination found is not overwhelming,
but the fact that it existed at all is proof that definitely some and thus possibly more or even all multi-word types were perceived as lexical units.
Not surprisingly, the highest coordination figures were found for phrasal
verbs, the best-established type in many other aspects as well. (211) is a
fairly typical case of simplex-phrasal verb coordination, whereas (212)
shows the coordination of two multi-word verbs, which also occurs
occasionally with the other types, or across types.
(211) ... rayse and keep up what force they will be [sic] Sea and Land, ...
(LawB1649)
(212) The second sort of gain in the course of Trade is, when the Merchant
by his laudable endeavours may both bring in, and carry out Wares to
his advantage, ... (EcB1641)
In the case of two prepositional verbs being coordinated, they can share their
preposition which is then only expressed once, e.g. believe and delight in N.
(213) is the ideal case of coordination, or best proof, as it shows the
sequence prepositional verb (with sort of semi-stranded preposition)
simplex verb object; while not quite so nice (214) with its normal
stranding environment was also accepted as a coordination example.
(213) he severely checks and reproves himself, that he had taken on him the
Cure of other mens souls, having not sufficiently cared for and cured
his own: (RelA1669)
(214) This is the utmost of what seems to be desired or aimed at.
(RelB1667)
In (215, 216) the multi-word verbs both follow the simplex, which sequence
was perhaps preferred because of their length; on the other hand, another
three word example precedes the simplex in (217), showing that it is at least
possible.
(215) Secondly, Weigh well the improbability of effecting and going
through with such a design, in regard of enemies and difficulties:
(LawB1659)
(216) Observe also the Heat of Mines, ... noteing how much it exceeds, or
falls short of the Heat at the Surface of the Earth: (SciB1696)
(217) The ever vigilant Gustavus, ... set fire to, and destroyd several
Vessels of the Enemy, and might have ruind em all, but for the
Inactiveness of the Lubeckers. (MscB1739)
The latter is an example for Group II verbo-nominal combinations, while
(218, 219) provide instances for Group I and III respectively. (219) is
interesting because of its sequence of Group II verb simplex Group III

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Patterns of the Past

verb, with the necessary preposition of for the first of these gone missing
or perhaps intentionally left out?
(218) To whom shall we speak and give warning that they may hear? (Jer.
6.10.) (RelA1682)
(219) and then tells us (pag. 6.) the Statute provides that all Persons, Bodies
Politick and Corporate, which then were or thence after should be,
should stand, and be disabled, to have use, or exercise, or put in use
any such Monopolies. (EcB1676)
A further interesting feature with regard to verbo -nominal combinations is
what I call internal coordination (similar to the shared preposition of preposi tional verbs mentioned above), i.e. the fact that one verb is comb ined with
two nouns, such as in the following two examples. While the elements
agreement and especially peace in (220) also occur on their own in
combinations, (make) cessation sounds more like a nonce formation, so that
here more and less established elements are coordinated.
(220) ... both Kingdomes (...) are obliged by Treaty that none of us shall
make any peace, cessation, or agreement whatsoever, without mutuall
advice and consent of both (PolA1646)
(221) ... but if our forraign Trade come to a stop or declination by neglect at
home, or injuries abroad, ... (EcB1641)
In both sentences above, the coordination makes for clear semantic variety
with different verbal meaning being expressed by the elements. But this is
not always the case; make change and alteration of N (PolB1689) contains
practically synonymous elements, and the common take care and pains, as
well as take notice and regard, while not really synonymous, are so close to
each other in their actual use that they can only be seen as intensify ing each
other, not as making semantically different points.
Miscellaneous Features
Lastly, I want to pay attention to some other syntactic features, most
of which are of minor importance, but which have been mentioned here or
there in the literature. First, there is the question of fronting or topicalization
of the particle in phrasal verbs. The possibility of this transformation in a
combination has been used as an argument for excluding that combination
from the class of phrasal verbs (e.g. Fraser 1976). In this study, these cases
have not been excluded, because I see the positional flexibility provided by
the individual elements of multi-word verbs as a very important point favouring their usage. Nevertheless, there are only a handful of instances (8) of

Patterns of the Past 167

particle fronting such as (222) in the whole corpus. 27 In some respect this is
an easy way of topicalizing the verb, or at least an important semantic part of
it.
(222) Away goes Husband, Money, and Ring, and the Wife staying with her
old Landlady, waits for the return of her kind Spouse; (MscB1692)
The next point also concerns phrasal verbs. While any multi -word
verb can be used in a nominalized form (verbal noun), with phrasal verbs this
usage has been used as a test distinguishing them from prepos itional verbs
(cf. chap.4).
(223) The Second Article Charged upon me, is, The carrying on of a Treasonable Correspondence for the Bishop of Rochester. (LawB1723)
(224) ... that make the very foundation of the Universities, the very seeking
after the gifts of Gods Spirit and after abilities for the Ministery, ...
(RelA1653)
(225) Lastly I am not altogether without hope, but that something possibly
may happen to be said in this Scribble, that may conduce to the
healing up this wound again. (PolB1674)
In contrast to the prepositional verb in (224), the phrasal verb nominalization
in (223) connects to its objects with an of, as is theoretically expected. However, (225) shows that the of-less variant was also possible 28, and it would be
hard to claim that because of this heal up is not a phrasal verb. So this test is
not necessarily applicable in the past. Apart from the nominalized -ingformations there are also zero-derivations, such as a look-out or the
pluralized put-offs. Before leaving nominalizations, however, a really
nominal phrasal usage (cf. (226)) should be illustrated, one that would not be
possible in PDE, I think.
(226) ... there was a Message sent from his Majesty (...) directed to the Earl
of Warwick, therein requiring the delivery up of the Fleet into the
hands of Sir John Pennington, (MscB1646)
All in all, there are 130 nominal uses of phrasal verbs, the great majority of
which are the expected kind as illustrated in (223) above.
The very last feature to be mentioned here is the adjectival us e of
phrasal and prepositional verbs, of which ten and thirteen instances, respec 27

The phenomenon is hardly more common even in Shakespeare, where Castillo

(1994:440-42) found eighteen normal particle topicalizations, plus some such
topicalizations without proper inversion, one of her examples being And forth my
mimic comes (MND iii,ii,19).
28
It has to be admitted, however, that there is the theoretical possibility that the printer
unintentionally left out the small word of.

168

Patterns of the Past

tively, were found. It is of interest especially for the latter, as it graphically

makes clear the perception of the multi-word sequence as a unit. These
prepositional adjectives can be used either attributively (228) or
predicatively (227), with or without hyphen (e.g. the much talked of
Attainder LawB1697), and with or without further modification (e.g.
long-wishd for change PolA1711), the latter being most usually the
negative prefix un- ((227), eight cases).
(227) To have a Servant (...) brought as an Evidence; and my most intimate
Friends Imprisoned for not swearing against me; Are Hardships and
Proceedings, I believe, hitherto unheard-of in England; (LawB1723)
(228) Why then should men pretend, that that cannot be done, which hath
been done, and is done at this day in so many Kingdoms and Nations,
with the wished-for success by Peace and Happiness? (RelB1667)
Table 6.9, containing the relevant frequencies for all five categories
of multi-word verbs, summarizes the most important syntactic points made
above. In general, one can say that multi-word verbs in late EModE do not
vary significantly in their behaviour, be it syntactically or lexically, from that
exhibited by their successors in PDE. There are of course minor deviations,
and shifts, but these do not disturb the basic fact that the sys tem was fully in
place and functioning well in the 17th and 18th centuries.

22

Group III

102

379

34

20

15

Group II

Prepositional
verbs
Phrasalprepositional
verbs
Verbadjective
combinations
Verbonominal
combinations
Group I

332

803

Phrasal verbs

intransitives pronoun

36

31

11

42

noun

intervening

15

149

12

adverbial

23 / -

207 / 3

319 / 27

57

42

19

48

- / 49

80 / 57

74 / 12

34

115 / 11

2/4

1/-

4/-

22

24

pre- or
negator plural/ passive preposition coordination
postmocompara (inner/ stranding/
(external)
dification
-tive
outer) pied-piping
not
227
counted
332
563 / 89
96

intervening/modifying element

Table 6.9: Summary: Some syntactic features of multi-word verbs

7. Frequencies and Tendencies

After the foregoing description of the data, it is now time to look at the per formance of the various categories of multi -word verbs in larger contexts, in
particular their development over time, and the influence of register and
socio-linguistic considerations on them.
A point that needs to be raised in this context is the question of the
suitability of the corpus for the investigation of language change. According
to Labov (1981:177), a span of two generations will be enough to establish a
linguistic change:
If we want to propose that change in progress has been de tected in a given speech community, we will need evidence to
show that some variation within the community is a direct
result of the fact that in the recent past language learners
acquired a different form of the language than they are ac quiring now. [...] The strongest confirmation of an ongoing
change will be given if it is demonstrated in the near future
that the trend detected has moved further in the same di rection.
Recent past and near future must mean a span of time large
enough to allow for significant changes but small enough to
rule out the possibility of reversals and retrograde movements:
we might say from a minimum of half a generation to a
maximum of two.
King (quoted in Polom 1990:5) assumes a basic model of three generations,
with change starting as simple (syntactic) variation in the first generation,
being incorporated into the grammar of the second generation, and
consolidation of the change taking place in the third generation. The 100
years of the Lampeter Corpus, comprising three generations (with one
generation consisting of about 30 years), fulfil Labovs and Kings
requirements, and should thus be adequate for studying change. However,
the "reversals and retrograde movements" mentioned by Labov are especially
interesting in the broader context of the whole history of English, and I
would not really want to rule them out in general and in this respect 100
years might not be long enough. Furthermore, the present study is not only
concerned with the more qualitative features Labov and King might have in
mind1, but also with sheer frequency of use and consequently the

As pointed out in chapters 5 and also 6 the system of multi-word verbs was basically
in place by the beginning of the EModE period.

Frequencies and Tendencies

171

development of these frequencies. Whether 100 years are sufficient in this

respect remains to be seen.
7.1 One Hundred Years of Continuity and Change
Taking the Lampeter Corpus as a synchronic (even if somewhat longish)
snap-shot of late EModE, the total occurrences of multi -word verbs in the
whole corpus, as given in Table 7.1, can be seen to represent the status of
these verbal types in the non-literary, but public language of the time.
Table 7.1: Multi-word verbs in the Lampeter Corpus

Phrasal verbs
Prepositional verbs
Phrasal-prepositional verbs
Verb-adjective combinations
Verbo-nominal combinations
Total

Total
occurrences
4,266
2,816
93
298
1,994
9,467

Frequency per
1,000 words
3.6
2.4
0.08
0.2
1.7
8.1

These figures as such are of course not very informative, but something to
measure them against is necessary. As pointed out in chapter 5 the available
data on the area in question is not in plentiful supply; nevertheless there is
some which I will now try to make use of as best as possible. 2
The Lampeter Corpus occurrences of phrasal verbs can be compared
to those found in the LOB corpus for PDE. In the one million words of the
LOB 8,536 phrasal verbs are found3, double as many as in the Lampeter Corpus. The distance becomes even greater if one normalizes the Lampeter
figure to a one-million-word basis, the result being a mere 3,636.6 phrasal
verbs. Thus, it would appear that phrasal verbs were not as common in the
past as they are now. This could be true in general of the whole language
then, both written and spoken. In this case, there must have been an increase
towards the modern standards at some later stage, in the 19th century or even
as late as the present century. Alternatively, an explanation could lie in
differing norms for written language or different relationships between the
2

Of interest here are only possible comparisons to PDE or within EModE; other
periods will be ignored.
3
Cf. chapter 5 for the origin of this figure and the problems related to it. Nevertheless
it is possible to accept it as a rough basis for comparison.

172

Frequencies and Tendencies

written and spoken variants then and now. Fewer phrasal verbs in the written
texts of the 17th and 18th centuries could indicate a reduced permissiveness
of more colloquial items (or items stigmatized as such) within that medium. 4
Early Modern England was still to a large extent an orally based society (cf.
chap.2, and Ong 1982), and the full adaptation of the English language to the
written form was still in progress. This state of affairs can support two
possible, but opposing trends, on the one hand, (a) a greater influx and use of
oral features in writing (perhaps unintentionally) or, on the other hand, (b) a
conscious decrease in usage or even complete removal of such features in the
written language (cf. Stein 1990, for example) in order to create an
appropriate standard. It might be that a form of hypothesis (b) was at work
in the texts of the Lampeter Corpus with regard to colloquial phrasal verbs.
Biber and Finegan (1989), who find their 17th-century texts relatively oral,
but less so than 20th-century texts, generally point to an increasing
oralization of written texts moving towards the 20th century, which might
mean that the more writing becomes an everyday feature (which it certainly
was not yet in the 17th and 18th centuries), the more mutual give and take
there will be between the written and spoken varieties.
Further comparisons regarding phrasal verbs can be made staying
within the EModE period. Hiltunen (1994), investigating the occurrence of
phrasal verbs formed with the seven particles away, back, down, forth, off,
out, and up5, found 851 instances of such combinations in the EModE part of
the Helsinki Corpus, i.e. a frequency of 1.54 per 1,000 words. Recalculating
the Lampeter findings to include only phrasal verbs with exactly those seven
particles yields a figure of 3,322 instances, or 2.8 per 1,000 words. A more
comprehensive approach, that is including all possible combinations, was
taken by Castillo (1994) in her study of the 37 plays of Shake speare. She
found 5,744 phrasal verbs, which equals c. 6.5 occurrences per 1,000 words 6
as opposed to 3.6 in the Lampeter Corpus. Thus, Shakespeare easily beats
both the Lampeter Corpus and the Helsinki Corpus in his usage of phrasal
verbs. However, Shakespeare is perhaps not the right standard to measure
these corpora against; after all, he is known for his extraordinary linguistic
4

That is, assuming that phrasal verbs are in fact colloquial (which I have tentatively
doubted, cf. chap.5), and that they were also regarded as such in EModE times.
5
He thus included most of the more commonly used particles, but left out two which
were also found to be very frequent in the Lampeter Corpus, namely in and on.
6
Castillo herself does not give a figure for instances per 1,000 words, nor does she
give the word count of her data base. The figure given in the text is the result of my
own calculation, based on the word count of Shakespeares works given in Spevack
(1973:v), namely 884,647 words. This includes his poetry, which Castillo, however,
did not include thus the actual occurrence calculated for the plays only would be
even higher.

Frequencies and Tendencies

173

inventiveness and has been credited with up to 1,700 neologisms (cf. Nevalainen 1999). The average man in the street was probably somewhat less
innovative, in contrast. The lower figure for the Helsinki Corpus in comparison with the present data might be due to a higher percentage of very
formal, and also formulaic (which might be more important in this context)
text types, such as official correspondence and sta tutes, which do in fact contain the fewest instances of phrasal verbs in Hiltunens data. Also, it may be
that the longer period sampled plays a role, with perhaps fewer phrasal verbs
being found in the early part of the EModE period, but Hiltunen does not
provide a diachronic ordering of his data.
Apart from the phrasal verbs just dealt with, there is comparative data
for only one other multi-word verb type, namely verbo-nominal
combinations. The results from the Lampeter Corpus can be compared with
the situation in PDE as investigated by Stein & Quirk (1991) in a 1.6 million
word corpus of contemporary fiction, and by Algeo (1995) in the LOB and
Brown corpora.7 Both took a much narrower definition than the one ap plied
here as their basis (cf. chap.4). In order to make a comparison, I have
therefore extracted from my Group I those examples which fit their
definition as closely as possible 8, i.e. combinations of have, take, give +
zero-derived nominal verb (Stein & Quirk), additionally also the verb make
(Algeo). The results are the following:
Table 7.2: Verbo-nominal combinations in the Lampeter Corpus and in PDE

tokens
per 1,000 words

Lampeter
Corpus
178
0.15

Stein &
Quirk
402
c. 0.259

Lampeter
Corpus
303
0.26

Algeo:
LOB
245
0.25

Algeo:
Brown
195
0.19

The study by Hoffmann (1972) will be ignored here, as the information he gives is not
detailed enough to make a comparison viable.
8
A complete fit is probably not possible, as one somehow has to take account of the
varying data bases and the different state of the language as such. Thus, for example, I
have ignored the question of the definite article as an integral (or not, as the case may
be) part of the combination when sorting through the examples. Also, some of my
Group II instances might have belonged here, but I have ignored them completely, as I
do not know Stein & Quirks or Algeos attitude on following prepositions. The
comparison was slightly easier (and therefore more precise, in the end) in the case of
Algeo, as he lists all his instances.
9
This can only be an approximate figure, as Stein & Quirk (1991:197) put the size of
their corpus at "around 1.6 million words" (my italics, CC).

174

Frequencies and Tendencies

The Lampeter Corpus and LOB yield an almost identical result, showing that
with regard to this particular construction early modern British English had
already reached the modern state of affairs even if one does not find such
prototypical examples as take a look (instead: cast a look) in the Lampeter
Corpus. The important point is that the pattern was clearly established. The
striking difference of the Lampeter figures for the two compari sons is due
partly to the obviously prominent position of make in these combinations
(not included by Stein & Quirk), and partly to a more restricted attitude
towards the nominal element on the part of Stein & Quirk, which excluded
more of the Lampeter instances than Algeos approach. In general, I think
that the comparison with Algeos material is the more interesting and also the
more informative one, as he used the slightly wider definition and with the
two corpora also a wider selection of text types (as opposed to only fic tion
[Stein & Quirk]).
As with phrasal verbs, a comparison within EModE is also possible
for verbo-nominal combinations. Kyt and Hiltunen (both in
Brinton/Akimoto 1999) have investigated combinations based on the verbs
have, make, give, take, and do (i.e. a slightly more restricted approach than
the present one) in the Helsinki Corpus (EModE part) and in a 1,100 000word corpus of plays, respectively. Their results are strikingly different:
whereas Hiltunen found only 1,404 tokens (418 types), i.e. 1.3 occurrences
per 1,000 words, in his plays, Kyts study came up with as many as 2,056
tokens (675 types), or 3.7 occurrences. Hiltunens result is much closer to the
Lampeter Corpus figure of 1.7 occurrences, thus linking plays and pamphlets
in one group opposite the apparently different texts of the Helsinki Corpus.
Given what was said above about the latter, this leads me to assume a
preference of verbo-nominal combinations for more formal contexts, and for
text types clearly marked as written and further removed from the spoken
end of the continuum.
To sum up, phrasal verbs were apparently used less than today, while
verbo-nominal combinations, or at least a certain type of them, had reached
todays level of frequency in the Lampeter Corpus. As far as I can see, these
two types do not necessarily belong to different levels of formality in PDE,
but it seems that a difference was perceived in the past in this respect. Text
type preference certainly plays a role here. Furthermore, there may be
internal in/formality clines within the categories just discussed, which would
certainly be more pronounced within verbo-nominal combinations with their
greater variety of types.
Additionally to the approach adopted so far, the corpus can be used to
follow the diachronic developments taking place during the span of 100
years shortly before the final standardization phase. The following table

Frequencies and Tendencies

175

presents the actual figures found in the corpus for the occurrences of the five
different types of multi-word verbs split up by the ten corpus decades:
Table 7.3: Multi-word verbs per decade (tokens)

1640s
1650s
1660s
1670s
1680s
1690s
1700s
1710s
1720s
1730s

Phrasal
verbs

Prep.
verbs

572
429
354
401
456
569
306
380
451
348

255
277
200
306
358
350
252
253
294
271

Phrasalprep.
verbs
11
7
6
6
11
16
6
17
4
9

Verbadjective
comb.
45
45
21
39
30
29
28
20
22
19

Verbonominal
comb.
168
253
173
230
188
264
140
165
258
155

Total

1,501
1,011
754
982
1,043
1,228
732
835
1,029
802

As the corpus decades are not of equal size (cf. chap.2), these raw f igures,
except for giving an impression of the amount of data sampled for each dec ade, are not very telling. The similar looking totals for the 1650s and the
1680s, for instance, are not at all similar, as these represent the smallest and
the largest decades in word count, respectively. Therefore, the same data
arranged according to occurrences for every 1,000 words of text, as in Figure
7.1, gives a clearer picture of the distribution of the data.
Two things are clearly visible in the figure. First, the relative strength
or frequency ranking of the five types is the same in each of the ten decades;
the order always is (1) phrasal verbs, (2) prepositional verbs, (3) verbo -nominal combinations, (4) verb-adjective combinations, and (5) phrasal-prepositional verbs (with the minor exception of the last two being of equal rank in
the 1710s). This sequence is not surprising, in fact, it is exactly what I would
have expected intuitively for PDE an intuition which, unfortunately,
cannot at the moment be verified by empirical studies (cf. chap.5). Phrasal
verbs occupying the top position is probably due to the ease with which they
can be produced, to their flexibility and to the various semantic purposes
they can serve. All the other types are more restrict ed in some way or the
other, and thus less of an obvious, immediate choice.

per 1,000 words

176

Frequencies and Tendencies

5.0
4.5
4.0
3.5
3.0
2.5
2.0
1.5
1.0
0.5
0.0
1640 1650 1660 1670 1680 1690 1700 1710 1720 1730
Phrasal verbs
Prepositional verbs
Verbo-nominal combinations
Verb-adjective combinations
Phrasal-prepositional verbs

Statistical significance :
phrasal verbs
prepositional verbs
phrasal-prepositional verbs
verb-adjective combinations
verbo-nominal combinations

F score
1.74
.78
.22
6.72
.18

p<
.223
.404
.652
.032
.684

df
8
8
8
8
8

R-squared
.179
n.s.
.089
n.s.
.027
n.s.
.456
.022
n.s.

Figure 7.1: Multi-word verbs per decades (frequencies per 1,000 words)
The second point to observe in the figure is that there is no uni-directional development, either upwards or downwards, discernible for any of the
five types. Rather, each decade seems to exhibit an idiosyncratic situation,
with especially striking peaks for phrasal verbs in the 1640s, 1650s and
1690s, and the emerging picture obviously not fitting into a larger pattern. Of
course, it is conceivable that the corpus structure, in this case the
composition of complete texts, skews the picture, e.g. by one or two texts
contributing an excessively high amount of data to the decade total.
Therefore, I checked the three decades with very high phrasal verb figures
(1640s, 1650s, 1690s) for the distribution of instances between the individual
texts. In the 1650s, and especially the 1640s, there was a nice spread of text s

Frequencies and Tendencies

177

with low, medium and high frequencies, which is what is to be expected. The
1690s, however, were a little problematic: eight texts stayed below the aver age frequency, three were somewhat higher and one text (SciB1696)
contributed a staggering 11.4 items for 1,000 words without that text the
decade would yield an average of 4.0 items per 1,000 words, making the
peak less prominent, but nevertheless not making it disappear completely.
Thus, some skewing by individual texts is possible, but not to such an extent
as to totally change the picture. What also emerged from this investigation
was that intuitively very similar texts do not pattern in the same way with
respect to phrasal verb frequencies. Thus, legal texts or formal speeches are
found with both high and low frequencies it ultimately seems to come
down to the particular stylistic preferences of the author in question.
If the data in Figure 7.1 above (except for the negligible category
phrasal-prepositional verbs), is presented in graph format, as in Figure 7.2, it
is easier to see how the individual categories performed over the 100 years.
Again, it becomes clear how irregular their behaviour is, but the inserted
trend lines serve to indicate a supposed general direction of their
development. Here, it is important to take the R-square values given below
Figure 7.1 into account. With the exception of verb -adjective combinations
the spread of the data over time is not significant at all ( p < .05), and none of
the five R-squared values marks an important relationship. However, statistic
significance is not everything, and it is still possible to comment on the
situation as presented in Figure 7.2.
The behaviour of verb-adjective, and to a lesser extent of verbo-nominal combinations, can be interpreted as representing stability in my opinion;
there is variation, admittedly larger in the case of the latter, around a stable
median. It might be that these two types reached a plateau rather early on.
Prepositional verbs exhibit a modest rising tendency and can probably also
be regarded as a very stable type. At any rate, developments on a larger scale
would be unusual for this type, as the possibilities for new formations are
somewhat more restricted than with the other types. With phrasal ve rbs, the
picture looks more dramatic, with the messiest graph of all and with a clearly
falling trend line. In spite of the latter, it is hard to speak of a definite decline
of phrasal verbs; an adjustment of the 1690s data (as mentioned above) by
taking out the abnormal text, and thereby reaching 4.0 per 1,000 words,
makes an underlying decline more likely, but still not really convincing.
Thus, the present result does not seem to bear out the findings of Konishi
and Spasov reported in chapter 5. This could of course be due to the
different methodologies employed and the different data bases used. Looking
at the periods of decline found by the two researchers, c. 1650/1660 to c.
1750, it might be that the time span of the Lampeter Corpus is just

178

Frequencies and Tendencies

unfortunate for the question in hand. It is after all easier to recognize a

decline if one has the contrast of the surrounding non-declining periods.
Thus, the question of the development of phrasal verbs cannot be
satisfactorily resolved with the data available .
5.0
4.5

per 1,000 words

4.0
3.5
3.0
2.5
2.0
1.5
1.0
0.5
0.0
1640 1650 1660 1670 1680 1690 1700 1710 1720 1730
Phrasal verbs
Prepositional verbs
Verbo-nominal combinations
Verb-adjective combinations
Figure 7.2: The development of four multi-word verb categories
Nevertheless, let me play out an hypothesis: assuming for a moment
that there actually was a decline in the use of phrasal verbs during the second
half of 17th and (most of?) the 18th century, why could this have been the
case? The possible reasons that come to mind are all interconnected: they are
(a) the standardization process, (b) a certain domi nant stylistic ideal, and (c)
prescriptivist tendencies (cf. chap.8). Phrasal verbs are po tentially good targets in the contexts of these reasons, because
(i) they are relatively frequent, i.e. prominent enough to be noticed easily
in contrast to, e.g., phrasal-prepositional verbs;
(ii) due to this, they can more easily be perceived as something disturbing or
outright negative (because of their allegedly colloquial/oral nature);
(iii) with a certain percentage of them the particle does not carry much inde pendent semantic weight, and can therefore be interpreted as superfluous;

Frequencies and Tendencies

179

(iv) most of them can be avoided, either by simply leaving out the particle
(even if with some loss of meaning), or by substituting another verb synonymous to the phrasal verb, commonly of Romance origin (and thus to be perceived as stylistically more elegant).
These facts apply only to a lesser degree, or not at all, to the other categories,
which might account for a potentially different behaviour.
To summarize, there is a considerable amount of continuity, with re gard to prepositional verbs, verbo-nominal combinations and verb-adjective
combinations. Without indulging in further speculation, phrasal verbs can
only be safely said to exhibit random variation. Phrasal-prepositional verbs
unfortunately occur too infrequently to make any definite statement. In ge neral, because attitudes (and style) are involved, the individ ual text or rather
its author, will always need to be taken into consideration.
7.2 Stability and Productivity
It is not only the numerical, quasi external history of a phenomenon, as
treated in 71. above, but also its internal developments which say something
about the vitality of a feature. This concerns the relationships of types and
tokens and their spread throughout the corpus. On the one hand, there is the
question of how active, i.e. productive, a pattern is, which manifests itself by
the formation of new lexical items on the existing pattern. The number of
single occurrences (hapax legomena), while of course not conclusive
evidence of a new formation in individual cases, can point towards the
degree of productivity present in a type of feature. On the other hand, there
is also the question of the inherent stability of a pattern, as too much
fluctuation might be disturbing. A certain amount of stable, i.e. continuously
used items of one category, can help to more firmly establish the whole
pattern and thus encourage the formation of new items.
Taken for all the occurrences in the corpus as a whole, the type/token
ratios 10 for the various multi-word verbs are as follows:
Phrasal verbs:
0.16
(4,266 tokens/669 types)
Prepositional verbs:
0.71
(2,816 / 199)
Phrasal-prepositional verbs:
0.43
(93 / 40)
Verb-adjective combinations:
0.16
(298 / 47)
Verbo-nominal combinations:
0.17
(1,994 / 338)
Once again, the result for phrasal-prepositional verbs is best left out of consideration, because of the low actual figures. Phrasal verbs, verb -adjective
10

I am aware of the fact that, from a statisticians perspective, type/token ratios are not
very useful, let alone significant. Nevertheless, I think some valid linguistic points can
be made with the help of this method.

180

Frequencies and Tendencies

combinations and verbo-nominal combinations fall roughly into the same

sphere as regards repetitiveness or richness of types, and thus by extension
productivity. The data above expressed differently means that, theoretically,
about every sixth occurrence of such a verbal form will be a new lexical
type. All three can thus be characterized as moderately productive. This is
less the case for prepositional verbs, where only about every fourteenth
instance will be a new type. This is obviously due to the generally more
restricted pattern of this type with fewer selectional possibilities and less
freedom of combination. The loss in activity means a gain in stability,
however.
As to the type/token ratios for the individual decades they are of
course higher, ranging for phrasal verbs from 0.35 (1690s) to 0.48 (1730s),
for prepositional verbs from 0.2 (1680s) to 0.4 (1660s), for verbo -nominal
combinations from 0.35 (1720s) to 0.59 (1640s), and for verb -adjective combinations from 0.25 (1700s) to 0.57 (1660s). In all cases, the distribution of
high and low ratios throughout the decades is rather mixed and does not fol low a developmental pattern.
A further indication of productivity is the amount of single instances
of a multi-word verb, which are rather high for all types in all decades. With
phrasal verbs, they make up between 50% and 60% of all types per decade,
in three cases even more than 60%. The situation is similar for verbonominal combinations, again with percentages in the fifties and sixties, only
one decade being as low as 46%. Group II of this type seems somewhat less
prone to a high amount of single instances than the other two sub-groups,
and is thus a little more consolidated. On average, prepositional verbs
generally exhibit fewer instances of single occurrences per decade, with the
highest number being 58.7%, and the lowest 29.2% and of course that fits
well for this type.
An alternative way of looking at things is to examine how many types
occur in how many corpus decades. This has to do with the stability over
time, or habituality of a collocation mentioned in the definition of multi -word
verbs in chapter 4. Figure 7.3 illustrates the percentages of types which occur
in only one decade, which in two decades, which in three decades and so on.
High figures in fewer decades, and especially the lower range, indicate more
flexibility and more productivity in the pattern, while an even spread and occurrences in the higher range of decades stand for a greater amount of con solidation within the pattern. It is clear that occurrence in a greater number
of decades goes along with more frequent occurrence of the type (in absolute
numbers) in general. The latter is true of prepositional verbs, which are the
only type that is distributed relatively evenly in this respect, with compara tively minor peaks for occurrence in one, two and three decades only. All the

181

Frequencies and Tendencies

other types have a very pronounced peak for occurrence in just one decade
(49%, 67%, 54%, 51%), and for the majority of those cases this also means
only one single occurrence ever. Phrasal-prepositional verbs appear as the
most erratic, or least stable type; merely one verb is established enough to
occur in seven decades, and this is break in (up)on, illustrated by the following two examples.
(1)
(2)

Josiah (...) did much, yet because the peoples spirits were not wrought
to concurre with him, the worke soone vanished, and Gods Judgements brake in upon them. (RelA1642)
And if you suffer those Laws to be broke in upon, and render Life or
Liberty so precarious, as to be affected or taken away, (...) that Excel lency must soon disappear, ... (LawB1723)

80
Phrasal verbs
Prepositional verbs
Phrasal-prepositional verbs
Verb-adjective combinations
Verbo-nominal combinations

70

% of all types

60
50
40
30
20
10
0
1

5
6
7
number of decades

10

Figure 7.3: Types per occurrence in number of decades

The three phrasal-prepositional items come up to, fall in with and run
counter to occur in four decades each. Verb-adjective combinations are
slightly better distributed than the latter, with two verbs even occurring in all
ten decades, namely think fit (3) and make good (4), the former being an
especial favourite of the period.
(3)

If France should think fit to quarrel with the Emperor, she will
encourage Spain to invade his Italian Dominion; (PolA1731)

182

Frequencies and Tendencies

(4)

By this your Honours may perceive the malice of this silly ignorant
man, that will inform your Honours with that, which he cannot in the
one, nor dare not in the other, make good. (MscB1646)

None occur in eight or nine decades, but two are found in seven (make
known, lay open) and a further two (fall foul of/(up)on, break open) in six
decades.
The best-established verbo-nominal combinations are those ten occurring in eight decades (Group I: give an account, take advantage, give (an)
answer, give leave, make (an) observation, take place; Group II: make
choice of, lay hold (up)on/of; Group III: take into consideration, be of
opinion), the four found in nine decades (Group I: take pains, make way;
Group II: have recourse (un)to; Group III: put in execution) and finally the
four used in all ten decades (Group I: take care; Group II: take care of, take
notice of, make use of; no Group III verb). The following list gives the most
stable and/or common items, i.e. those occurring in eight, nine or all ten
corpus decades, within the group of prepositional verbs:
Prepositional verbs:
8 decades: account for, comply with, consist with, dispense with, dispose
of/on, enquire after/into, fail of, hear of, look after, look into, look to,
meddle with, relate (un)to, seek after/for, treat of/ (up)on, wonder at (16
types)
9 decades: admit of, call for, call (up)on, deal with, enter into/unto, judge of,
look (up)on, talk of/on, tend to (9 types)
10 decades: aim at, amount (un)to, belong (un)to, complain of, consist in,
consist of, depend (up)on, insist (up)on, meet with, part with, rely (up)on,
send for, speak of, take (up)on, think of/(up)on (15 types)
The foreign and the native element are in balance here; it is not only the
quasi unavoidable fixed combinations such as dispose of, depend on that are
represented in the common group, but also the freer and more idiomatic
formations like look into, call on and meet with. This thorough mixing,
rendering prepositional verbs anything but a monolithic group, is what makes
it so interesting. A few examples to illustrate some of these types:
(5)
(6)
(7)

In which although that Pope failed then of his end, yet was that after
attained. (RelA1679)
The King (...) put forth a Declaration, wherein he warnd all his
people that they should look to their proprieties, for if Hee was thus
barrd of his owne, ... (PolB1648)
The Parliament will not, as I believe, admit of new Devices in the
Course of their Proceedings, whatever we do at Law. (LawB1704)

Frequencies and Tendencies

(8)
(9)
(10)

183

My Design therefore is, (...) to consider the Allegation s, without entering into the Characters of those who advance them, ... (PolB1730)
Besides, all this Scribler aims at, is, to shew a bare Possibility of the
Ninevites believing a Future State. (RelB1718)
The most probable expedients I have met with in Discourse (beside a
Land-tax) are Forein Impost, Domestick Excise, and Subsidies:
(EcA1668)

To continue with phrasal verbs, a similar but slightly longer list is

possible. It is the generally very common, basic verbs of the English
language that are well represented here, some of them, like bring, carry,
come, lay, set and take, in several combinations. Look in prepositional verbs
above is a similar instance of this phenomenon.
Phrasal verbs:
8 decades: bring about, bring forth, call in, fall out, fi ll up, get up, give in,
issue out, keep up, lay aside, leave off, make out, pull down, run out, take in,
take out, throw away, throw off (18 types)
9 decades: bring up, carry away, come up, deliver up, draw up, go on, go
out, lay out, pass by, send out, set down, set forth, set out, stir up (14 types)
10 decades: bring in, carry on, come in, come out, cry out, cut off, find out,
give up, lay down, make up, put in, set up, take away, take off, take up (15
types)
It can be interesting to follow one of these verbs through all the ten decades
and cut off is to serve as the chosen example:
(11)
(12)
(13)
(14)
(15)
(16)
(17)

With the same labor you may finde out the Longitude, if holding still
the Globe you observ the Degrees of Intersection cut off by the Meridian in the Equator: (SciB1649)
And doe we think his Lawes and his Religion, together with his
Judges (...) would ever have cut his Head off for fighting to maintaine
them? (LawA1653)
His proving that Rd cuts off from ab a Line equal to the line of Bc,
doth not prove, that ab passeth through c: (SciA1666)
He at once cuts off all this Pageantry, who appayd in his Self-sufficiency without other regard, ... (MscA1676)
... and if Queen Elizabeth did Cut her [= Mary of Scots] off, what
have we to do with that? (RelB1687)
All other Hair but that of their Eye-brows and Eye-lids they pull up by
the Roots, cut off the hair of their Heads, and paint themselves black
by way of triumph, when they kill a Spaniard. (PolA1699)
... and said that all were Rogues who came there, especially Mr. Hore,
whose Ears he swore he would cut off, and Arrest him for five Pound
a Day, ... (LawA1703)

184

Frequencies and Tendencies

(18)

By which Method we may yet put our selves into a Capacity of

cutting off all other Nations, or at least of making it difficult for them
to get any great Number of Slaves from the Coast of Africa; ...
(EcA1714)
So that the Small Pox may be reckond to cut off 1/10 of Mankind
above the Age of one Year. (SciB1722)
And we still want an Adjustment of the Point, as stated by Dr.
Croxall, how far we may cut off wicked Ministers, and civilly disable
a Tyrannical King, ... (RelB1730)

(19)
(20)

From these examples it also becomes clear that, by type, I understand the
surface form regardless of the meaning. Cut off in the examples above is
used in its most literal sense, in several similar transferred ways, and in its
most idiomatic meaning of "kill", but nevertheless it is regarded as only one
type here.
Looking at all these common types especially, but also at all the other
types, from the Lampeter Corpus it strikes one that they, or the great
majority of them, have stood the test of time, so to speak. They are still in
use today, even if not all of them are actually found as dictionary entries (e.g.
make known, give an account). A few of them, however, sound unexpected
from the PDE perspective, e.g. admit of, fail of, judge of, conjure down,
resign up and rhyme out, cf.:
(21)
(22)

Mr. Tuffer rimes out his experiences to good purpose, and in all their
bookes thou maist find out many things worth thy observation.
(EcB1653)
... it is true the Patent that had already past the Seal for the main part
of the Customs was resigned up again, but not forced. (EcA1676)

Others, such as think fit or take pains, may have an archaic or very formal
touch nowadays, but they are still used occasionally. Talking specifically of
phrasal verbs, Denison (p.c.) suggested the possibility of a continual turnover
rather than a general accumulation of combinations in the lexicon over time,
pointing, e.g., to the large number of 19th-century combinations which have
now vanished. Considering the Lampeter Corpus phrasal and prepositional
verbs more closely, about 91 (c. 14% of all types) of the former and twelve
(c. 6%) of the latter would, I suspected, not be found today. Clos er
examination with the help of cursory searches of the BNC reduced the
number of aberrant phrasal verb types to only about 58 (8.7%), though. It is
amazing how many unfamiliar sounding combinations nevertheless exist in
PDE, e.g. assemble together, deliver up, feed up (different from fed up),
issue out, lengthen out, or retreat back. Moreover, this is not to say that the
remainder, which were not found in the BNC, would not be possible
nowadays, as most of those phrasal verbs violate no current forma tion

Frequencies and Tendencies

185

restrictions (e.g. bring under, eat down, man out, tell out). But there are also
some among them which do go against present rules and seem therefore
highly unlikely for PDE, e.g. decry down, emit forth, resign up, retail out,
return up. Matters are somewhat easier with prepositional verbs, mainly
because there is less flexibility. There were, in the Lampeter period, verbs
commonly or often occurring with a preposition (usually of), such as accept
of, admit of, allow of, doubt of etc., which was subsequently dropped
completely. Thus, while there are to some extent idio syncratic, or rather
period-typical, combinations in the Lampeter material, the most stable items
fit in well with the general development of these types towards PDE. This
means that while there might be some constant turnover at the fringes, there
is also a more permanent core which makes for continuity. The core
combinations exhibit the stability over time expected of lexicalized multi word verbs.
7.3 Register variation
The last question to be raised in this chapter concerns the influence of regis ters and of individual authors on the use of multi-word verb forms. With the
help of parameters and individual characteristics present in the corpus set -up,
it is possible to follow up some leads in this respect.
The domain structure of the Lampeter Corpus (cf. chap.2) represents
what is usually called field in the register model of language. Texts of one
domain share not only their subject matter (in the widest sense), and thus
much of their vocabulary, but probably to some extent also other
grammatical and stylistic characteristics. Therefore, I have looked at the
frequencies of multi-word verbs in the six corpus domains (boldface
indicates statistical significance 11).

Table 7.4: Multi-word verbs in the corpus domains (tokens/per 1,000 words)
Phrasal
11

Prep.

Phrasal-

Verb-

Verbo-

I.e. statistical significance according to the chi-square test (with Yates correction).
The statistical calculations were done by comparing each domain to the rest of the
corpus as a whole.

186

Frequencies and Tendencies

Religion
Politics
Economy
Science
Law
Miscellaneous

verbs

verbs

652/ 3.2
601/ 2.9
790/ 4.6
748/ 3.4
770/ 3.8
705/ 4.3

551/ 2.7
503/ 2.4
395/ 2.3
467/ 2.1
514/ 2.5
386/ 2.3

prep.
verbs
28/ 0.1
20/ 0.1
5/ 0.03
3/ 0.01
11/ 0.05
26/ 0.1

adjective
comb.
42/ 0.2
53/ 0.2
52/ 0.3
47/ 0.2
57/ 0.3
47/ 0.3

nominal
comb.
341/ 1.7
345/ 1.7
259/ 1.5
351/ 1.6
376/ 1.8
322/ 1.9

With regard to verb-adjective combinations, it is quite clear that there is no

interesting variation. The figures for phrasal-prepositional verbs of course
suffer from the effects of generally low frequencies, but the fewer
occurrences in SCIENCE and LAW have a certain intuitive fit, while the same
situation in ECONOMY, especially in view of its high instance of phrasal
verbs, is somewhat surprising. The remaining three categories are more
interesting, and, because of higher raw frequencies, also more relevant. The
occurrences of prepositional verbs in POLITICS, ECONOMY, LAW and
MISCELLANEOUS are close or identical to the corpus average of 2.4, but,
interestingly, RELIGION lies above that average, while SCIENCE falls below. As
science is concerned at least partly with establishing meaningful
relations between phenomena, a relatively high instance of prepositions and
thus also prepositional verbs might have been expected. The corpus average
for phrasal verbs is 3.6, around which the domains show considerable
variation. The highest figures are found in MISCELLANEOUS and ECONOMY,
the former being characterized by a comparatively greater number of texts
with more down-to-earth content and less formal styles than the other
domains. ECONOMY, in contrast to our modern economics, was no academic
discipline, but it was open to everybody who had an opinion on this vital
matter to state it in published writing. Thus, these figures could point to a
more colloquial nature of phrasal verbs. The lower phrasal verb figures
found in RELIGION and POLITICS are also of interest. Politics then was not as
popularized as it is now; the political nation and the class of politicians was
a more restricted segment of the whole population, with the latter espe cially
being drawn from the circle of well-educated people, usually from the higher
social classes. At least the educational point is also true of the writers of
religious texts. It is conceivable that this group of authors had imbibed a
certain stylistic ideal which, at least, disfavoured phrasal verbs. Anothe r
noteworthy point here is that the present result seems to be contradictory to
Hiltunens (1994:136ff) findings on the basis of the Helsinki Corpus, where
he found phrasal verbs to be more common in religious, i.e. biblical, texts,

Frequencies and Tendencies

187

fiction and handbooks than in other texts, with private letters yielding
unexpectedly low figures.
Verbo-nominal combinations are most common in LAW and
MISCELLANEOUS, two intuitively very different domains. However, in both
cases the corpus average of 1.7 is exceeded only slightly. Also, it might be
different types of verbo-nominal combinations that are prominent in these
two domains, as there is certainly a stylistic division to be found in this
category. Therefore, I had a closer look at the kind of verbo -nominal
combinations occurring in LAW.
Expecting a clear dominance of
combinations with Romance and/or suffixal nominal elements, I was
surprised to find that this was not the case; the ratio of the latter to those
items with native and/or isomorphic nouns was approximately 50:50.
Another point to be mentioned with regard to verbo-nominal combinations
and domains is the somewhat lower frequency of this category in SCIENCE.
Today, verbo-nominal combinations are often treated critically in style
manuals on technical or abstract academic/scientific writing, indicating at
least a perception of their being frequent in or typi cal of these styles in
this case, there would be a contrast to the more average figure found in the
Lampeter Corpus. However, the modern perception might just as well be a
prejudice; Winterov (1993:180f) did after all not find a very high amount of
verbo-nominal combinations in the scientific part of her corpus, while
dramatic dialogue (her colloquial speech) produced double the amount. 12
In the light of the stylistic changes happening during the period
investigated here (cf. Howell 1956, Gordon 1966, Adolph 1968, for
example), and especially the role the Royal Society was supposed to play in
fostering a new plain style (at least according to Spra t, cf. Hllen 1989), it is
also of interest to investigate the possibility of a more limited group style
within SCIENCE. Six of the Lampeter Corpus SCIENCE authors were connected
to the Royal Society, and thus I had a closer look at multi-word verbs in their
texts. The authors in question are John Wallis (SciA1666), Robert Hooke
(SciA1674), Walter Charleton (SciA1683), Robert Boyle (SciB1684), John
Woodward (SciB1696), and Richard Mead (SciA1720). Table 7.5 shows the
occurrences of multi-word verbs in their works; phrasal-prepositional verbs
are not included as they do not occur at all in any of these texts. It is obvious
from the information contained in the table that there is neither a common
text profile with regard to the phenomenon under investiga tion, nor a really
consistent internal patterning across and within the individual texts. There
are two possibilities: either the members of the Royal Society did not feel
12

In contrast, Deutschbein (1932:139) was of the opinion that nominal style, of which
verbo-nominal combinations are an important element, was not part of colloquial
speech.

188

Frequencies and Tendencies

bound to a common style (meaning in the end there was none), or the
features in question here were not important or salient enough to play a role
in this group style. Without further investigation into the general linguistic
characteristics of the assumed styles of this period (which, however, is not
the concern of this study) an answer is unfortunately not possible.
Table 7.5: Royal Society authors and the use of multi-word verbs (per 1,000
words)

SciA1666
SciA1674
SciA1683
SciB1684
SciB1696
SciA1720

Phrasal
verbs
1.4
1.9
3.4
4.0
10.2
5.9

Prep. verbs
2.4
1.3
1.2
2.4
0.5
1.8

Verb-adjective
combinations
0.4
0.08
0.2
0.08
0.1
0.1

Verbo-nominal
combinations
2.4
3.2
0.9
1.2
2.7
2.8

Regarding the register approach, there is another factor to be taken

into account here, namely the medium or mode, that is whether a tex t is
spoken or written. This may of course have an influence on the frequency of
use of multi-word verb forms. Needless to say, the Lampeter Corpus, being
an historical corpus, contains no real speech, but what it does have are
approximations to the spoken language of the time. Sermons are normally
texts to be characterized as "written to be spoken", but in the case of later
publication some post-editing will also have to be reckoned with.
Nevertheless, they are probably nearer to the spoken language than texts
firmly anchored in the written sphere alone. Also, they are intended to get a
message across to all sorts of people, including the less educated ones
something to which their style has to be adapted. Figure 7.4 shows a
comparison of the ten sermons in the corpus (all RelA-texts) with the ten
RelB-texts. Of interest here are phrasal verbs, which are used significantly
more often in sermons. This may be due to an assumption on the part of the
authors that phrasal verbs possess a higher degree of inte lligibility for the
ordinary listener than Romance simplexes do (especially in the light of the
speed and irreversibility of the listening process!), but also to a perception
of a greater expressive force of these forms. After all, sermons are meant to
move and to convince the addressee. The same reasons can apply to the
greater number of phrasal-prepositional verbs found in sermons. John
Wilkins in his Ecclesiastes (1646), an influential work, had argued for

Frequencies and Tendencies

189

colloquial plainness in sermons (Gordon 1966:126), which might also have

directed some ministers towards choosing more native items. 13

Sermons

per 1,000 words

3.5

RelB

3
2.5
2
1.5
1
0.5

Verb-adjective
combinations

Phrasalprepositional
verbs

Verbonominal
combinations

Prepositional
verbs

Phrasal verbs

Figure 7.4: Multi-word verbs in sermons 14

Of interest here are phrasal verbs, which are used significantly more often in
sermons. This may be due to an assumption on the part of the authors that
phrasal verbs possess a higher degree of intelligibility for the ordinary
listener than Romance simplexes do (especially in the light of the speed and
irreversibility of the listening process!), but also to a perception of a greater
expressive force of these forms. After all, sermons are meant to move and to
convince the addressee. The same reasons can apply to the greater number of
phrasal-prepositional verbs found in sermons. John Wilkins in his
Ecclesiastes (1646), an influential work, had argued for colloquial plainness

13

Wilkins was not the only one recommending plainness, but there were many works
in the late 17th century going in the same direction. Cf. also Swifts Letter to a
Clergyman mentioned in chapter 8.
14
Only phrasal verbs are statistically significant (x2 = 12.53, p 0.0004003). Phrasalprepositional verbs would be significant without Yates-correction.

190

Frequencies and Tendencies

in sermons (Gordon 1966:126), which might also have directed some

ministers towards choosing more native items. 15
Dialogue is even closer to the spoken sphere than sermons. The Lampeter Corpus does contain some dialogue, which can be subdivided into
real and fictitious dialogue. Real dialogue is represented by three texts
documenting trials: LawA1668 does that by transcribing the proceedings in
actual direct speech, LawB1678 uses indirect speech for the same purpose,
and LawA1716 mixes direct dialogic speech with monologic speeches of the
defendants. LawA1668 and LawB1678 represent the courts of London and
Middlesex, shedding light on everyday legal cases as well as the middle and
lower segments of the population, whereas LawB1716, a treason case dealt
with in the House of Lords, represents a much more formal occasion with
participants of high social standing. The fictitious dialogues are found in the
texts LawA1680, a conversation between a barrister and a former client of
his called to do jury service, and EcB1700, a debate between an English man
and a Dutchman about the economic situation of both countries. As points of
comparison, I have used the remaining LawA- and EcB-texts, but counted
them separately. The following figures (7.5-7.6) show the behaviour of the
three major multi-word verb categories in these texts. 16

15

Wilkins was not the only one recommending plainness, but there were many works
in the late 17th century going in the same direction. Cf. also Swifts Letter to a
Clergyman mentioned in chapter 8.
16
The occurrences of phrasal verbs in LawA1668 and LawB1678 are highly significant
(x2 = 171.23 and 59.02 respectively), and significant (x2 = 6.44) in LawB1716. The
figures for verbo-nominal combinations are significant (x2 = 8.04) in the case of
LawA1680. All the other figures are not statistically significant.

"real" dialogue

fictitious dialogue

EcB-rest

LawA-rest

EcB1700

LawA1680

LawA1716

LawB1678

18
16
14
12
10
8
6
4
2
0
LawA1668

per 1,000 words

Frequencies and Tendencies

non-dialogue

Figure 7.5: Phrasal verbs in dialogue

3.5

per 1,000 words

3
2.5
2
1.5
1
0.5

"real" dialogue

fictitious dialogue

Figure 7.6: Prepositional verbs in dialogue

EcB-rest

LawA-rest

EcB1700

LawA1680

LawA1716

LawB1678

LawA1668

non-dialogue

191

192

Frequencies and Tendencies

3

per 1,000 words

2.5
2
1.5
1
0.5

"real" dialogue

fictitious dialogue

EcB-rest

LawA-rest

EcB1700

LawA1680

LawA1716

LawB1678

LawA1668

non-dialogue

Figure 7.7: Verbo-nominal combinations in dialogue

The very high figure for phrasal verbs in direct speech, and the still
rather high figure in indirect speech speaks for the fact that these verbs are
indeed typical of spoken language, and thus probably also in general of more
colloquial styles of the language, be they written or spoken. In the case of
LawA1716, the highly formal occasion, perhaps also the social status of the
participants (aristocracy), seems to inhibit the use of phrasal verbs, the fre quency even falling below the general corpus average. In contrast to this, the
text contains a higher than average number of prepositional verbs, a great
part of which belong to the more formal segment of the language. Coming
back to phrasal verbs, the occurrences in the texts with fictitious di alogue are
nearer to those of the non-dialogue samples and of the corpus in general,
indicating that fictitious dialogues are either not disposed towards, or not
successful in a correct imitation of real speech.
Verbo-nominal combinations are somewhat more prominent in
dialogic texts than in the non-dialogic ones, also exceeding the corpus
average. What is surprising here are the low figures found in the fictitious
dialogues. It is conceivable that these forms were considered to be typical of
the written language (cf. Kyts findings discussed above), even of more
formal, abstract styles, cf. also the domain LAW taking second place in their
ranking. At any rate, just as in the case of phrasal verbs, the representation of
actual speech with regard to this category is again not true to the facts as
found in the dialogue texts.

Frequencies and Tendencies

193

The last register influence to be touched on here is that of (personal)

tenor or style referring to the formality level of a text. This is, of course, a
very tricky question, one that is hard to deal with in PDE, and nearly
impossible with regard to earlier forms of the lan guage. Not even today is
there an agreement about the terms used and their exact mean ings, nor is
there a real empirical foundation to be found in this area. I h ave decided to
use social factors known about the authors as a possible indication towards
the formality or informality of the language used by them.
There are two women represented in the corpus, both authors of re ligious texts (RelB1687 and RelB1718)17, whose use of multi-word verb
forms has been compared to that found in the remaining RelB-texts, as is to
be seen in the following figure.
3.5
RelB1687
RelB1718
RelB-rest

per 1,000 words

3
2.5
2
1.5
1
0.5

Verbadjective
combinations

Phrasalprepositional
verbs

Verbonominal
combinations

Prepositional
verbs

Phrasal verbs

Figure 7.8: Female authors and the use of multi-word verbs18

Women in early modern England generally received less formal education
than men, or even none at all, as witnessed, for example, by the lower
literacy figures for women (cf. chap.2). It is therefore possible to assume
women to be theoretically closer to more colloquial forms of the language.
17

The author of RelB1687, Elinor James, was the wife of a London printer, who later
ran the print-shop on her own after her husbands death. Unfortunately, no information
regarding social status is known about the author of RelB1718, Anne Roberts.
18
Only verbo-nominal combinations in text RelB1718 are statistically significant (x2 =
4.65, p 0.03109).

194

Frequencies and Tendencies

From figure 7.8 it is clear that with the single exception of verbo -nominal
combinations in text RelB1687 19, both women use fewer multi-word verbs
than male authors of religious texts. On the basis of the hypothesis
mentioned above, I would have expected at least higher frequencies for
phrasal and phrasal-prepositional verbs; this, however, is not the case. From
modern socio-linguistic studies it is known that women tend to aspire to the
standard or prestige norms of the language: thus, if any of these multi -word
verb forms was prescribed as something negative or undesirable, their
avoidance by these women would make sense. However, as will be shown in
chap.8, it is hard to maintain this view. Of course, only two women are not
much in the way of evidence; more data would be needed, especially in
different domains and text types, to reach a more conclusive result here. 20
Another strand followed up in the pursuit of the question of
in/formality was to look more closely at six texts written by authors of lesser
social standing and/or poor educational background as compared to the
average Lampeter Corpus author. Once again, the idea was that authors of
this kind might be closer to colloquial forms of speech. Of course, this ap proach is dependent on information about the authors being found at all, and
on the quality of the sources (cf. chap.2); thus, as with the female authors
above, this approach also has it problems, but I nevertheless thought it
worthwhile in order to show up tendencies. The texts and authors chosen are
MscA1643 (London militia sergeant in Civil War, freeman?), MscA1685
(mariner), MscA1696 (craftsman/haberdasher), MscB1700 ( DNB: "of low
extraction", "little education"), MscB1729 (painter), and EcB1731 (midship man). The remaining MscA- and EcB-texts serve as samples for comparison.
I will again concentrate on the three major categories of multi -word verbs,
whose occurrences are shown in the figures below.
The figures show neither a unified behaviour of the six texts nor a
clear correlation between the use of the different categories of multi -word
verbs. The domains ECONOMY and MISCELLANEOUS as such already exceed
the corpus average for phrasal verbs, and three of the texts in question
exceed this once again, two of them to a considerable extent. On the other
hand, the remaining three texts are average or even below the corpus aver age. MscA1643 and MscA1685 are narrative texts, which might play a role
in the use of phrasal verbs; however, MscA1696 with a relatively low
frequency is also a straight-forward narrative, whereas EcB1731, again with
19

In this context, Mllers (1978:225) finding that the female authors in his corpus
used verbo-nominal combinations (with give as the only verbal formator in his study)
more often than the male authors may be of interest.
20
The female authors in the Corpus of Early English Correspondence (CEEC) would
be a worthwhile object of study in this respect, for example.

195

Frequencies and Tendencies

a high frequency, is not. It may be that the authors are socially too diverse
after all to exhibit comparable linguistic behaviour; also, it may simply come
down to very personal stylistic preference of the authors in question. In
some texts there seems to be a kind of inverse or negative relationship
between phrasal and prepositional verbs. Thus, MscA1643 is very high on
the former and very low on the latter, and in contrast MscA1696 and
MscB1700, which have relatively fewer phrasal verbs (although about
corpus average), exhibit higher frequencies with regard to preposi tional
verbs. A similar, though less clear case, may be EcB1731. This observation
could reflect the stylistic difference between phrasal verbs (more or less) as a
whole and the more heavily Romance element among prepositional verbs,
with texts that favour the former avoiding the latter.
8

per 1,000 words

7
6
5
4
3
2
1
EcB-rest

MscA-rest

EcB 1731

MscB1729

MscB1700

MscA1696

MscA1685

MscA1643

Figure 7.9: Social status and the use of phrasal verbs 21

21

For three texts the data is statistically significant: MscA1643 (x2 = 14.74, p
0.00012), MscA1685 (x2 = 5.33, p 0.021), and MscB1729 (x2 = 4.22, p
0.03987).

196

Frequencies and Tendencies

3.5

per 1,000 words

3
2.5
2
1.5
1
0.5
EcB-rest

MscA-rest

EcB 1731

MscB1729

MscB1700

MscA1696

MscA1685

MscA1643

Figure 7.10: Social status and the use of prepositional verbs22

3.5

per 1,000 words

3
2.5
2
1.5
1
0.5
EcB-rest

MscA-rest

EcB 1731

MscB1729

MscB1700

MscA1696

MscA1685

MscA1643

Figure 7.11: Social status and the use of verbo-nominal combinations 23

22

Not statistically significant.

Only one text shows a statistically significant variation: MscA1696 (x2 = 5.46, p
0.01948).
23

Frequencies and Tendencies

197

While the comparison-samples are corpus-average with regard to verbonominal combinations, all the texts under consideration here except one
exceed this frequency. The exception, MscB1700, is corpus-average for both
phrasal verbs and verbo-nominal combinations, but above average for
prepositional verbs. MscA1696 shows a very pronounced liking for verbonominal combinations. There seems to be no correspondence between the
use of phrasal verbs and verbo-nominal combinations in these six texts,
despite the alleged similarity of these two categories. A last remark that may
be of interest: MscA1685, which is high in both phrasal verbs and verbo nominal combinations, but only average for prepositional verbs, also has the
highest incidence of phrasal-prepositional verbs found in the corpus, 0.8 per
1,000 words.24
Finally, the question has to be put whether there are any tendencies
visible in the foregoing investigations. With due caut ion and without trying
to read too much into the statistics, I think nevertheless some general
statements can be made. Phrasal verbs seem to be more common in types of
language that can be characterized as nearer to the spoken variety, i.e.
colloquial, informal language (cf. the real dialogues) and especially kinds
of language that want to be understood easily and be accessible for a wide
audience (cf. sermons). Perhaps the same goes for phrasal-prepositional
verbs; in fact, I think it does, but the raw frequencies are generally too low
here to commit oneself fully to a view on the matter. Verbo-nominal
combinations seem on the one hand to be typical of the same kind of
language as phrasal verbs, but on the other hand also of formal, written
contexts and more abstract legal texts. This need not be a contradiction, but
due to the internal divisions in this category as pointed out above. In fact,
Kyt (in Brinton/Akimoto 1999) has found the same situation in her data,
with verbo-nominal combinations being common in both very involved,
personalized styles and formal writings. Furthermore, Hiltunen (ibid.) has
pointed to the relatively high frequency of these verb forms in Miltons
poetry, a writer noted for his Latinate and highly formal style. 25 Perhaps we
just have to revise our perception of verbo-nominal combinations
completely: instead of being stylistically marked, they might just be part of
the neutral core. The results for the remaining three multi -word verb
categories unfortunately do not lend themselves to any such speculations. In
general, the register approach to multi -word verbs is an interesting perspective, but will need to be refined by connecting the verbs to other features as
well. I will leave this question to be resolved by future studies .

24

Statistically significant: x2 = 17.52, p 0.0000285.

However, Sderlind (1964:115) maintained that Milton was not as inclined to
foreign borrowing as commonly assumed, but in fact is also found to coin new native
words and to use zero-derivations quite frequently.
25

8. Attitudes and Alternatives

As chapter 9 will be concerned with linguistic choice, a brief look at the
basis of that choice will be of interest. There is, on the one hand, the
presence of alternatives, which in the case of multi -word verbs are simplex
and compound verbs; these will be treated in 8.2. below, mainly in terms of
frequency. On the other hand, the level (or lack) of conscious ness on which
the choice takes place might influence the nature and/or the outcome of the
choice. Consciousness presupposes first of all the awareness of the existence
of multi-word verbs as lexical items in their own right. Only if there is
awareness can one pose the next question, that of positive or negative
attitudes towards these forms as groups. I will deal with th is second complex,
that of awareness and attitudes 1, first.
8.1 Contemporary Awareness of and Attitudes towards Multi-word
Verbs
Looking at the situation today, it is obvious that awareness of and also a set
of probably rather unsystematic attitudes towards some multi-word
verb forms exist. This will be due not least to the availability of dictionaries,
especially the specialized ones devoted to idiomatic verb usage. Brinton
(1996:189-193) summarizes existing attitudes towards phrasal verbs and
verbo-nominal combinations, as found in handbooks on usage and
(technical) writing. She found that while at present opinions on phrasal verbs
seem to be relatively neutral, or even lenient (e.g. defences made on the
grounds of vocabulary enrichment), there are nevertheless still some
objections. These maintain for example that the particle is redundant and
therefore superfluous, and, above all, that phrasal verbs are a bad habit from
the respective other side of the Atlantic. 2 In contrast to phrasal verbs, verbonominal combinations were found by Brinton to be attacked heavily, in
technical writing handbooks in particular. The criticisms are directed against
the weak and empty verbal part of the combinations, the reduction of the
actional dynamic content by the use of abstract nouns, the verbosity of the
combination as compared to the simplex, its pretentious and bureaucratic

I am taking a certain freedom with these terms, in so far as I am using them with
regard to people who were language specialists in some way. However, they were not
linguists in the present sense of the word.
2
The opposition to phrasal verbs may have been stronger in past decades of this
century, cf. the comments from the 1930s to the 1960s quoted by Foltinek (1964:94f).

Attitudes and Alternatives

199

character as well as its stylistic awkwardness.3 It can be assumed that native

idiomatic prepositional verbs and phrasal-prepositional meet with roughly
the same acceptance as phrasal verbs, while verb-adjective combinations, or
at least a part of them, might share the fate of verbo -nominal combinations.
Unfortunately, there is not much information on the latter categories in this
respect, only accidental snippets found here and there. In the survey
conducted by Mittins et al. (1970:13f, 47), for example, their questionnaire
item 16 concerns a phrasal-prepositional structure, the test sentence being
"We met up with him at the Zoo". Its acceptability/appropriateness ratings
are generally rather low, with only 14% overall (i.e. by all informants and in
all situations) approval, and even less, only 2-4%, in formal contexts. The
reason for rejection given by informants is the Ameri can origin of the item. It
is of course hard to know whether only the item quoted is aimed at or the
whole class of phrasal-prepositional verbs.
After this brief survey of the state of affairs in PDE, it is now time
to go back in time and attempt an assessment of the situation in the 17th and
18th centuries. There are two ways to find out about awareness and positive
or negative attitudes with respect to multi -word verbs: explicit statements
about them4, e.g. in grammars, dictionaries, or instances of self-correction.
The latter way will not be followed up here, but I will not leave it without at
least giving some examples, e.g. that of Dryden, who seems to have developed a dislike of features connected with phrasal and prepositional verbs.
According to Von Schon (1977:37), he repeatedly deleted phrasal verbs in
his manuscript text, putting Latinate synonyms in their place. Furthermore,
Sderlind (1951:26) quotes him as criticiz ing Ben Jonson for placing "the
preposition in the end of the sentence; a common fault with him, and which I
have but lately observed in my own writings" ("Defence of the Epilogue",
231f); consequently corrections such as the end at which he aimed (from the
end he aimed at) and the age in which I live (from the age I live in)5 are
found in his manuscripts (cf. Konishi 1958:122). It may be that the presence
of small words with no immediately obvious (or even wrong) grammatical
connections did not suit his rational (and Latinate) approach to language.
Swift, in part contrast, did not seem to mind final prepositions, but he tended

A study carried out by Brown & Herndl (1986:13-19) on what they term
"superfluous nominalizations" in corporate writing turned up a more positive side of
the attitude coin: nominal structures are a prestige feature, as they are perceived as a
sign of good academic writing and as more formal than simplexes.
4
I am not concerned here with the fit or non-fit of expressed opinions and actual
linguistic behaviour. While I am aware of the discrepancies (cf. the over- and underreporting found in socio-linguistic studies), this is not the important point here.
5
According to Bately (1964:270ff), the contact clause is not his point of criticism here.

200

Attitudes and Alternatives

to expand monosyllabic words where possible, e.g. on to upon, in to into, or

till to until (Strang 1962:1953f).
The approach of looking for explicit statements about the
phenomena in question has been dealt with by examining grammars and
some other miscellaneous writings on language published during the 17th
and 18th centuries. Hiltunen (1983c) inspected about forty grammars to
follow the evolution of thought on phrasal and prepositional verbs up to
1839.6 His main conclusions for the two centuries in question here are that
the 17th century is characterized by only "latent awareness" (ibid. 378) of
these constructions, whereas the 18th century "develops towards more
definite statements of verb and particle formin g a group instead of being
dissociate items" (ibid. 381). In the following treatment I will refer back to
Hiltunens findings where appropriate.
Awareness and attitudes can be separated to a certain extent, and
the former will be dealt with first, mostly with the help of grammars, and
other theoretical works on language. I will start with a look at some works
written before the time proper of this investi gation, i.e. before 1640. The
grammars of neither Greaves (1594), Gil (1621), Hewes (1624), nor Butler
(1634)7 contain any explicit statements about multi -word verbs as such,
which leads me to assume that there was no conscious awareness of the
existence of these structures on their part. Reading between the lines, so to
speak, one does find some implicit awareness, however. Multi-word verb
forms are not only found in the running text of these works, but also in
example sentences used to illustrate other miscellaneous points of grammar. 8
Greaves and Butler offer least in this respect. In Greaves two sa mple pieces
for grammatical analysis, for instance, two relevant structures ( they straight
cut of my head; who ... erst tooke paines)9 appear, but he does not even
attempt an analysis, instead not mentioning them at all. The only example
found in Butler, containing the phrasal verbs run away/go away (p. 46), turns
up in a marginal note on the role of be and have in tense formation. In Gil,
one finds various multi-word instances, e.g. the phrasal verb it iz givn out
(p.66) as an illustration of impersonal verbs, or the prepositional verb Neier
art ou h whm J lk for (p.76) as an example of inversion after neither. He
does not himself elaborate on the nature of the verbs, but what is of interest
6

The list of works examined in this chapter only partly overlaps with Hiltunens,
including grammars, but furthermore also other works on language not considered by
him.
7
General assessments of all the grammars used here are best found in Michael (1970),
also in Vorlat (1975) and Padley (1988).
8
This applies to all grammars in the 17th and 18th centuries.
9
Greaves grammar does not have page numbers.

Attitudes and Alternatives

201

here, especially in the light of later pronouncements on the matter, is the use
of a stranded preposition 10 in the context of the relative pronoun whom.
Hewes, whose grammar is primarily intended as a text book for teaching
Latin 11, nevertheless contains some interesting items. His example sentences
yield up instances of phrasal verbs (e.g. it doth ... finde him out (E2); nothing
dryeth up sooner than a teare (I3)), prepositional verbs (e.g. it is the part of
a prince to provide for 12 his Countrey; euery foolish man is taken with pride
(H2); who relyeth on the peoples praise), and verbo-nominal combinations
(e.g. let Custom give place to Truth (K2); it is a kinde of sinne to take pitty
of those, that pitty not themselves (L2); why doest thou make question (N3)).
In general, his instances are a mix of completely liter al and idiomatic, as well
as of institutionalized versus freer combinations. Further, Hewes explicitly
mentions the existence of preposition stranding (R3), but does not criticize it
in any way, only indicating a procedure of help, presumably in the translation
into Latin, namely "then yee must inuert and place [the preposition] rightly,
or conceiue its true vse". Hewes also very implicitly recognizes nominalized
verbal expressions, witness the following quotation (T):
And of those yee shall also haue a greate vse, when you shall haue
occasion to vary your Speeches from the Noune Substantiue to the
Verbe, and from the Adjectiue to the Aduerbe, and yet still re ceiue
the sence or matter, as in this Instance:
Mary Magdalene tooke great griefe and sorrow at her sinnes.
Mary Magdalene most grievously and bitterly bewayled her sinnes.
In his example, we find a contrast between a verbo-nominal and a purely verbal structure13, and he seems to indicate that the nominalized construction is
the primary one, or the first choice. Also, in mentioning the change from adjective to adverb, he makes a point about the different modification
structures of the alternatives, which feature so promi nently in modern
treatments of the phenomenon. But basically, Hewes is making more a
stylistic than a grammatical comment here.

10

I will pay attention to preposition stranding in the context of this chapter, as it

touches on the topic of multi-word verbs, cf. chap.7.
11
Cf. the editors note, which also states that Hewes represents "the earliest attempt to
reconcile the rules of Latin grammar with those of English and as such can legitimately
be regarded as a pioneer work". The book does not make use of page numbers; where
letters with or without numbers are found on the sheets these will be quoted as
reference instead.
12
In the explanation, he calls for the sign of the dative required by many other verbs as
well.
13
Had he used the verbs grieve or sorrow in his verbal example, the contrast would be
even clearer.

202

Attitudes and Alternatives

Apart from the sections on the verb in grammars, another place

where some information on the phenomenon in question could be expected
are the sections on prepositions and, to a lesser extent, adverbs. Wha t both
Hiltunen (e.g. 378) and I found in these sections are mostly mere listings
indicating the meaning of those items (e.g. Wallis, Cooper, Aickin,
Greenwood below). With regard to adverbs, there is often an emphasis on
the lexical items in this class. Prepositions, especially when following verbs,
are usually treated as case markers (cf. Greaves, p.34, Gil, p. 78f), or they are
listed as elements entering into the word-formation process (cf. Butler, p.
52), e.g. in the case of prefix verbs. These appro aches are found, to a greater
or lesser extent, throughout the whole period. Where one could also expect
to find some hints are the sections on the noun and on the adjective, but this
expectation is always disappointed. Verb-adjective combinations, in
particular, are notably absent from the linguistic works of that period.
The following grammars or textbooks published during the period
of investigation (1640-1740) were used: Jonson (1640)14, Poole (1646),
Wallis (1653), Coles (1674), Cooper (1685), Mige (1688), Aickin (1692),
Dyche (1707), Greenwood (1711), and Maittaire (1712). There are
considerable differences of quality between these works, and also varia tion
regarding the awareness of verbal combinations. Some have nothing
whatsoever to offer on the subject, e.g. Jonson, Coles, Cooper 15, Aickin,
Dyche. Some, Greenwood being an example here, have individual remarks
and instances here and there, without recogniz ing an overall connection.
Statements such as "[b]eing put after Verbs, it [i.e. over] signifies to desist or
leave off, as, He gives over, i.e. he desists, etc." (Greenwood, p.90), intended
to refer merely to another meaning of the preposition over, are completely
unsystematic. Other grammarians are at least on the way to an
understanding, sometimes via a detour through Latin. For instance, the
relevant points Poole has to offer on the topic are found in his section titled
"Certaine Rules for the easier turning of English into Latine" (p.24 -38),
where he treats items 16 and phrases which he seems to have considered especially difficult. In the little chapter on of he has the following to say (p.25):
Sometimes of belongs to the word going before: as, to heare of, to
tast of, to smell of, to aske coun sell of, to complaine of, to despaire
of, to admit of, to thinke of, to put of, to be glad of, out of, be cause
of, in comparison of, and the like; and then it is not the signe

14

Written earlier, first version before 1623, second version c. 1632 (cf. editors note).
The only place he uses phrasal verbs (sit/set/lie/lay down) in illustrative examples is,
curiously, in the treatment of verbs as absolute, active, passive and neuter.
16
Interestingly, the majority of them are invariant adverbs and prepositions.
15

Attitudes and Alternatives

203

alwayes of the Genitive case, but must be taken in making Latine

with the words going before.
The statement "sometimes X is part of the signification of the word going
before/of the verb" is found often, notably with respect to with, for, at,
on/upon, about, and under17; for some reason it is not found in the chapters
on to, by, in, and over18. Taking into account the context in which these remarks are found, it is not possible to be certain about Pooles view, i.e.
whether he saw these sequences really as one lexical item, or whether his
explanations are solely translation aids. Wallis, despite being regarded as a
better grammarian than Poole, also views the matter via Latin, and actually
does not go as far as the former 19; the only explicit statement I found in his
whole treatise is the following:
Off separationem significat; ut aliquando Latinorum abs, ex, ut abscindo, exuo: Cui opponitur On, continuationem innuens (exuo to
put off, induo to put on:) hinc up-on super.
He does not, however, say that, or whether, he considers structures like put
off to be lexical units.
Mige, despite his modest comment "I shall speak of these t hree
Parts of Speech [i.e. adverbs, conjunctions, prepositions] under one Head,
because I hant much to say of any of them" (my italics), is the first
grammarian to make an explicit comment about a phenomenon that is after
all characteristic of English as opposed to continental European languages.
Talking about preposition stranding (in a neutral way) leads him on to the
following observation (p.81):
Whereas in Verbs Compound the Preposition goes first, and makes
but one Word with the Verb, the English has another Way besides
of using Prepositions, viz. after the Verb, and distinct from it. As, to
look upon, for, to view; to look for, for, to seek; to put out, for, to
extinguish; to go after, for, to follow.

17

Some of his examples are: meet with, look for, care for, wonder at, ayme at, call
upon, bring about, keep under, all of which, except for the last two, are prepositional
verbs. However, the examples under of above are more varied; one of them, put of, is a
phrasal verb. There, he also illustrates verbo-nominal combinations in the sentences
Hee made use of my authority. I have need of your help.
18
Of these, at least in occurred commonly enough (cf. chap.7) for Poole to have
noticed its similar role.
19
Hiltunen (1983c:378), by quoting only Wallis and not Poole, seems to overrate the
former.

204

Attitudes and Alternatives

And he goes on to a statement (p.82) that can e xplain phrasal verbs that have
come about through prepositional phrase reduction (especially with over,
under):
Lastly, tis observable, that there are Prepositions sometimes used
Adverbially, that is, without a Substantive; as before, after, above,
below, over, under, within, without, &c. For Exemple, he went before, and I came after; He was above, and I below.
He is not always as advanced as that, however. In the context of the
following quote (p.36), it does not seem to occur to him that cut short is of a
different kind than his other examples:
Sometimes you will find them [Adjectives] used Adverbially; As exceeding great, mighty strong, prodigious high, to sing clear, to
speak loud, to carry it high, to cut short, to run fast, to speak
proper, &c.
Thus, one of the few examples of verb-adjective combinations found at all in
these early works is ignored by the author.
The next grammarian to yield explicit statements on the matter in
hand is Maittaire, whose material has rightly been called by Hiltunen
(1983c:382) "the most comprehensive treatment of the phrasal verb" in the
18th century. I think it is not a coincidence that both authors with an early
awareness of the phenomenon are originally foreigners: against the background of their native first language, it must have been easier to notice the
peculiarities of English. Maittaires most definite statements are found in the
section on composition with prepositions, but there are relevant remarks
scattered throughout the book:
The English Prepositions may compound words by being put after,
without governing a word; as to go on, to go out, to run in, to go by,
to get up, to pass over, whence the Noun passover. And thus about,
between (which compound not the other way) are used; as to lead
about, to go between. Of takes another f, when it compounds thus;
as to hold off.
Thus also some Adverbs compound words; as to go forth, to go
back, to stand away. (110-111)
The Particle, which compounds the verb by following it, does not always go next to the verb; but the Noun, which is governed by the
verb, is often placed between; as i keep in my breath or i keep my
breath in; i call back my word or i call my word back: The Pronoun
ever goes between; as i keep him in, i call him back; scarcely i keep
in him, i call back him. (111)

Attitudes and Alternatives

205

Besides the particle up seems to compound the Verb more than govern the Noun; and therefore in such a case it may admit another sign
or Particle besides; as he is gone up to the hill; thus also he went
down the hill or down from the hill, ... (162)
What he is talking about here are on the whole phrasal verbs, some of which
are possibly cases of prepositional-phrase reduction (e.g. go out, run in);
only one of his examples, go between, is a prepositional verb. The confusion
of the two types, and of prepositions and adverbs generally, is typical of the
period.20 Somewhat less clearly, Maittaire also seems to recognize the
existence of phrasal-prepositional verbs, although his chosen example is not
exactly prototypical to modern eyes: "Sometimes two such Particles, and
even of the same Signification, are added to, and decompound the Verb; as i
turn away back " (111). In dealing with the relative pronoun that he observes
that
the Signs and Particles are ever put after the word, upon which they
depend; as this is the man, that i take care of, (...) this is the thing,
that i depend upon. Such a transposition of the Signs and Particles is
also used with the Article who or which ... (33)
stating not only the unity of prepositional verbs, but implici tly also that of
verbo-nominal combinations (take care of). On the other hand, he also takes
note of the semantic redundancy, and thus strictly speaking superfluity, of
some particles, his example being approve (of) your opinion (151). By the
way, Campbell (1776) later addresses the same question, favouring the
preposition-less use of these items on the grounds of simplicity and brevity
(158f).21 Further, Maittaire treats the differences and connections between
the various forms of composition in a relatively systematic way:
The sense of the word is sometimes altered by composition; as to
stand with, to withstand; to stand under, to understand; to run out,
to outrun; to give, to give over, to forgive . (110)
The Compounding Particle sometimes goes before or follows the
word; as to overpass or to pass over, the going out, Ps. 121.8. the
outgoings, Ps. 65.8. their sitting down, their rising up, Lament.
20

The category particle, appearing here and there in the grammars, does not help to
clear up the confusion, as it is just another label for the same old fuzzy content. It is,
contrary to Hiltunen (1983c:379), also not a new feature of the 18th century, cf.
Miges definition of it as "a short word, whether it be a Pronoun, Adverb,
Conjunction, Preposition, or Interjection, is commonly called a particle" (2). Cf. also
the discussion of Walker in the text below.
21
As mentioned above (cf. chap.6), a number of such prepositional verbs occur in the
Lampeter Corpus, e.g. admire at, accept of, admit of.

206

Attitudes and Alternatives

3.63. my downsitting, my uprising. Ps. 139.1. Sometimes it only
follows; as to gather together, the gathering together, Ps. 64.2.
Sometimes it follows the verb, but it goes before the noun; as to
come in, an income: ... (111f)22

He is aware of the existence, side by side, of the old prefixal and the newer
phrasal pattern in many, though not all cases (cf. gather together), as well as
the semantic differentiation between them. 23 In contrast to other
grammarians of the period, who also quote items like income, uprising etc.,
he seems to see a clear connection of these synthetic forms to the phrasal
pattern. Before leaving Maittaire, there is a last interesting point to be
mentioned. On p. 131 he sets phrasal items and (Romance) simplexes side by
side, e.g. use vs. make use of, leave out vs. omit, fall vs. fall down, come by
vs. get, fall out vs. quarrel, thereby implying a semantic and stylistic
statement.
Walker offers not a complete grammar, but a treatment of a specific
set of phenomena or problem areas in his Treatise of English Particles (7th
ed., 1679). As usual for this period his definition of particle is very wide,
comprising many very different items (e.g. a/an, all, become, hence, it, next,
own etc.) apart from those of interest here, preposi tions and adverbs.
Walkers main intention is to facilitate the correct rendering of peculiar
English phrases into Latin. Although he must have come across many multiword verb structures in collecting the material for his treatise, he shows no
overall awareness of the systematic nature of the phrasal tendency in
English. What one finds throughout the book are references like the
following (p.12), almost repeated verbatim or only slightly altered each time:
ABOUT) is sometimes part of the signification of the foregoing Verb,
and then is included in the Latine of the Verb; as,
To go about a thing.
| Conari, moliri, &c. Cic.
To bring a thing about.
| Efficerem, effectum dare, reddere, Ter.
There is never a cross-reference to any of the other places (e.g. after, at,
away, by, down, for, in, into, of 24, on/upon, over, up25), which would have
revealed a more general phenomenon. Sometimes, the phrasal explanation is

22

Compare this to Greenwoods simple statement "OUT, signifies Excess, Excellency

or Superiority in any Thing, as, to out-do, to out-run, to out-go, etc." (196), where no
alternative at all is mentioned.
23
Hiltunen (1983c:380) quotes Dilworth (1751) and Coar (1796) as examples for
similar statements.
24
Of is also treated as a case marker after verbs.
25
For up he gives more examples than usual for him, probably due to the perceived
prominence of this particle in phrasal verbal constructions.

Attitudes and Alternatives

207

also missing as in the case of along.26 The only case in which he is somewhat
more explicit is when he describes out as "being a part of its English
composition" (296), seemingly indicating a word-formation process; his
examples are find/speak/fall/stand/seek out . Throughout the book, his
examples in the relevant sections are phrasal or prepositional verbs; none of
the other types occur explicitly, though verbo-nominal combinations in
particular figure in miscellaneous instances illustrating other phenomena. 27
Looking beyond the time of this investigation, i.e. beyond 1740, it
becomes obvious that a later publication date does not necessarily also mean
advanced grammatical views (cf. also Hiltunen 1983c:379). Both Martin
(1748) and Dilworth (1751) make no mention at all of multi-word verb
structures, only referring to the well-known, but in contrast of course much
less important, prefix verbs (prepositions compounding verbs). Other gram marians, however, go along the path set by Maittaire. Lowth (1762, p. 128f),
probably the most famous of 18th-century grammar writers, after mentioning
prefix verbs, has the following to say on the topic of phrasal and
prepositional verbs:
But in English the Preposition is more frequently placed after the
Verb, and separate from it, like an Adverb; in which situation it is
no less apt to affect the sense of it, and to give it a new meaning;
and may still be considered as belonging to the Verb, and a part of
it. As, to cast is to throw; but to cast up, or to compute, an account,
is quite a different thing: thus, to fall on, to bear out, to give over ;
&c.
The instances he gives are all very idiomatic ones, which are of course easy
to notice. The same fact seems to have set off Buch anan (1767, p. 97):
The separable prepositions are generally set after the verb, and
affect its sense, so that the Phrase is clear or obscure, according to
the proper or improper use of the Preposition; as to fall is to drop
from a higher Place, but to fall off is to apostatize; to fall on, to

26

He has the sentence I will go along with you home, and only takes note of the
connection between along and with, not the possibilities that go along may sometimes
be a phrasal verb, and go along with even a phrasal-prepositionalverb.
27
A century later, Willymotts English Particles Exemplified in Sentences Designed
for Latin Exercises (8th edition, 1771) with a similar purpose even falls behind the
information offered by Walker. Multi-word verb structures are hardly ever used in the
illustrations of particle use, although they occur in other parts of the example
sentences, where they receive no explanation (i.e. translation). There are fewer than ten
examples of the kind "... clandestine Hostility coverd over with the Name of Peace
(inductus.)" (210) to be found in the whole book.

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Attitudes and Alternatives

make an Assualt: to fall out, to happen, also to quarrel; to fall
under, to be subject to; as it fell under their cognizance, &c., &c. 28

Just before the passage quoted above, Lowth also deals with the subject of
preposition stranding, and he does so in an unexpectedly benevolent way,
contrary to the perception one tends to have of 18th -century prescriptivists.
While he says that pied-piping is more suitable in an elegant style, he admits
that stranding "is an Idiom which our language is strongly inclined to; it prevails in common conversation, and suits very well with the familiar style in
writing" (127f, my italics, CC). Further, when, on the same page (fn. 1), he
proceeds to correct John Lockes sentence "We are stil l much at a loss, who
civil power belongs to" the only thing he changes is who to whom.
A discussion of 18th-century views on any linguistic matter would
not be complete without mentioning Samuel Johnson. And indeed he has
something to offer on the subject in the preface to his Dictionary of the English Language.29 With regard to phrasal and prepositional verbs, he gives the
best statement found since Maittaire:
There is another kind of composition more frequent in our language
than perhaps in any other, from which arises to foreigners the greatest difficulty. We modify the signification of many verbs by a par ticle subjoined; as to come off, to escape by a fetch; to fall on, to
attack; to fall off, to apostatize; to break off, to stop abruptly; to
bear out, to justify; to fall in, to comply; to give over, to cease; to
set off, to embellish; to set in, to begin a continual tenour; to set out,
to begin a course or journey; to take off, to copy; with innumerable
expressions of the same kind, of which some appear wildly irregular, being so far distant from the sense of the simple words, that
no sagacity will be able to trace the steps by which they arrived at
the present use. These I have noted with great care; ... (no page
number)
Just like other writers, Johnson also seems to have been made aware of the
phenomenon through the very idiomatic items. He clearly regards the combinations as a lexical problem, not as a syntactic one; thus, he treats them in
the entries of the dictionary, but not in the "Grammar of the English Tongue"
following the preface. I suspect that the per ception of these structures might
generally and first have been from a lexical angle then 30; if so this might ex28

Quoted from Hiltunen (1983c:381).

Cf. also Osselton (1995) on Johnson and phrasal verbs.
30
Cf. also Leonard (1929:9), who says that linguistic criticism before the 18th century
was apparently mostly concerned with matters of vocabulary. Similarly Cohen
(1977:4f) and Bex (1996:39). According to Rusch (1972) the character of the lexicon
was a most important reason for the positive evaluation of the English language, cf. his
29

Attitudes and Alternatives

209

plain the mostly inadequate treatment in grammars. On the other hand, the
orthographic separation into several words probably prevented their interpre tation as words as such. This does not leave much room or possibilities to
deal with them. Johnson, at least, sees multi -word verbs as a kind of lexical
items and lists them as sub-entries under the main entry of, usually, the verb
found in them. I will use his entries of put (v.a., senses 22-66, & v.n., 4-14)
as an illustration, listing the sub-entries with their definitions 31:
put by
put down
put forth
put in
put in for
put in practice
put off

put on/upon
put on
put over
put out
put to
put to it
put to death
put to sea
put together
put up

put up with

1. to turn off, to divert. 2. to thrust aside.

1. to baffle; to repress; to crush. 2. to degrade. 3. to bring
into disuse. 4. to confute.
(v.a.:) 1. to propose. 2. to extend. 3. to emit, as a sprouting
plant. 4. to exert. (v.n.:) 1. to leave a port. 2. to germinate;
to bud; to shoot out.
(v.a.:) to interpose. (v.n.:) 1. to enter a haven. 2. to offer a
claim.
(v.n.:) to claim; to stand candidate for.
to use; to exercise.
(v.a.: ) 1. to divest; to lay aside. 2. to defeat or delay with
some artifice or excuse. 3. to delay; to defer; to procrasti nate. 4. to pass fallaciously. 5. to discard. 6. to recommend;
to vend or obtrude. (v.n.:) to leave land.
1. to impute; to charge. 2. to invest with, as cloaths or covering. 3. to impose; to inflict.
1. to forward; to promote; to incite. 2. to assume; to take.
(v.a.:) to refer. (v.n.:) to sail cross.
1. to place at usury. 2. to extinguish. 3. to emit, as a plant.
4. to extend; to protrude. 5. to expel; to drive from. 6. to
make publick. 7. to disconcert.
1. to kill by; to punish by. 2. to assist with.
to distress; to perplex; to press hard.
to kill.
(v.n.:) to set sail; to begin the course.
to accumulate into one sum or mass.
(v.a.:) 1. to pass unrevenged. 2. to emit; to cause to germinate, as plants. 3. to expose publickly: as, these goods are
put up to sale. 4. to start. 5. to hoard. 6. to hide. (v.n.:) 1. to
offer ones self a candidate. 2. to advance to; to bring ones
self forward.
(v.n.:) to suffer without resentment.

chart on p. 212. All this goes together well with the fact quite a number of 17thcentury grammars did not contain anything on syntax (Michael 1987:324).
31
If nothing is specified the entry/definition is from the v.a. entry of put.

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Attitudes and Alternatives

put upon
put upon trial

1. to incite; to instigate. 2. to impose; to lay upon.

to expose or summon to a solemn and judicial examination.32

The material contained in these entries consists of phrasal, prepositional,

phrasal-prepositional verbs and verbo-nominal combinations (Group III).
Verb-adjective combinations, missing here, can be found in other entries,
e.g. lay open "to shew; to expose", make free with "to treat without
ceremony". 33 There is a mix of idiomatic and literal combinations, and
Johnson takes account of the polysemy so often found in this area. Without
explicitly saying so, Johnson also comes very close to a basic fact underlying
the concept of multi-word verbs, namely the semantic depletion of many
common English verbs, cf. the following statement taken from the preface:
My labour has likewise been much increased by a class of verbs too
frequent in the English language, of which the signification is so
loose and general, the use so vague and indeterminate, and the
senses detorted so widely from the first idea, that it is hard to trace
them through the maze of variation, (...) such are, bear, break,
come, cast, full, get, give, do, put, set, go, run, make, take, turn,
throw. (no page number)
Practically all the verbs he lists (except full?) enter into combinations, in
which their content becomes, if not completely empty, at least general and
vague, just as he says. Undoubtedly, he must have come across many multiword uses of these verbs in the process of his data collection, and this will
have had some influence on arriving at the above statement.
In contrast to the works mentioned so far, the treatises I want to
conclude the discussion of awareness with, Priestley (1762) and Campbell
(1776), are more theoretical pieces. Some passages in Priestleys section "Of
Idioms of speech" in Lecture XV (p. 230-232) are well worth quoting in the
present context:

32

A comparison with the Lampeter Corpus data might be of interest here. First, here
are those items in Johnson which are not found in the corpus: put to / to it / upon / up
with / in for / to sea / upon trial / in practice. On the other hand, there are quite a
number of put-combinations in the corpus which Johnson does not list, most of them
being verbo-nominal combinations: put ashore / aside / asunder / away / a period to /
blame on / a restraint on / a stop to / an end to / to an amazement / to confusion / into
consternation / to sale / in mind (of) / into motion / in execution / into surprise / in use
/ in hazard / into a fright.
33
Johnson also lists combinations that do not fall under the multi-word verb definition
used here, e.g. lay before, come again.

Attitudes and Alternatives

211

In all languages, likewise, such senses are affixed to combinations

of words as could not be gathered from the component parts of
them; (...)
In this case, intire words resemble single letters in other words: that
is, they have no meaning in themselves, but the phrase composed of
them is the least significant part into which the sentence it helps to
form can be divided; (...)
These complex kind of idioms are little attended to by those who
speak a language; because, from their infancy, they learn to affix
single ideas to those whole sentences, in the same manner as they
usually do to single words: for instance how few English people are
aware that to give over a thing is an idiom of this kind, or a phrase,
of which the ideas of the parts do not compose the idea of the
whole; (...)
Priestley is here elaborating on the semantic non-compositionality of idioms,
which also figures in a number of modern linguistic idiom definitions. What
makes his treatment the more interesting is that he chooses a phrasal verb to
illustrate his point. But his explanation is equally valid for other multi-word
verb forms, i.e. all those where at least some semantic transfer takes place or
those where at least one element changes or loses its meaning. Greenwood
(1711:26), already mentioned above, in a way combined the last two quotes
into one:
... peculiar Phrases ..., which if they were to be translated verbatim,
... into another Tongue would seem wild and insignificant; with
which our English Tongue doth too much abound; witness those
Words of Break, Bring, Cast, Clear, Come, Cut, Draw, Fall, Hand,
Keep, Lay, Make, Pass, Put, Run, Set, Stand, Take, none of which
have less than thirty or forty, and some of them about a hun dred
several Senses, according to their Use in Phrases, ...
In dealing with the distinction of verbs active and neuter as treated
by Lowth, Campbell (1776:205-207) mentions quite a few prepositional and
phrasal items. The clearest statement on prepositional verbs as lexical units
is found in his discussion of laugh at:
It were an abuse of words to call this a neuter, being as truly a compound active verb in English, as deridere is in Latin, to which it exactly corresponds in meaning. Nor doth it make any odds that the
preposition in the one language precedes the verb, and is conjoined
with it, and in the other follows it, and detached from it. The real
union is the same in both. (205, my italics, CC)
It only follows logically from this that Campbells view of preposition strand ing is also very lenient (p.395f).

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Attitudes and Alternatives

To summarize the above findings on the question of how aware

people were of the existence of multi-word verbs in the 17th and 18th
centuries, I need to agree with Hiltunens view that there was a progress from
latent in the former to more definite awareness (e.g. of their unitary nature,
their idiomaticity, their grammatical behaviour) in the latter century. This is
certainly true of phrasal and prepositional verbs, by extension also of
phrasal-prepositional items. With respect to verb-adjective and verbonominal combinations, however, awareness was less than latent, rather it
seems to have been non-existent in the 17th century. Furthermore, that
particular situation did not improve in the 18th century; apart from entries of
these forms in dictionaries like Johnsons, where there is of course no room
for systematic discussion, they are not explicitly explained in any of the
works examined.
I would now like to turn my attention to existing attitudes on these
structures. Supposedly, the more conscious one is of something, the more
readily does one develop an opinion of some sorts about it. Thus, I expect to
find pre- and proscriptive statements on the phrasal and prepositional para digms rather than on the combinations with nouns and adjectives. Besides
direct statements on the items in question, there are also other points that
are of potential interest, e.g. statements on the lexicon as such, or general
stylistic considerations.
To start with, there are no direct statements of the general kind, for
instance verbs in composition with a following preposition are bad, or
something the like. What one can find are remarks on individual items; this,
however, will not necessarily be revealing about the attitude towards the
whole group of, say, phrasal verbs. Only if many items of one category received similar assessments by numerous different people would it be pos sible to infer a more general feeling from this. This was not the case, though.
The following examples for individual condemnations were found mostly in
the Dictionary of English Normative Grammar (DENG, ed. Sundby et al.
1991)34 and some other places. "Drink it out!", "To set out on a journey",
"To cast out with a person", "To take on for a soldier" and "Say away" were
all regarded as "improper" and as "Scotticisms" (Sc93:28 / 94;323;340;342).
"He opened up the cause with an elegant speech" is also regarded as
"improper" by a different grammar ian and corrected to "opened the cause
by" (Bu86:222 / 98). The above examples are relatively clearly directed
against phrasal verb forms, but the target of the criticism is not al ways that
34

I quote the original source in DENGs notation (e.g. Sc93, cf. p. 439-453), followed
by the page number of DENG.

Attitudes and Alternatives

213

clear, especially when there is no corrected version, as in the next instance.

In "Having been informed that some smugglers were to pass that way we
kept a look out after them" (Wo77:108 / 101), which is considered
"improper", the target could be the phrasal noun as such, the fact that it
enters into a verbal phrase, the verbo-nominal combination as such, the
preposition after, or all of these features together. Further, clear phrasal verb
instances are:
- "He followed out his plan": improper, corrected to "prosecuted"
(An800:xxxv/slv / 327)
- "Distress of mind is held out by physicians as the cause of his bad
health": improper, corrected to "said ... to be the cause" (An800:xxxv/xlv
/ 331)
- "We hear it is in contemplation to run up a novel and superb pavilion at
Newmarket for pugilistical exhibitions.": improper, corrected to "erect"
(An800:xxxvi/xlvi / 339)
- "When I got up in the Morning, I got my Breakfast, and then got myself
drest.": vulgar, corrected to "I rose early" (Ki98:88 / 328f)
- "knock under": vulgar (Be88:334 / 333)
- "worked out by dint of thinking": colloquial, vulgar (Bl 83:426 / 345)
- To take in. To cheat; to gull: as, the cunning ones were taken in. A low
vulgar phrase. (Samuel Johnson, 1755, s.v. take v.n.)
Thus, we have the negative word of merely eight different
grammarians and, which is important, all of them, except Johnson, date from
only the end of the 18th century. Their most common statement "improper"
is unfortunately too broad to locate the precise reason for their dislike.
"Vulgar" occurring four times can be both a social and a stylistic state ment,
in conjunction with "low" probably the former. The negative terms used then
are in general not very helpful; the same goes for their positive counterparts,
cf. Inghams (1968) observations on the term "elegant" by Johnson and
others.
The other categories of multi-word verbs, which are not as
prominent in use as phrasal verbs, receive still less attention and criticism
from the grammarians. In the case of verb-adjective and verbo-nominal
combinations, this was also to be expected from the awareness situation. The
few examples where the phrase as a whole is the target are the following:
- To make away with. To destroy; to kill; to make away. This phrase is improper. (Samuel Johnson, 1755, s.v. make v.n.)35
35

I checked Johnsons whole entries for the verbs come, give, lay, make, put, set, take
(i.e. those where numerous multi-word verb forms can be expected) and found only
two negative comments, this one and take in above. Johnson thus seems to have a
neutral or even benevolent attitude towards these verbal categories.

214

Attitudes and Alternatives

- "to put in practice": improper (Ro97:105 / 98)

- "I am of opinion": vulgar, corrected to "I think, I deem, I judge, it is my
opinion" (Hu91:159 / 322)
- "if the walks were a little taken care of that lie between them": colloquial,
vulgar, corrected to "if a little care were bestowed on the walks"
(Bl83:472 / 342)36
- Notice should not be used as a verb; the proper expression is take notice.
(J. Johnson, Royal and Universal Dictionary, 1762: 19f)37
The last instance is different from the rest insofar as the multi -word form
there is defended against the simplex. From these few examples, it is
impossible to draw any inferences about the general attitude towards, e.g.,
verbo-nominal combinations.
Something that is not uncommonly found is internal correction, i.e.
one part of the multi-word combination is corrected and substituted by a dif ferent element, which of course is not a criticism of the whole item, but more
of an implicit acceptance, as it would not be worth correcting that way other wise. This procedure is found rather often with the prepositional part of the
verbs, e.g. depend of changed to depend upon (Tr81:80, "unidiomatic" / 96),
insist for > insist upon (Pr68:164, "improper" / 98), make much on > make
much of (Br88:74, "improper" / 101), take revenge of > take revenge on
(Kn96:74, "improper" / 101) etc. While "improper" as a term is again not
very helpful, "unidiomatic" is more interesting, because it implies a tacit
assent to the idiomaticity of depend on, and in extension, other prepositional
structures. If a multi-word verb is accepted as it is, the question of its exact
value next to the simplex can arise. John Trusler (Distinction between Words
Esteemed Synonymous in the English Language, 1783:288), for instance,
tried to work out the difference between the pair choose/make a choice,
deciding that the latter applied only to persons, a view with which Samuel
Johnson disagreed. 38
To move away from direct statements, remarks abou t the lexicon as
a whole can also make some inferences possible. Take the following two passages, for instance.

36

To set these judgments in the perspective of (earlier) use of the condemned forms, I
will quote the instances found in the corpus: put in practice - 8, be of opinion - 31,
take care of - 63 (Group II; Group I: a further 73, some of which also occur with the
preposition).
37
Quoted in Leonard 1929:67. This is actually more an example of fending off
language change, as notice was the newer form, cf. the OEDs (s.v. notice v.) remark
about it: "not much used before the middle of the 18th cent., after which it became
common in American use, and was also mentioned as a Scotticism".
38
Quoted in Leonard (1929:108).

Attitudes and Alternatives

215

There is no language can deliver a matter with more variety then

ours, plainely by Synonymas, or by circumlocution with Mataphors:
(...) We (...) exceed the Latines in a peculiar grace of compounding
many words together, which is one of the greatest beauties can be in
a Language.
Our significancy and abilities in expression, in the severall parts
both letters, words, and phrases, is very eminent , (...) (Vindex
Anglicus. 1644.)
In short, no Vulgar Language can deliver a Matter with more Variety, either plainly by Synonimas, or by Circumlocution with Metaphors. (Mige 1688)
Both the anonymous author of the Vindex Anglicus and Mige (who seems to
have copied from the former) praise the great expressiveness of the English
lexicon. The plus points mentioned are synonyms (whose existence is due to
having either native vs. Romance, but also simplex vs. multi-word alternatives), the possibilities of word-formation (of which the analytic forms can
be regarded a special case), metaphorical circumlocutions (of which phrasal
verbs are certainly good examples), and, explicitly, the use of phrases.
Although multi-word verbs are not mentioned as such (and could not have
been, as there was hardly awareness of and no name for them), everything
referred to speaks in their favour.
As etymological origin and syllabic structure play a role in multi word verbs (cf. chap.6), it is also worthwhile looking at statement s about
these points. A majority of multi-word structures contain elements that are of
native origin and/or monosyllabic. The contrast to this is formed by
Romance and polysyllabic lexical items. According to Bailey (1992:57),
"[t]he consensus that emerged in the 17th century was to select a linguistic
middle way between the perils of polysyllabic eloquence and the bluntness of
very short words", adding however that "the most desirable mixture of the
two remained a subject of debate thereafter" (ibid. 190 ). This leaves the way
open for very individual stylistic prefer ences and decisions. Some people
revealed a professed liking for polysyllabic loan words, for example the
grammar writer Hewes already mentioned above, who gives as his reason
that these words "serue more to beautifie your stile in either Tongue, then
what are simple or prime wordes, or at least they shall much better your
English tongue" (S2). One of the authors in the Lampeter Corpus, Walter
Charleton (cf. text SciA1683), who obviously liked bringing in new loans,
defended himself against criticism on this account by saying that he was
proud to follow
those Worthies, who have infinitely both enriched and and ennobled
our Language, by admitting and naturalizing thousands of forraigne

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Attitudes and Alternatives

Words, providently brought home from the Greek, Roman, Italian,
and French Oratories". 39

Authors with preferences like these could still be happy with many of the
prepositional verbs and verbo-nominal combinations, of course, although
they might not quite like the other multi-word verbs so much.
Other people are less particular, Oliver Goldsmith in the 18th century, for example:
For my own part, I never go out of the common way of expression,
merely for the purpose of introducing a more sounding word with a
Latin termination; the English language is sufficiently copious, with out the addition of new terms; and the native words seem to me to
have far more force than any foreign auxiliaries, however purposely
ushered in.40
He makes the important point that native words can be more expressive 41,
one reason being perhaps because their connotative content is of a different,
more emotive, kind from that of loan words. In fact, the Anglo -Saxon revival
in the first half of the 17th century led to the development of a ce rtain pride
in the Germanic element of English and brought about a more positive
attitude towards the native monosyllables than there had been be fore (cf.
Jones 1953:233-39). However, with the Restoration the linguistic fashion
changed again to a preference of Romance words, and a perception of
Germanic words as rather harsh (ibid. 248; 256). Nevertheless, the swing
was not quite complete. The advantage Greenwood (1711:25) sees in the
native, mostly monosyllabic, component of the language is brevity, namely
"that we can express more Matter in fewer Words than any other Language
whatever". Addison (Spectator 135; 1711) is somewhat ambivalent about the
same topic:
As first of all by its abounding in Monosyllables, which gives us an
Opportunity of delivering our Thoughts in few Sounds. This indeed
takes off from the Elegance of our Tongue, but at the same time ex presses our Ideas in the readiest manner, and consequently answers
the first Design of Speech better than the multitude of Syllables,

39

From the preface to his translation of Paracelsus Deliramenta Catarrhi (1650),

quoted in Jones (1953:260).
40
Quoted in Kirchner (1952:xii) without the original source given.
41
Leonard (1929:75f) notes that of the two methods to assess usage employed in the
18th century, (i) analogy with some other phenomenon, and (ii) favouring something
because it was a more exact expression, the second is the more common reason given.
The notion of exactness would probably rather favour the Latinate vocabulary,
whereas expressive elements tend not to be very precise.

Attitudes and Alternatives

217

which makes the Words of other Languages more Tunable and

Sonourous.
On the one hand, he takes positive account of the suitable and short way of
expression monosyllables offer, but on the other hand he deplores their inele gant appearance and sound. Campbell (1776:342) corrects him and others on
that "opinion, which I shall afterwards evince to be erroneous, that a frequent
recurrence of monosyllables is inconsistent with harmony". Not everybody
was convinced by him, such as, for instance, the author of the Philological
Inquiries in Three Parts (1781), who finishes his condemnation of monosyllables with the statement:
Above all, care should be had, that a Sentence end not with a crowd
of them, those especially of the vulgar, untenable sort, such as, to
set it up, to get by and by at it, etc. for these disgrace a Sentence
that may be otherwise laudable, and are like the Rabble at the close
of some pompous Cavalcade. (105f)42
The author is rather clear and outspoken in his dislike, which is the more in teresting in this context as he uses phrasal 43 and prepositional material for an
illustration of the worst scenario he can think of. On the whole, the attitude
towards monosyllables seems to have been ambivalent throughout the two
centuries concerned, with some points perceived speaking in their favour and
other points producing a more negative impression. The latter are invariably
to do with style, as is also clearly visible in the last quotation above.
While style certainly has a lot to do with individual stylistic prefe rences, a few more general observations are in order here. Swifts statement
"[p]roper Words in proper Places, makes the true Definition of a Stile"
(Letter to a Young Clergyman, p.65) contains the following implications: (i)
there is choice between words (with roughly the same meaning), (ii) words
are not all equally adequate for various kinds of uses, but need to be "proper"
for the use intended, (iii) the placing and arrangement of the chosen words
within the sentence makes a difference (one understandi ng of "places"), and
(iv) the extralinguistic, social situation has an influence on which words are
considered proper (the other interpretation of "places"). Further, as an
extension of the last point, social rank as such plays a role, something which
was also visible in some of the terms of judgment used above, e.g. "low",
"vulgar".
The following passage from Shakespeares Julius Caesar (III.ii.
162-165) is interesting in this context:

42
43

Quoted from Tucker (1961:83).

Set up is not an uncommon item, occurring 92 times in the Lampeter Corpus.

218

Attitudes and Alternatives

Ant. Shall I descend? and will you give me leave?
All. Come down.
2. Pleb. Descend.
3. Pleb. You shall have leave. 44

The passage contains the Romance verb descend, which is used by Marcus
Antonius, who belongs to the ruling elite of society, and by an individual plebeian obviously echoing the former in his response. The mass of the
plebeians, however, in their spontaneous answer use the native phrasal
synonym come down; it is their first and more natural choice. Also, Antonius
uses the rather formal, polite verbo-nominal combination give leave, which
again is repeated (with a variation) by a single plebeian. Antonius uses words
that set him apart socially and keep a polite distance to the masses, a distance
which plebeians individually do not break through. Of course, Shakespeare is
not alone in playing with language use to characterize his dramatic persons.
McIntosh (1994:71-72) found a "Truly Polite language that identifies very
refined characters in late eighteenth -century drama", one characteristic of
which is a nominalized syntax marked by, among others, "ample use of the
verbs to be and to have" (often used in verbo-nominal combinations), and
"light verbs plus deverbal nouns rather than finite verbs (make an attempt
rather than try)". Elsewhere, McIntosh (1986:105 -106) quotes two versions
of a passage from James Cooks journal of the voyage of the Endeavour, the
one being Cooks own original (1770), and the other the rewriting for the
purpose of publication by John Hawkesworth (1773).
Cook:
one need hardly wish for a better
was the Access to it from the
Eastward less dangerous, but this
difficulty will remain untill some
better way is found out than the
one we came, which no doubt
may be done was it ever to
become an object to be lookd for.
(391)

Hawkesworth:
better would not need to be desired, if the access to it, from the
eastward, were less dangerous:
that a less dangerous access may
be discovered, I think there is
little reason to doubt, and to find
it little more seems to be
necessary, than to determine ...
(3:619)

Obviously the style of Cook, who was a day labourers son with little education, was not considered adequate for a published work. The well-educated
and obviously style-conscious Hawkesworth, besides producing a more
explicit syntax, also substitutes words and phrases. The substitution s run
along a native/Romance axis, cf. way/access, wish/desire, find out/discover,
44

I was made aware of this passage by Schfer (1973).

Attitudes and Alternatives

219

and in doing so delete the native phrasal and prepositional forms. From these
few examples, it is nevertheless possible to infer that Romance verbs and
verbo-nominal combinations (perhaps primarily the type with Romance involvement) belonged to the more formal and more prestigious variants of
English, whereas the phrasal and prepositional patterns (especially their idio matic members) tended to be identified rather with more colloquial and less
prestigious styles. This was part of the rationale behind some of the
investigations in chapter 7.
I would like to close this discussion of multi-word verbs and style
with a more narrow, i.e. non-social, treatment of the matter, of which Campbell (1776) is to serve as an example. The second chapter of Book III deals
with the problem of style depending on the number of words used. What I
found most striking here is that he does not mention verbo -nominal combinations at all, neither in a positive nor in a negative way. They are invariably
longer and more complicated than their simplex counterparts, and their ver bosity and pompousness are among the major points of criticism levelled
at them nowadays (cf. above). In the section on pleonasm, Campbell does
however use as his very first example a sentence involving phrasal verbs.
"They returned back again to the same city from whence they came forth"
(Campbells italics) is corrected by him to "They returned to the city whence
they came" (1776:341). In his view the italicized words are "mere
expletives", which "serve neither for ornament nor for use, and are therefore
regarded as encumbrances" (ibid.). He seems not to be inclined to recognize
some pleonasms as a valid means of emphasis and intensification. The
charge of pleonasm could of course be directed against many individual
instances of multi-word verbs, especially from among the phrasal verbs and
also some native prepositional verbs.
From the above discussion it should have evolved that EModE attitudes on multi-word verbs are not expressed in a clear -cut, generalisable
way, and thus remain to a large extent hazy. Furthermore, what statements
there are must be taken to refer to written language (cf. for instance Strang
1962:1949f [on Swift]), i.e. they do not necessarily say anything about the
situation in spoken and less formal/formalized linguistic contexts. They cer tainly do not if Adamson (1989:207;210) is right in her assumption that from
the 17th century onwards the literary (written) and colloquial norms separated, producing an H and an L variety of English which were differentiated
especially with regard to the lexicon. 45 Then, there is the question of which
45

There certainly is a difference, even if H and L should perhaps be reserved for more
clearly defined situations. Bex (1996:38), who accepts Adamsons model, adds that H

220

Attitudes and Alternatives

usage it was that the 18th century was prepared to accept as the basis of
acceptability, at least theoretically. The repeated references to the usage of
the best authors indicates that at most it was a carefully selected part of the
written language 46, not even all of it this is the variety the quoted attitudes are about. For most of the language, they do not apply at all or to a
much reduced extent. Moreover, as both awareness and attitudes have been
found to be severely under-developed, the majority of choices taken with
regard to multi-word verb usage will have to be regarded as not very conscious or elaborate decisions on the basis of the individual instance.
8.2 Alternatives to Multi-word Verbs
The stylistically motivated criticisms dealt with imply above all that there is
a better choice which authors can opt for. In Campbells example, the better
choice was the same verb used without the particle as a simplex, while
Hawkesworth opted for the more complicated substitution by a Romance
verb, although the simplex would have done equally well semantically. I will
not investigate the simplex option, but have a closer look at the Romance
alternative in this section as it seems to be the more salient, and also a pre ferred, choice of the time. Furthermore, I will pay some attention to the oc currence of prefix verbs in the Lampeter Corpus. While calling them a real
alternative at this stage in the history of the language would be misleading,
they are interesting, because (i) they obviously played such an important part
in the genesis of multi-word verbs (cf. chap.5), but were never treated again
in this context after the ME period, and (ii) they are often promi nently mentioned as compounding patterns in linguistic works of the EModE era,
indicating that people were much more consciously aware of their existence
than of the analytic constructions.
As to verbs of Romance origin, the question is if, and what kind of,
an effect there is on their part on the occurrence of multi -word verbs. Romance verbs are in a way connected to the influence of Latin as such. With
regard to, especially, phrasal verbs, this has re ceived different assessments.
In Kennedys (1920:13) opinion the influence was of a negative, inhibitive
kind, producing a decline in the use of phrasal verbs. Vice versa, he sees an
increased use of phrasal verbs as a threat to the more specialized Romance
vocabulary, so that the negative influence potentially works both ways. De la
Cruz (1972)47, on the other hand, assumes that exposure to Latin actually
can be associated with conservative tendencies, whereas L is rather found with
Puritans and revolutionaries.
46
Pamphlets and tracts certainly did not belong to this privileged variety.
47
Quoted from Diensberg (1983:255).

Attitudes and Alternatives

221

helped to foster phrasal verbs, because in translation from Latin into English
the Latin prefixes would often be rendered by a particle following the verb.
Although this is one possible translation strategy, I think that the temptation
to take over the Latin verb as a loan word is at least equal ly strong, at times
probably even stronger than choosing the particle option.
During the 16th and early part of the 17th centuries, especially, English had absorbed a multitude of foreign, particularly Latin, loan words.
Many of them were book words, i.e. part of the written, formal language
with a learned aura about them in short, those which became known as
hard words. As such, they formed an automatic contrast to those multi word verbs made up of native elements. Not only would these two classes be
mostly on different stylistic levels, but one of them would also in general be
easier to understand than the other. Of course, loan words in the course of
time became integrated into the English language. However, this process
could take rather long (e.g. Schfer 1973), be of highly differing speed for
different words, and also be never quite completed for all levels and all
speakers of the language. People having problems with quite a large segment
of the Latinate loan vocabulary certainly existed during the time span under
consideration here; after all, when Sheridan presented Mrs. Malaprop in
1775, her predicament must have been credible enough to make her a
workable character. Smollet in Humphrey Clinker (1771) made his character
Win Jenkins have problems with separate and account, among others (cf.
McIntosh 1986:34) those words had been part of the language since the
16th (or even 15th?) and 14th century respectively.
In order to assess the situation in the Lampeter Corpus with regard
to multi-word verbs vs. Romance verbs, I chose a spot check approach. As
the corpus is not grammatically tagged, it is not possible to filter out all the
verbs and then proceed from there; using the whole corpus was therefore
considered impracticable. I selected the decades 1650 and 1730 for this
check because they represent respective peaks (1650s) and lows (1730s) in
the occurrence of multi-word verbs, and because they are sufficiently far
apart in time. Before presenting the table with the frequencies of multi -word
and Romance verbs, it is necessary to explain how I arrived at these figures.
The figure for multi-word verbs is composed of all phrasal verbs, all phrasalprepositional verbs, all verb-adjective combinations, the native element in
prepositional verbs48, and native verbo-nominal combinations, i.e. those

48

Cf. Table 7.5 in chap.7, and the explanation given there. This approach has the
consequence that Romance prepositional verbs will be found among the Romance list,
e.g. abstain, consist.

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Attitudes and Alternatives

where the nominal part is native or highly integrated. 49 The Romance verbs
were extracted from the complete word lists of the decades, with very inte grated loan words sorted out again, especially if they were also monosyllabic,
e.g. arm, crown. In the case of the existence of an obvious, easier native
synonym, e.g. aid vs. help, the Romance word would definitely stay within
the list, however, even if well integrated. It is evident that the prod uction of
such a list is subjective to a certain degree; also, one cannot be sure that
native speakers of EModE would have accepted the list as what it is intended
to be, an antithesis to native multi-word verbs. One further problem
connected with the Romance list has to be mentioned: there are cases where
verb and noun, or verb and adjective have identical forms, e.g. endeavour,
perfect. In order to find out the potential error rate from this source, I
checked through two 500-word samples from each decade, and then reduced
the final figures for the Romance words by the percentage of error
established with the help of these samples. By all those procedures just
described I arrived at the following table:
Table 8.1: The use of multi-word verbs and Romance verbs

Multi-word verbs
Romance verbs
Total of words

1650s
total per 1,000 words
832
8.6
4,054
42.0
96,456

1730s
total per 1,000 words
636
5.9
5,378
49.6
108,454

According to the frequencies shown by the table there is some cor relation between a more frequent use of multi -word verbs and a reduced occurrence of Romance verbs, and vice versa. 50 In the 1650s, the native
variants were preferred and the Romance element somewhat disfavoured, or
at any rate used less than could have been expected. Historically, this decade
was the big time for the Puritans and some other people with a revolutionary
bend of mind, in general a brand of people averse to any kind of pomp and
ostentation. These are the kind of people that have repeatedly been
associated with the so-called plain style (e.g. Adolph 1968) or the L-variety
of the language (cf. fn.45 above). Also, the 1650s just about still belong to
that period in which the Germanic element of the language was in vogue (cf.
above), although the same decade also saw many Latin borrowings (Barber
49

The same criteria apply as for the sorting out of native prepositional verbs. This
procedure reduced the verbo-nominal combinations in the 1650s from 247 to 126, and
in the 1730s from 148 to 87.
50
The figures are statistically highly significant: x2 = 119.3, 2 dF, p 0,001.

Attitudes and Alternatives

223

1997:232). And the (early) 17th century was slightly more concerned about
the language being copious and expressive enough than about decorum and
stylistic fine points. The 18th century, in contrast, attached great importance
to the proper way of expressing something, on social grounds as well. 51
Furthermore, after the Restoration, foreign influences had once again
become fashionable (cf. above), with Swift actually complaining about the
wave of French words and phrases entering the language (although he seems
to exaggerate the extent [cf. Baugh/Cable 1978]). The fact that there is a
proportionally greater number of Romance verbs in the 1730s makes some
sense therefore.
Looking at the two lists of Romance verbs, there is no obvious
qualitative difference, i.e. more or less the same kind of words are found in
both of them. The 1730s list contains more items 52, of course, 1,969 compared to 1,632 for the 1650s. From the PDE perspective, most of those Romance items make a normal, not too complicated impression; there are no
hard-word monsters of the kind found in dictionaries or critical sources of
the time. A selection of the somewhat more exotic words are anathematize,
calumniate, controvert, depopulate, embrionate, excarnate, immanitate , and
putrefy. It is hard to say what effect these would have had on an EModE
speaker. The same goes for verbs which seem absolutely normal to us, such
as violate, subscribe, reiterate, propagate, necessitate etc., but these may
still have seemed very foreign to speakers then. Act, cause, deny, issue and
similar ones are at the even more everyday end of the spectrum, today that
is; act for instance only dates its existence in English from the end of the
16th century and was thus rather recent in the Lampeter period. For a
number of words on the Romance lists, multi-word verb synonyms are
possible, but their acceptability would of course greatly depend on the
context these words were used in. Examples of such contextual choice will
be dealt with in chapter 10; here it is rather the frequencies and general
possibilities that are of interest. A few examples of such probable
synonymous relationships:
accelerate - speed up, advance - come/go forth, compile - heap up, compose
- draw up, conceal - hide away, conjoin - join together, continue - go on,
delay - put off, depart - go away, desist - leave off, distribute - give out,
cause/effect - bring about, discover - find out, erect/establish - set up, extinguish - put out, import - bring in, maintain - keep up, omit - leave out, re-

51

Society was becoming more rigid again in the 18th century, with less social
movement and more concern about status.
52
Each grammatical form and every spelling variant of a verb constitutes one
individual item in this count.

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Attitudes and Alternatives

move - put/take away, retreat - draw back, return - come back, revoke - take
back, separate - set apart
consider/regard - look (up)on, demand - call for, desire - wish for, examine look into, imagine - think of, request - ask for
assist - go along with, contradict - run counter to, respect - look up to,
submit - give in to
abolish - get rid of, confirm/ensure/secure - make sure, destroy - lay waste,
encourage - make bold, facilitate - make easy, intimate - make known,
captivate 53 - take prisoner, command - give (an) order, deliberate - have a
thought, execute - put to death, finish - make an end of/put an end to, remember - bring/call to mind, reply - make/give answer, select - make choice
of, testify - bear witness
While this is only a selection, the number of examples for each category of
multi-word verbs is indicative of the productivity and flexibility the
respective groups can muster up for the substitution of Romance simplexes.
Phrasal verbs represent what is clearly the most versa tile pattern in this
respect. Despite their infrequency overall, phrasal-prepositional verbs also
prove rather active here. The group of verbo-nominal combinations would of
course swell enormously if I had not disregarded types of the kind make an
alteration with a typically Romance member. The stylistic shifts produced
by the above substitutions take place on different levels; get rid of, for
instance, is much further removed stylistically from abolish than lay waste is
from destroy, and between consider/regard and look (up)on it is hard to see
any stylistic contrast at all. Therefore, it is not possible to generalize an
overall, systematic stylistic contrast between Romance verbs and their multi word synonyms.
I will now come to the other group mentioned above, that of prefix
or compound verbs. This is a much smaller group than the one looked at
above, and also smaller than multi-word verbs as a whole. It has been said
(e.g. Brinton 1988:187; de la Cruz 1975:66) that by the EModE period
verbal prefixes, with the possible exception of be-, were no longer
productive (cf. chap.6 for the decline of prefixes). This obviously refers to
the remnants of the old inseparable kind of prefix, but even of that kind some
are still very active in the 17th century, e.g. mis-, and un- (cf. OED). A few
prefixes, whether they be of the old inseparable or of the separable kind, are
still in modest use today.

53

Cf. OED s.v. captivate, sense 1a. (obs., arch.).

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Attitudes and Alternatives

I am only interested in a subsection of all possible prefixes, namely

those that are formally identical with adverbial particles and prepositions
used in the multi-word verb paradigm, even if they are of different
etymological origin. As only the phrasal and prepositional, by extension also
phrasal-prepositional verb categories bear a relation to prefix verbs, only
those multi-word verbs will be considered here. Taking the particles
occurring in these categories as the basis, I looked through the word list of
the whole corpus to find prefix formations with the same elements. As
expected, there were not that many to be found in the Lampeter Corpus, as
the following table shows:

Table 8.2: Prefix verbs and phrasal/prepositional verbs

Prefix verbs
Phrasal/Prepositional verbs

Tokens
1,453
7,175

Per 1,000 words

1.2
6.1

Types
90
908

A rather high percentage of prefix verbs is made up of one single item, the
old, well-established and very common verb understand (454 instances); the
only other verb to exceed one hundred occurrences is undertake (130).
Prefix verbs were found with the following formatives: counter-,
for-, fore-, out-, over-, under-, up- and with-. Fore-, though not a particle
found in the analytic constructions, was included here because of its
similarity to and possible confusion with for-, cf. for example the occurrence
of both forbear and forebear in the corpus. Prefix verbs were found written
as one word (e.g. outface), with a hyphen (e.g. out-live), or even as two
separate words (e.g. out bid). The latter, though a variant in OE, was
unexpected at this late point in time; it was found in fourteen instances with
eleven types formed on out- (7), over- (3), and under- (1). In this way, the
prefix formations represent a mirror image of phrasal verbs.
Regarding productivity in the EModE period, there are quite a number of those prefix verbs found which are dated by the OED to that era (according to the date of the first instance given). Fifteen types (i.e. about 17%
of all), producing 64 instances, are first dated in the 17th century; those are
counterbalance (1603; 3 instances), counter-work (1602; 2), out balance
(1644; 2), outdo/out do (1607; 9), out-number (1670; 1), outslip (1643; 1)54,
outstay/out stay (1600; 3), out-trade (1677; 1), out(-)wit (1652; 4), over()balance (1608; 9), over-bid (1616; 1), over-reckon (1615; 1),
overstock/over stock (1649; 5), underbuild (1610; 1), and under(-)sell/under
54

The OED only lists instances in the 17th century for this verb.

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Attitudes and Alternatives

sell (1622; 21). From among those prefixes/particles, out is also among the
two most common ones in phrasal verb formation.
There are some parallel items as well, i.e. those occurring both as a
prefix verb and as an analytic construction in the Lampeter Corpus, thirteen
as phrasal verbs and one as a prepositional verb:
out-cast/cast out
outshoot/shoot out
uphold/hold up
out-drink/drink out
overcome/come over
outgo/go out
overlook/look over
withstand/stand with
out-live/live out
overpass/pass over
out-ride/ride out
overthrow/throw over
out-run/run out
over(-)turn/turn over
Of course there is usually a semantic difference between the items from
different patterns. An apparent exception to this is constituted by the first
pair of items on the list above; out-cast and cast out are both used in the
same, almost literal way, and seem to be interchangeable in (1) and (2):
(1)

(2)

And secondly, to your land you must have respect too, Land in good
tilth, in good heart and sound, in a good season, will out-cast its
very marrow, through the Lords blessing expect fruit enough:
(EcB1653)
Tis supposed to be cast out by the Sea; but whether it be so really,
or be drawn out of the adjacent Cliffs (...) is to be determined by
future Enquirers; (SciB1696)

Overpass in (3) is also used in a more literal way:

(3)

... that he would hide them, in particular, under the Hollow of his
Hand, until his Indignation is overpast; (RelA1730)

Even if it is not quite parallel to pass over, which had already acquired a
more idiomatic use, it is very similar to a phrasal construction such as pass
away (in its literal use). At any rate, it does not carry the common prefixal
meaning of over-, i.e. "to excess", as is found e.g. in overawe, overcharge. A
considerable semantic overlap seems also be present in the case of turn over
and overturn.
It appears as if the two classes of phrasal verbs and prefix verbs, or
at least a subsection of their respective members, could come much closer to
each other in EModE than nowadays. Also, there was still greater productiv ity, and seemingly also flexibility, in the realm of pre fixal formations in the
17th century in particular, perhaps somewhat less so in the 18 th century, than
there is today. While prefix verbs thus did not represent an option as a whole
class as Romance verbs did, they could probably influence choice in
individual instances more often than in PDE.

Attitudes and Alternatives

227

To sum up, the verbal options of an EModE author were: (i) a multi word verb, (ii) a Romance simplex, (iii) a native simplex, or to a much
lesser extent (iv) a native/mixed compound verb. Probably, he 55 would
primarily use whatever came first into his mind, i.e. the most common term,
whichever category that belonged to. If he went over his work again, trying
to polish it up, or if he was very style-conscious to start with, the matter becomes more complex: depending on what time he wrote at (connected with
that, what age he was) and which stylistic teachings he had imbibed, he
would tend either to the native or to the Romance part of the lexicon. The
first alternative may be more likely in the 17th, the second in the 18th
century. To complicate things further, however, his intended audience (an
information that is hard to get at) can play a role as well in guiding him to
more frequent use of this or the other part of the vocabulary (e.g. phrasal
verbs in sermons, cf. chap.7). There are certainly many factors influencing
lexical choice, and some of them I will now turn to in the following chapter.

55

I use "he", here and in the following chapter, as a convenient shorthand - which is
not completely inappropriate as after all the majority of writers then were definitely
male.

9. Making a Choice
This final chapter will deal with aspects that can influence the decision for or
against the use of a multi-word verb. It is not meant as a comprehensive
treatment of that complex topic, which I think would not be possible anyway
because of the individuality of every single instance. Rather I will
concentrate on points previous research has turned up, and on claims made
in the extant literature, in order to see whether they are also born out by the
present data, as well as on avenues suggested by my own data. Needless to
say, many of the following statements are of a more or less speculative
nature, i.e. it cannot be determined to what extent the potential reasons
influenced actual general usage.
9.1 Semantic Subtleties
In Chapter 8, I have pointed out some synonymous relationships between
multi-word verbs and Romance verbs, also even some few prefix verbs. Furthermore, there is often the possibility of synonymity of multi -word verb and
a simplex which is formally identical to one element of the combination.
However, it is a linguistic truism that absolute synonyms hardly ever exist in
a language, as this would be uneconomical. Either one member of a synonymous pair falls into disuse, i.e. gets lost from the language, or some
(semantic or otherwise) differentiation takes place. Thus, one can usually
detect a semantic difference in the case of multi-word verb/simplex pairs,
however large or slight it may turn out to be. Apart from synonymous pairs a
further aspect will be considered here, namely those instances in which the
meaning of the simplex is still clearly present, even though the whole
combination may have a slightly or completely different meaning.
Before I move on to a discussion of the semantic differences
detectable in the data, I think it necessary to also point out the fact that it can
be very hard indeed to find a fitting one-word synonym for some multi-word
verbs. It is especially examples from the verbo -nominal group that come to
mind here, e.g. take heed, give way, take advantage, find fault with, but other
categories contain such items as well. Give over/up for, lay about, see to,
make bold with, and fall short of, for instance, are difficult to replace by
simplexes with the same meanings; phrasal verbs, however, seem t o be more
commonly substitutable items. Of course, a paraphrase is always possible, as,
e.g., become extinct for die out, but this is a substitution on a different level.
The fact that these paraphrases can be rather long and even complicated
naturally is something that speaks in itself for the use of the multi -word verb.

Making a Choice

229

The first semantic difference to be mentioned here concerns the se mantic range of an item, or in other words, the specificity versus the
generality of its meaning. The entry for the word consider runs as follows in
the Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionary 1:
1 to think about sb/sth, esp in order to make a decision
2 to think or have the opinion; to regard sb/sth as sth
3 to take sth into account; to make allowances for sth
4 to look carefully at sb/sth
The corpus quotations in (1, 2) illustrate the dictionary senses 2 and 3,
which, however, can also be expressed differently, namely 2 by the
prepositional verb look upon, and 3 by the verbo-nominal combination take
into consideration, as in (3, 4) respectively. Take into account, used in the
dictionary definition, is a further multi-word option.
(1)

(2)
(3)

(4)

and if it be considered how the Manufactures of Wooll are increased

in Ireland, Holland, France, Germany, Spain and Portugal, (...) no
Reason will appear for bringing Home, or incouraging the Expence of
these Goods ... (EcA1697)
In short, I can afford to allow them all the Vertue and good Principles
imaginable, if I may but take leave to consider them (...) as Men liable
to Temptations, ... (EcA1705)
Taking therefore into consideration the performances of some before
me, and the attempts of others, in my time, which were not satisfac tory, (...) I thought it worth my while to employ my leisure hours in
some Experiments on the Waters, ... (SciB1676)
that so they may look upon themselves, not as mercenary hirelings,
but as Members of the Commonwealth, ... (LawB1659)

Compared to the simplex consider, both multi-word verbs exemplified are

therefore more precise, more to the point. This may lead some authors to
prefer the multi-word verb, at least in some contexts. On the other hand, one
need not necessarily be a politician to sometimes favour the less specific
lexical item which can also be represented by the multi-word alternative.
The verbo-nominal combinations in (5, 6) are somewhat more specific than
kill, on the one hand, because they indicate intention and outside
involvement, whereas kill could also be used in the context of an accident.
(5)

... a whole legion having perfidiously fallen in upon Rhegium, the Romans without regard to that Law put them all to death, such regard
had they to Justice.(LawB1697)

Shortened to the bare definitions of the entry. I have chosen a learners dictionary for
simplicity.

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Making a Choice

(6)

Upon the same grounds of Retaliation did Samuel do justice with his
own hand upon the Tyrant Agag. (PolB1659)

But on the other hand both put to death and do justice upon either evade or
blur the question of exactly what kind of killing is involved, cf. the verbs
murder, execute, assassinate etc., and are in that respect less precise. In fact,
the sense in (5) is "murder", or even more graphically "slaughter, massacre",
and while the author clearly thinks of the events as illegal (a war crime, we
would call it), he does nevertheless not use the more appropriate words. 2 The
action in (6) is described by the Authorised Version (1 Sam 15.33) as "And
Samuel hewed Agag in pieces before the Lord in Gilgal", certainly not a
pleasant sight, or act, even if it was done to fulfil Gods will. Here, the author
of PolB1659 is making his interpretation of the biblical story explicit by his
choice of expression, indicating a legal execution. Compared to the possible
simplexes, both put to death and to a larger extent do justice upon are euphemistic, or at least can be used in that way. This kind of euphemism is based
on less precision regarding important aspects of the action.
Another kind of semantic difference is found in those cases where the
multi-word verb contains additional meaning compared to the simplex contained in it, but where the (primary) meaning of the simplex is still clearly
present. Within the category of verb -adjective combinations, there are quite a
few items based on the adjective open, which is connected to the corresponding verb open. Both (7) and (8) describe opening actions that are forceful,
even violent, but whereas in (7) this additional meaning is contained in the
general context (clapt a Bar in between the Gates to open them3), it is
merged into the combined verbal form in (8); the same merger happens in
(9).
(7)
(8)

(9)

Nine of the Clock on Friday, I went to the Gate of the New-Prison,

and there came and clapt a Bar in between the Gates to open them,
and I saw Latimer throwing stones at the Windows. (LawA1668)
Mary Gastring, the Wife of Lewis, swore, That going out to a Neighbours house, she then lost those goods, and found them with the Prisoner at the Bar; that the things were in several Boxes and Trunks, but
none broken open. (LawB1678)
It was by our Direction, that the Famous Exposition of the Church of
England Articles was written, by which the Inclosure and Pale, that
had been made up by the Tories, was thrown open, ... (PolA1711)

But apparently put to death did not have the preferred meaning of "execute" (cf.
OED) for that author.
3
This can serve as one example for a longer paraphrase (as mentioned above); while it
is more complicated it has of course the advantage of being even more explicit than,
say, break open.

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231

In all three instances, the basic action is "to open", with the multi -word elements break and throw standing in a similar relationship to open as a manner
adverb (e.g. suddenly, wide for (9)) would. Thus, the manner component
becomes an integral part of the meaning of the multi -word verb, which is not
present in the simplex. This is also the case where open is combined with
force, rip, and slit; only set (as in (10)) does not quite fit into this manner
group.
(10)

I think, amongst the few good Things that Lewis XIV. has done, this
ought to be mentiond, that (...) [he] orderd that all the Prisons in
Normandy should be set open to all Persons that were detained for
those Crimes. (MscA1712)

It seems to me to emphasize the beginning of the action, i.e. constitute some thing like ingressive aktionsart 4, which is a kind of additional meaning as
well.
The phenomenon of clearly present simplex meaning with some addition to it is especially common in the case of phrasal verbs, many of which
are used in a completely literal way (cf. chap.6.3). Combinations with
particles of the original dominant directional or locative sense in particular
are similar to the process demonstrated with break/throw etc. open above.
Bolinger (1971:87f) has pointed out the verbal nature of some of these
particles themselves, most clearly visible in their use as imperatives or virtual
verbs, or, one might add, their conversion into verbs. 5 This characteristic also
predestines the particles to take over the verbal meaning, and to reduce the
role of the verb in the combination.
(11)
(12)

(13)

... a great Oak which was blown down, ... (MscA1685)

And that a little Care to put the People there into a way to send us
their Commodities, and Productions, would cause them to throw away
their Woollen, Linen, and other Manufacturies that interfere with this
Kingdom, ... (EcA1720)
Thus it may happen, in process of Time, That as one Sett begins to
rub out a Part of the Score with a wet Finger; ... (EcB1717)

The question of aktionsart will be dealt with in more detail below.

The following examples illustrate some such particle uses in the Lampeter Corpus,
which are, however, extremely rare.
(i)
... crying out to them, Away, away, every man shift for his life, you are all dead
men ... (MscA1643)
(ii)
If Truth doe prevaile, Diana must downe, and then farewell their profit.
(RelA1642)
(iii)
... but his Touch and stroke so Invigorateth the parts that they reject the
Heterogeneous Ferment, till it be outed the Body at some of those parts he is
thought to stroke it out at. (MscB1666)
5

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Making a Choice

All of these could be paraphrased in Bolingers fashion (cf. chap.4) as "to

down by blowing", "to away by throwing", and "to out by rubbing", thus
making the verbs serve for the indication of manner or method of the resu lt
denoted by the particles. The combination force away is an especially clear
example of resultative particle use. Similar cases are e.g. boil over, cut off,
hem in, but also on a transferred level, vote down, pay out, even spy out (e.g.
"others Inventions", SciA1674). (14) is another such transferred example,
but one which here is used on a higher metaphorical level.
(14)

He that would bar me of a coming Joy,

And by strict Rules, my Liberty Destroy,
In Trammels makes me Pace away my Life,
Twixt Nature and his Rules is constant strife; (MscB1700)

In this case, the particle also serves to make the verb transitive 6, which is
another way of changing or adding to the overall meaning. Laugh occurs as a
simplex, which is primarily intransitive and thus undirected (15), and in
transitive multi-word structures such as (16, 17).
(15)
(16)

(17)

How then can a Man that has one Foot in the Grave, jest and Laugh?
(RelA1711)
[the bride] besought all their good Companies to Morrow at Dinner
with her at her House in Limestr eet, there to call their Trustee to an
Account, and to laugh out an Afternoon with her upon their
Travelling Adventures. (MscB1692)
Yet none made doubt of it; but would rather laugh at any that should
talk of March and September, as being the dangerous times.
(SciA1666)

The latter two are directed actions with an aim. (16) is similar to (14) above
in so far as it means "spending the specified time (life, afternoon etc.) by
doing x (verb)", here, by doing or talking about pleasant things that make
one laugh. At in (17) makes the existence of a target explicit, i.e. the target
that is being made fun of, an action that implies the (potential) presence of
laughter. Thus, both the phrasal and the prepositional verb still contain the
primary meaning of the simplex.
Talking of at in prepositional verbs, which is not uncommon, forming
26 different types, it is obvious that in the majority of the cases it serves
purely to point towards the aim of the action, i.e. in syntactic terms to pro duce transitivity (e.g. aim/arrive/come/look/ mutter/wonder etc. at). In some
cases, the transitivizing function is superfluous from our modern
6

Pace alone can of course also be used transitively, but only with a cognate or nearly
cognate object. In the corpus the simplex is not found at all.

Making a Choice

233

perspective, cf. admire/beg at7, thus only emphasizing/intensifying the

notion of goal. Some at-combinations, however, also transport something
else:
(18)
(19)

What though some Men have run upon wild Notions, and catching at
Shadows lost their Substance, thats no Objection against our Fishery,
which is a certainty; (EcB1700)
... add to this, that the prohibitory Clause with relation to the Trade of
both Nations must be adjusted, lest like sops Dog, we lose the old
in grasping at the new; (PolB1706)

Both examples above carry the idea of an attempt, i.e. that somebody is
trying to catch or grasp something, but (perhaps) not quite succ eeding in it.
This semantic trait resides in at, and becomes thus part of the overall verbal
meaning, without which a longer paraphrase would be necessary to produce
the same meaning. 8
Kennedy (1920:33) remarked of phrasal verbs (but it is applicable to
other multi-word verbs as well) that one reason for their being used may lie
in the speakers wish to strengthen or emphasize an idea expressed by the
simplex, and their desire to vary the expression of an idea. The separate
elements of multi-word structures as such are more expressive, because they
often present a graphic picture of the action/process, and they are also
easier to manipulate by the speaker for the sake of semantic shifts.
Generally, there is an interesting tension between the combined meaning of
the elements and their meanings taken separately and literally. Sometimes,
the use of a multi-word verb even produces word-play obviously not quite
intended by its author, cf. for instance:
(20)

An antique mirror was stolen from the home of Mr. and Mrs. Buddy
Shavers of Worcester Thursday evening. Police are looking into it.9

On the other hand, inventive speakers can exploit the metaphorical and punning potential inherent in many multi-word verbs for their own purposes.
Consider the following three examples: the simplex has the straightforward
everyday meaning "play", whereas the two prepositional verbs can be para 7

Not only from our perspective, though: cf. Campbells criticism of surplus
prepositions in such cases as quoted in chap.9.
8
The "attempt"-meaning is also very obvious in drive at, cf. Cowie & Mackins
definition of the whole expression.
(i)
and all he drives at, is by his unjust aspersions to bring the Parliament and them
at ods, ... (MscB1646)
Today, this prepositional verb seems to occur only in the continuous form, whereas in
the Lampeter Corpus it was found exclusively in the simple present.
9
Richard Lederer. 1993. More Anguished English. London: Robson Books: p. 76/79 quoted from an unspecified press source (Lederers italics).

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Making a Choice

phrased by "pretend for fun to be somebody or do something"/"engage in

casually or half-heartedly" (for (22), cf. Cowie & Mackin, s.v. play at1+2) and
"exploit, develop (usually to harm somebody)" (ibid., s.v. play on/upon2).
(21)

(22)
(23)

He would not then have had it in his power to use his Arts, and play
his Game with a dozen honest men of as good natural understandings
perhaps, tho not of equal Experience and Cunning with himself.
(LawB1738)
he dyed in the midway between fifty and sixty years, and having for a
score of the last of em, playd at no other Game than cheating the
World in all the Shapes and Masques he coud invent, ... (MscB1692)
My design being only to disabuse my fellow Citizens and others, that
they be not frightned with shadowie appearances, nor suffer themselves to be thus playd upon by every sly and subtil Gamster, to disturb the setled course of their lawful advantages, ... (EcA1676)

(22) is taken from a text about a confidence trickster who spent his life, and
earned his income, pretending to be a marriageable gentleman; using "pretend" or a similar verb, however, would have required a completely different
sentence and it would have made impossible the complex picture conjured
up by play in conjunction with game, shapes and masques, the latter being
connected with the theatre meaning of "play", something which goes well
with pretension. Apart from deceptio n, there is also fun and entertainment
involved for the hero of the story and for its readers at least, even if not
for the victims. (23) activates similar connections, i.e. again the theatre
(shadowie appearances) and games (gamster) but here the connotations
are more clearly negative, cf. the OED definitions for gamester, which
include references to "gamblers" (sense 3) and even to "lewd persons" (sense
5). These metaphorical extensions are only possible because of the presence
of play and its meaning in the multi-word structure; using more or less
synonymous simplexes, such as pretend or exploit instead, would have been
more direct, but probably less effective in the end.
Three more examples of the expressive potential of multi -word verb
shall suffice here. Phrasal verbs, such as the one in (24), offer themselves
because of the relatively high number of transferred and idiomatic combina tions in this category.
(24)

this [self-love], which eates out all friendship, natural affection, compassion, and plants instead of them, hatred, malice, discontent, rejoy cings at one anothers Calamities; (LawB1659)

The author embeds his talk about abstract emotions in imagery taken from
the natural, biological world (eat out, plant), with the image created by the

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235

phrasal verb being especially graphic and unpleasant 10 something which

obviously suits his purpose. The literal, original and the figurative meaning
("abase, humble") also interact in lay low (25), the additional adjectives,
quasi coordinated into the multi-word verb, both enlarge and graphically
reactivate the picture.
(25)

The sign of which Coming, will bee the Detection, by little and little,
of all Imposture, and the laying of all things low, naked, and mean
before him; the stripping men of that Honor, Credit, and Repute, ...
(EcA1652)

My final instance here is not so much metaphorical, but more of a word -play
or pun.
(26)

But let us hear what Use you the great Men of Uses, make of this
Introduction; I find it in the next Paragraph in these Words.
(RelB1674)

One element of the verbo-nominal combination in (26) is taken up again outside the combination, thus connecting the characterization of the persons
with their action. As the characterization seems to be not very
complimentary the persons in question are the authors opponents and the
meaning of "uses" is probably something like "purpose, especially of an
advantageous nature" (cf. OED) this reflects back on the interpretation of
the otherwise neutral content of make use of.
The metaphorical and playful extensions just treated have to do with
connotations and the shifting of them. But connotations can also differ be tween the simplex and multi-word verb without imagery being involved;
meet vs. meet with is a case in point in this respect. On the face of it, both
seem to be nearly the same, yet their difference is clearly visible in their
semantic preferences of the objects they take. 11 Three quarters of the
transitive occurrences of meet have objects that are human; moreover, the
people are usually either very specific, identified, or even known personally
to the author (e.g. Anne Thorn, my Lord General, this man, his people). The
remaining objects are either concrete, but non-human (e.g. that place) or
rarely more abstract (e.g. reception). In contrast, meet with definitely
prefers abstract objects, or, if concrete (much less common), at least non human ones; these two classes together make up three quarters of all meet
with objects. Typical abstract objects are regard, difficulty, argument,
10

Cf. OED s.v. eat (sense 17c.): "To destroy as a parasite or a corrosive." For people
living in early modern times, witnessing such processes would have been a rather
common experience, i.e. the picture was more accessible to them than it is to us.
11
In the case of the simplex meet the majority of the instances occur actually without
any object; instead there is a plural subject.

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declaration, disappointment, enter tainment, inconvenience etc., whereas

Finnland, lake, eggs etc. represent the concrete types. There is a clear
minority of human objects, who are commonly a rather general class as
opposed to specific people (e.g. Antaeci, Judacial men, chapmen) and/or
who are seen as having negative characteristics (e.g. opponents, impostors,
ignorant physicians). Only five of the human objects denote apparently
specific, or well-known (to the author) people, e.g. the Vice-Admiral, a
friend. The following instances are some rather prototypical examples of this
situation:
(27)
(28)
(29)

I foresee you will meet with several Objections, ... (MscA1676)

Thoult meet With Criticks, and backbiting foes; (EcB1653)
Having had various Fortune abroad, I remembred I was in the
Evening to meet a select Company of Merchants, and other Eminent
Citizens. (SciB1701)

However, as (30) shows, meet could also occur in situations that seemed
predestined for the prepositional verb variant.
(30)

However, since You have met such unkind Treatment from the rest of
Mankind, we are resolved to make You some little Reparation, ...
(MscB1692)

Apart from their object preferences, there is a further difference between

meet and meet with. The former verb tends to be rather neutral as to the
intentionality of the meeting, if anything it makes an actually planned
meeting (as in (29)) more likely. In the case of meet with the encounter
seems much more commonly unintentional and unplanned, in many
instances even unwanted; the latter is not surprising if one takes the negative
traits of many of its objects into account. Thus, the major difference between
the simplex and the prepositional verb in this case lies in their distinct
connotations.
Some of the items mentioned above (e.g. admire at, catch at, meet
with) contain elements that superficially seem redundant or really are in
some uses. There is a group of phrasal verbs in which the apparent
redundancy of the particle is a prominent feature. The most obvious items in
this respect are assemble together, echo back, kidnap away, decry down,
emit forth, flee away, kneel down, retreat back, return back, unite together,
vanish away, as well as the those in the following instances:
(31)
(32)

... and after, the Colonell himself thinking to escape away, his horse
was shot under him, & so taken, ... (MscB1646)
And the said [list of people], their Accomplices and Confederates (...)
did gather together great Numbers of His Majestys Subjects, and with
them did assemble in a warlike and traiterous Manner, ... (LawA1716)

Making a Choice

237

Traugotts (1972:252) suggestion for types similar to these was that they
make a covert endpoint, i.e. a goal/result indicated by the verb, overt through
the addition of particle. This would not work for all of my examples, for instance echo back, decry down can hardly be explained this way. What all the
above combinations have in common is that the particle repeats semantic
information (which may be an endpoint or it may not) already contained in
the verb. In that respect, the process is reminiscent of Bolingers (1972:246 f)
description of the semantic redundancy of some intensifiers in cases such as,
e.g., endure something patiently, in which the adverb matches quite closely
the intensifiable feature of the verb. Thus, the particles have an intensifying/emphasizing force, which is the stronger the more obviously redundant
the particle is; in the case of kneel down the perceived redundancy might be
less12 than with return back. Formations like the latter with both a prefix an d
a particle are similar to OE prefix verbs followed by an additional adverb,
nicely termed "echo particle" by Von Schon (1977). Decry and cry down are
synonymous, de- being interpreted as "down" (cf. OED, s.v. decry), but one
of the authors in the Lampeter Corpus has nevertheless seen it necessary to
reinforce the prefix verb with the particle (33); also, the simple phrasal verb
as in (34) was obviously not sufficient for him.
(33)
(34)

his Majesty hath set forth three Proclamations, (...) the third decrying
down after a certain Day, all Gold and Silver Coines that have been
made in England since 1640. (LawB1661)
... and if Paper and Shooes, &c. had stood in the way of East-India
Goods, it is probable that by the same way of arguing, those would
have been cryed down also: (EcA1697)

The examples just treated thus indicate a certain desire for emphasis, based
in some way on greater explicitness. This urge is also visible in the find out
corpus instances, in many of which, like in (35a) the particle seems to be an
extra.
(35a) ... not only sending us to our own Wiccliffe, but eating through the
Mountains to find out the more Ancient (though obscure) Waldenses:
(RelA1682)
(35b) The Parliament was now searching to find out truth: (LawB1697)
One particular semantic difference between simplexes and phrasal
verbs that has often been remarked on is the feature of aktionsart often
inherent in the latter, or rather contributed by their particles. Of course,
12

Kneel down in contrast to the simplex kneel may also put the stress on the beginning
of the action as opposed to the ongoing action, cf. also sit down vs. sit. One could also
call it ingressive aktionsart.

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simplexes can contain aktionsart meaning as well, but they do not possess an
overt marker for it, and, furthermore, all such cases are isolated individuals
and not part of an overall system. 13 In contrast, there is the claim that
aktionsart is more systematic in the case of phrasal verbs, and also verbo nominal combinations (cf. especially Brinton 1988 and 1996). Statements on
aspectual functions of phrasal verb particles go a long way back in the
linguistic literature 14, but they were mostly not very methodical and usually
based on individual instances only. Also, one and the same particle was
ascribed different aspectual or aktionsart functions by various linguists. Let
us take down as an example: it was described as indicating (i) something like
completive or near-completive sense (Kennedy 1920:19), (ii) completion in a
destructive sense (Live 1965:436), (iii) ingressive aspect (Poutsma
1926:296), (iv) effective aspect (Curme 1931:381), and (v) intensification
(Potter 1965:288). The situation is similar with regard to other particles.
Brinton (1988) suggested that some particles (notably up, down, out, off, less
frequently through, over, away) in fact behave much more systematically
and "typically express a telic notion" (aktionsart), adding "the concept of
goal or an endpoint to a durative situation" (ibid. 168) and thus "convert an
activity into an accomplishment" (ibid. 169).
I have chosen the particle off as a case study for an investigation of
telicity in the Lampeter Corpus data. I am of course interested in how common, i.e. systematic, it actually is, but my greater interest lies in how salient
it may have been for speakers compared with other features of the phrasal
verb(s). In short, how important can aktionsart probably be in deciding the
writers choice between a phrasal verb and a simplex? There are 356 phrasal
verb occurrences with the particle off, made up of sixty-two types. The great
majority of those contain telicity as a feature; only about 40 instances, or c.
11%, of all instances cannot (or only with problems) be interpreted in that
way. The following instances are examples of what I would rate clear telic
uses:
(36a) But let me tell you Sir, if in the sequel of this discourse I shall not
clearly wipe off all these Varnishes and false colours, ... (PolB1674)
(36b) but after they had landed, and built a Fort, the very Night before they
were to mount their great Guns, the Negroes came down upon them,
and beat them off, and demolished their Fort, ... (EcA1714)
(36c) Have we not wantonly cast off our old Friends, without getting new?
(PolB1713)
13

Aktionsart meaning can also be achieved via an explanatory paraphrase, but in that
case it is not part of the verb any more and as such a rather different matter.
14
Cf. for example Brinton (1988: 243ff [Appendix B]) for a collection of most such
extant statements ordered by particle.

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239

(36d) That attempts have been lately made to shake off the subjection of
Ireland unto, and dependance upon, the Imperial Crown of this
Realm, ... (PolA1720)
In contrast, I would not describe the examples in (37a,b) as telic:
(37a) ... in the Sea this matter like ragged rocks, burning in four fathom
water, two fathom higher then the Sea it self, some parts liquid and
moving, and throwing off, not without great violence, the stones about
it, which like a crust of a vast bigness, and red hot, fell into the Sea
every moment, ... (MscA1669)
(37b) ... Boyce only told him he was afraid the Servant he Caryll had sent to
him to help off was Sample, alledging this Reason, that he had observed he was disguised, ... (LawA1723)
Both produce some awkward results with the tests Brinton (1988:171ff) cites
from Dowty (1979) for telic expressions. (37a) describes the effects of a vol canic eruption (as such a rather undirected processes); while off is clearly
used in a locative/directional sense, this should not actually prevent it from
being telic (cf. Brinton 1988:275,n.4).15 Help off in (36b) is obviously a
variant of help out, out being another commonly telic particle, but the
combination is not really telic. Exactly what kind of contribution off makes
here is not at all clear to me. Furthermore, there are idiomatic combinations,
such as (38), in whose case the question of telicity would not even arise (cf.
Brinton 1988:275f,n.7).
(38)

As to the hasty and violent Proceedings of his Trial; it was then told
him, That the greatest Advantage he had, was in putting off his Trial:
(PolB1690)16

In such cases the connection of the phrasal verb to the simplex verb
contained in it is tenuous or non-existent, anyway and telicity as a
common defining feature of phrasal verbs only seems sensible if it
distinguishes them from their corresponding simplexes, if I understand
Brinton (ibid. 171) correctly. In that context, accomplishment verbs (39a -c)
combining with particles are really a problem, because they destroy the
overall systematic contrast.

15

In contrast, Denison (1985:38) keeps the "completive up" he treats strictly apart
from spatial meaning components.
16
The situation is different in purely metaphorical combinations, such as the following:
(i)
... upon which they attackd the Spaniards, cut off 20 of their men, and 3
Priests that belongd to the Mines. (PolA1699)
This, like its synonym kill, is a telic expression.

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(39a) The solution I formerly mentioned of Silver in Aqua fortis, being laid
upon Ivory, will soon give it a dark and blackish stain, which is not,
that I have found, to be washed off. (SciB1684)17
(39b) ... and as the Salt draws nearer the state of Fusion, the Sulphur wasts
and is diminished; so that as dross or Recrement it burns off in Calcination, ... (SciB1676)
(39c) I knew it was impossible, that the Dirt, wherewith I was so freely and
bountifully bespatterd, should stick long upon me, that a little Time
would of course dry it off; and if not so, twould however come out by
the least Rubbing. (RelB1692)
Similar cases can be found with other particles, e.g. heal up, issue out,
lengthen out, sink down. These are similar to the redundant particl e cases
described earlier (cf. e.g. (31, 32)). Thus, despite the exceptions just men tioned, the aktionsart telicity can be said to be fairly comprehensive, even if
not completely systematic, with regard to phrasal verbs formed with off.18
The general impression yielded by combinations with the three other
common telic particles, up, out, down, is the same. One example from among
those, this time with its non-telic simplex counterpart, shall suffice here:
(40)
(41)

For either Perpetuana or Shalloon will wear out two Coats, or when it
hath worn out one Coat, it will serve for one use or other afterwards
for children. (EcB1681)
The Inhabitants of these places do eat, wear Clothes, and furnish their
Houses, and whatsoever Commoditie they use, come first from the
Merchants, or Wholesale-Trader. (MscB1685)

In examples like (36a-d) above and (40), the goal or endpoint of the
activity denoted by the verbs is indeed very salient, but so is a kind of
resultative meaning, even in (40). 19 For an average, naive speaker, the
precise difference between result and telicity is probably hardly existent,
anyway. Cases such as the ones treated above, under (11-13), will probably
always be interpreted as result by speakers, who, furthermore, might not
perceive (36a-d) as different from the former. However, in my opinion, it is
rather the residual actual meaning of the particles, in the case of off
something like "(spatial) removal, separation", which is present in most non -

17

Of course, wash and wash off require different kinds of objects, e.g. clothes and
stain/dirt respectively. In this way, they are similar to die and die out taking different
kinds of subjects (cf. e.g. Lipka 1972:183).
18
As it is not completely comprehensive, it does not exclude the possibility of
individual combinations possessing other aktionsart values, e.g. the ingressive.
19
I do not agree with Brinton (1988:179) that the resultative analysis is problematic in
those cases where the particle has no more spatial meaning.

Making a Choice

241

idiomatic cases, and at least inferable in quite a number of the remainder 20,
that will be more significant in the production and use of these phrasal verbs
than abstract concepts like telicity. It is this semantic contribution that
changes the meaning of the basic verb most obviously. In (42) the important
point is that they, namely the Indians, went "away from where our men
were", thus removing a potential threat.
(42)

Our Men gave them some old Hats, Lookingglasses and Knives, with
which they were extremely well pleasd, and went off. (PolA1699)

The fact that this amounts to a change in telicity is logical, but for the
speaker purely incidental. I would therefore argue that telicity only indirectly
influences the usage of phrasal verbs.
Apart from aktionsart values just discussed, phrasal verbs, or rather
only those with the particles on, away, and (to a lesser degree?) along, can
also express durative or iterative aspect in PDE. In these cases, the particles
are devoid of any other meaning (e.g. "removal" etc. for away), including
aktionsart. Such combinations with away and along, at least, make a somewhat colloquial impression. Of the particles in question, on and away belong
to the more common ones in the Lampeter Corpus with 254 and 335
instances respectively, while along, with only 13 occurrences, is rather rare.
Along usually has a relatively strong sense of "accompaniment" in its
combinations, but two instances of come along (in one text), one of which is
given in (43), are possible candidates for aspectual meaning.
(43)

and I stood and looked a while at the Prisoners in Bishopsgate, and

my Uncle coming along, I went with him a little way, and then turned
about and left him; (LawA1668)

Also, there is only one aspectual example of away (44); the remaining 334
cases are better dealt with by the resultati ve or some similar analysis.
(44)

... till she was put in the Tower, where she now pines away for want
of fresh-Cod, ... (MscA1650)

Given the rarity of instances, it seems as if both along and away were not
very well developed as aspectual markers in the Lampeter period, although
they at least existed as an option. It may, however, be interesting here that
(43) is a direct dialogue example and that MscA1650 (44) is a text that,
though hard to characterize exactly, is anything but serious (something
which has stylistic implications, of course). Thus, it is possible that the

20

Also, speakers are more imaginative in the retrieval of meaning in apparently noncompositional idioms than linguists tend to think, cf. Gibbs (1990).

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Making a Choice

colloquial hypothesis mentioned above is correct, and that the selection of

texts in the corpus simply is not suitable for showing up more examples.
In contrast to the two particles just treated, aspectual on is more common, although it is still only a minority of all on-combinations found.
Perhaps the use started with verbs of motion, such as in (45a), and then
spread to other contexts.
(45a) But Gustavus, despising his Threats, marchd on with his victorious
Army, ... (MscB1739)
(45b) ... it is but four or five Hours work (...) to recover an Harbour, and
without loss of time put to Sea again; the work of Unloading, Repacking, and sending our Fish to Market going on in all Weathers.
(EcB1700)
(45c) The Subjects upon this will be wonderfully satisfied, and all the small
Trades be kept on with Pleasure: (EcB1696)
(45d) None may Prejudice Improvements, by denying any liberty for
carrying on the Work, receiving reasonable satisfaction for the
Dammage. (EcB1653)
In (45b-c) we find the two items that today serve as continuative
paraphrases, but only go on actually also occurs in that way in the corpus
(e.g. go on increasing this Trade, EcA1697). Carry on (45d) in all its many
instances contains a semantic feature "continue", but it most often occurs
with trade or something similar in object position so that the meaning
"conduct, transact" is also clearly present, often even dominant; also, the
item never occurs in its intransitive use in which the durative aspect becomes
most obvious. To sum up, aspectual distinction was an option phrasal verbs
offered compared with their simplexes, and this could therefore play a role in
the usage of these complex items. But I find it impossible on the basis of the
present data to call it a very common phenomenon. This may also be
connected to the generally less frequent use of the progressive forms in
EModE (e.g. Barber 1997:188), indicating (among others) less importance or
salience of this particular feature for speakers then.
Verbo-nominal combinations have also been said to mark aspectual
distinctions. 21 While Rensk (1964b:295) talks of perfective aspect, Live
(1963:34), Prince (1972:413), Wierzbicka (1982:757ff), and Stein (1991:17f)
are of very similar opinion, seeing the activity denoted by the combination as
a single action that is limited in time as opposed to the unbounded activity

21

This applies especially to those combinations that belong to Group I, but also Group
II under the system applied here.

Making a Choice

243

described by the simplex. 22 Prince (ibid. 418) further added the notion of
completed-ness, which Brinton (1996:199) followed up with the statement
that verbo-nominal combinations "convert activities into accomplishments or
at least quasi-accomplishments", thus making them parallel to the telic
phrasal verbs dealt with above. An accomplishment -feature is certainly often,
but not necessarily always, the result of the boundedness of the activity; the
latter is primary and more salient, in my opinion. Therefore, I will
concentrate on this aspect. The following four sets of examples can illustrate
this point:
(46a) A Presbyterian Lady too, that casts a sad looke with her eies for the
downfall of her Faction, ... (MscA1650)
(46b) I could look directly upward, (...) so as to find any Star which passed
within the hole of the Table, ... (SciA1674)
(47a) In that case the Needle will not point directly to the Poles, but will
make a Variation; (SciB1649)
(47b) It was also observed that those Jury-men varied in the report they
gave of Goodmans Depositions. (LawB1697)
(48a) ... they had gathered a great multitude of four or five hundred, and
then they made an attempt to come into our Parish, and they cried,
Down with the Redcoates. (LawA1668)
(48b) ... and attempting to alter and subvert the ancient Government, Parliaments, Laws, and Customs of our Realm: (LawB1649)
(49a) Upon the second floor ss I fixed the frame that carried the Eyeglass
and the other Apparatus fit to make this observation. (SciA1674)
(49b) they [=the Ancients] having laid the first Foundation of the most ex cellent Art, by both observing and describing the Nature of Diseases.
(SciA1712)
In each case, the multi-word combination describes one clearly defined activity/action which takes a certain, limited span of time, and can even be very
short (e.g. 46a, 48a). 23 The simplex verbs, on the other hand, either describe
a general situation as it is (46b, 47b), or refer to a longer process, the
individual stages of which are not important (48b, 49b). It is noteworthy that
all the verbo-nominal combinations above contain the indefinite article (once
with additional modification (46a)) or the demonstrative pronoun this in
(49a), i.e. some marker of definiteness. Both kinds of determiner stress the
individuality of the action, and thus make an important contribution to the
22

It is important to note here that the simplex can denote a bounded activity as well,
depending on the context of the sentence it occurs in.
23
But a notion of accomplishment is not necessarily involved as well, e.g. it is
problematic with cast a look (46a) and make an attempt (48a), in my opinion.

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Making a Choice

boundedness of the whole combination. The same goes for most types of
modification. In PDE, the majority of verbo-nominal combinations seem to
contain the indefinite article as a fixed element (which supports the aspectual
interpretation described), but in EModE one finds many combinations with
zero-article, which are, indeed, the older type. 24 It is therefore necessary to
also have a closer look at the zero-article items 25 to find out whether they
are, or can be, marked for aspect as well. What one finds is a mixed
situation: some combinations are used in a very general sense, not being
limited to a single activity at all, while some, in fact, describe individual
activities of limited duration. In many, perhaps most, cases it is also hard to
see any difference in meaning when one substitutes the simplex for the
verbo-nominal combination, leaving the rest of the sentence as intact as
possible. The following sentences (50-52) illustrate general statements
transported by the multi-word combination:
(50)
(51)
(52)

(53)

... and in those Actions he must inform himself at his peril, and may if
he doubts, avoid Danger, by putting away those things which give Offence. (LawB1704)
We have need to take heed, that we run not from one extreme into
another; (PolA1646)
For thus all Lusts whatsoever (...) in the minde (...) both in their first
Issuings forth, and in their utmost Accomplishments, are still but
either to give countenance unto, or further to heap up a kinde of
greatness, Repute and Esteem in us for us. (EcA1652)
Here it is not meant to countenance Murders, that after slaying a man,
it shall be sufficient to plead he was erecting a Tyranny for himself or
others: (PolB1659)

They refer to inherent or internal characteristics (50,51) or to general mental

dispositions (51, 52), which can lead to activities, but are not activi ties as
such. There is no noticeable semantic difference between the multi -word
verb in (52) and its corresponding simplex in (53). The prototypical PDE
examples quoted in most treatments of the matter usually denote clear
activities (e.g. take a walk, give a smile, do a dive), something which might
have led to the overlooking of evidence such as provided by the above
cases.26 However, even activity verbs can describe a more general, thus
unbounded, state of affairs, also in their multi -word use, cf.:

24

Cf. also Hiltunen in Brinton/Akimoto (1999) on this point.

Or rather zero-article usage, as some items are found both with and without article,
or also both with indefinite and definite article.
26
Also, the modern accounts I am aware of usually exclude items with a final
preposition like the one in (52).
25

Making a Choice
(54)
(55)

245

But still a British Parliament has a Right to give Advice in this important Conjuncture, ... (PolB1713)
This was the Mensurator by which I measured the exact distance of
the Stars from our Zenith: it may be also made use of for the
measuring the Diameters of the Planets; (SciA1674)

In both cases, it is only a possibility that is referred to. While the following
instances can be seen to describe an activity of limited duration, it is never theless difficult to see an aspectual difference between them an d their rewriting with a simplex within the context of the same sentence: 27
(56a) We did give them chase all day, and at night we lost them:
(MscB1646)
(56b) We did chase them all day, and at night we lost them.
(57a) All I shall do, shall be to take thence the Questions which I just now
made mention of, and to speak to them in the best Manner I can, ...
(PolB1724)
(57b) ... the Question I just now (have) mentioned, ...
(58a) ... and with some Muskettiers he gave fire upon the Centinells, killed
one of them, and wounded the other; (MscA1643)
(58b) ... he fired at the Centinells, ...
Also, potentially very short (e.g. (57): mention), or punctual activities do not
lend themselves to the creation of an aspectual multi -word vs. simplex contrast, cf. for example put an end to, give stop to, make an end of, come to an
end vs. end, stop, finish. Furthermore, there is the possibility of using one
and the same verbo-nominal combination once for a general statement, and
once for a single specific activity (probably of limited duration); in the
following two examples this contrast is additionally visible in the zero article, non-modified (59) vs. the definite, modified form (60) of the
combination.
(59)
(60)

He that believes the Promises, so as to obey the Precepts; that ac cepts

his Saviour as a King to rule, and a Prophet to teach, as well as a
Priest to make attonement; ... (RelA1682)
in order to make the best Atonement in my Power for the great Fault I
had been Guilty of, I can justly say, that I was in no small Degree instrumental in procuring a general Submission to his Majesty.
(LawA1716)

In general, I am of the opinion that the Lampeter Corpus data does not warrant positing an overall aspectual difference between simplex verb and

27

The b-variants are my own re-writings of the sentences.

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Making a Choice

verbo-nominal combination. This distinction can be made (i.e. is an

opportunity offered by the combinations), but need not necessarily be
present even in all the possible cases. The author can activate this particular
aspect if and when he wants to, and he has the possibility of reinforc ing it
with the means of modification. Thus, this point can certainly play a role in
deciding for or against a multi-word verb in individual cases, but it is not a
determining factor for the existence and use of the category as a whole.
One particular means of modification is pluralization of the nominal
part of the combination, which has aspectual or aktionsart implications. Besides indicating the longer duration of the action (63), the plural can also
point to the fact that the activity is composed of single incremental parts
(61,62); the units themselves are stressed when the noun is additionally
modified (especially by a number, as in we gave them Three shouts,
MscA1685).
(61)

(62)
(63)

If a vain-glorious Herod has but Confidence enough to make an Oration, though repugnant to the first Principles of Religion, no wonder
that it makes such an impress upon the Multitude, that they give
shouts, with the loudest Acclamations, and attribute to him the Wis dom of a Deity, who is scarce endowed with the Prudence of a Man;
(RelA1682)
severall of the proprietors and Interessed Persons in the said debt and
Dammages, made fresh applications to his Majestie by petition, ...
(LawA1673)
As first, I had thoughts of making use of some very great and massy
Tower or Wall that were well setled, or of some large Rock or Hill
whereunto I might fix my Glasses, ... (SciA1674)

Of course, similar effects can also be reached with the simplex and some
additional paraphrase or periphrastic construction, but simple pluralization i s
much more economical and very effective.
Still staying with the topic aspect/ aktionsart, there are instances of
ingressive aktionsart to be found in the data; again they are not systematic,
however. The ingressive force lies mainly in the verbal component of the
combination, cf. for example ingressive fall in love versus be in love/to love.
Such ingressive items can be found among all three groups of verbo -nominal
combinations, but are more common among Group III (65), where the prepo sitional phrase may reinforce the contribution of the verb.
(64)

I had almost forgot to observe that this Law (the King being therein
concerned) is a general Act of Parliament, of the which not only the
Judges, but even every individual Subject of this Kingdome ought to
take knowledge of course; (PolB1674)

Making a Choice
(65)

247

What I have observd, as to the Quantities the Gentleman before men tiond took every Night, brings to my Mind what I often thought of;
which is, that I believe many noble Medicines are laid aside as
useless, for want of having been given in due Quantities. (SciA1730)

Some further examples are take root, set sail (vs. make sail), set eye upon,
catch/get/lay hold on/of, take possession of, set on fire, bring/come/call in
question, put in execution, call/put in mind 28, put in motion, bring/come to
light etc. Some instances of verb-adjective combinations may also contain
ingressive force, e.g. grow weary of, get rid of.
Most or all of the semantic differences treated above are based on the
simple fact that multi-word verbs exhibit the phenomenon of semantic
spreading, i.e. they distribute the meaning of the whole combination onto
the individual elements (cf. chap.3). These component parts make their own
more or less distinct contributions to the overall meaning; completel y empty
elements probably do not exist (cf. Stein 1991 on verbs in verbo-nominal
combinations). This makes the multi-word lexical items more motivated
(e.g. Leisi 1985:75f) for the average speaker, especially in contrast to the
non-transparent Romance verbs, or also to older native compound verbs that
had lost their motivation over the course of the centuries. Furthermore, it
makes them easier to use in general and also to manipulate them to serve the
purposes of the speaker or writer. These aspects ar e important points in
favour of the use of multi-word verbs.
9.2 Author and Audience
There are other things to be considered besides semantic fine points in the
choice between simplex and multi-word verbs. Those to be treated in this
section are connected with the general situation or context of the discourse.
One aspect is the accessibility of the text for the reader, which has to do with
the kind of vocabulary being used, e.g. how familiar and easy to understand
it is. Another aspect is represented by stylistic considerations on the part of
the author, regarding for instance the harmonious flow of the text, or its
setting within the levels of formality (cf. the formal/informal cline). These
points depend to some extent on the expected audience of a text, but also on
the personality of the author.

28

An additional important point for the use of these mind-combinations is the fact that
their simplex rival remind was only a recent arrival in the language (first quotation in
the OED: 1645), and thus not well established. Remind is found ten times in the
corpus, whereas the multi-word variants with mind make up 25 instances.

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Making a Choice

Let me deal with the aspect of accessibility first. The underlying as sumption here is that native words and phrases will in general require less
effort in the production and comprehension process, whereas loa n words,
especially polysyllabic ones and more recent acquisitions 29, tend to be harder
thus the hard word debates of the 16th and 17th century, for instance.
The question of terminology and of using the most suitable words is of par ticular importance when new concepts are being introduced or need to be
spread. As described in chapter 2, foreign trade gained enormous
significance during the Lampeter period, the main mechanisms of this trade
being imports and exports. Looking in the OED for the verbs import and
export, one finds the first quoted instance (with the appropriate commercial
meaning) of the former in 1548, but for the latter only in 1665. While one
should certainly not overrate OED first citings, the two verbs, especially
export, were definitely not long-established words, and additionally they
were specialized items. Thus, they and the concepts they represent needed to
be made familiar to speakers in the Lampeter period. Both loan verbs occur
in the corpus (mostly, but not quite exclusively in ECONOMY texts), but they
are also sometimes replaced by native alternatives, namely the phrasal verbs
bring in, carry out, send out, and ship out, cf. the following examples.
(66)
(67)

(68)
(69)

...or that the Merchant had not rather carry out wares (by which there
is ever some gains expected) than to export Money, ... (EcB1641)
If we compare the National Advantages of shipping out Corn, and
also of our Woollen Manufacturies, we shall find the sending out the
Value of 100l. in Woollen Manufacturies to be full as good as sending
out the same Value in Corn. (EcA1720)
They say, The bringing in of so much Silk and so cheap, is a publick
Nusance, and destroys their Trade, ... (EcB1681)
It is well known by all Traders, that the Silks imported from France
were most Lustrings and Alamodes ... (EcA1697)

It is perhaps noteworthy that the newer foreign term, export, has more native
paraphrases than the other. The phrasal verbs make the process of
importation and exportation graphically clear by literalizing it, especi ally
through the strong directional/local meaning of the particles. They are thus
easy to understand, and they are already familiar to all speakers because of
their absolutely literal uses (e.g. several Hogs were brought in Dead,
LawA1703) by which they are supported. 30 The use of the simple native

29

Cf. chap. 9.2. on the integration of Romance loan words.

Both bring in and carry out already had transferred or idiomatic usages as well (e.g.
bring in money/a profit, carry out a plan), which probably also eases the introduction
of new transferred usages.
30

Making a Choice

249

items can ease the introduction and familiarization of the newer loan terms,
the more so if they are often used next to each other in the same context and
in the same meaning, as in (66) above.
Even if the foreign term does not denote a newish concept, the author
of a text may decide that the native item is the better choice. It is perhaps a
way of being consciously reader-friendly, but of course it is also always in
the interest of the author to be understood b y his audience. For some texts
this is an especially pressing concern, for instance a text such as LawA1643,
titled Laws and Ordinances of Warre, Established for the better Conduct of
the Army, (..,), which is dependent on being understood quite clearly by
every common soldier in order to fulfil its function. (70a) is found in the
running text, i.e. is part of the legal instruction itself, while (70b) is the text structuring marginal note connected with (70a). 31
(70a) He that makes known the Watch-word without Order, or gives any
other word but what is given by the Officers, shall die for it.
(LawA1643)
(70b) Revealing the watch word. (LawA1643)
While reveal was not a new loan, being attested from the late 14th and 15th
century onwards, make known was certainly the much simpler and easier alternative. Additionally, connotations may have played a role here as well:
perhaps the religious, supernatural associations of reveal were still stronger
then, which would make it less appropriate for the context above. Th is text is
characterized by an amount of phrasal verbs that is higher than usual 32,
among them (71-72), which may of course be due to the intention of being
understood more easily.
(71)
(72)

No Inhabitant of City, Town, or Country, shall (...) conceal, or use

means to convey such Run-awayes, but shall apprehend all such, and
deliver them to the Provost Marshall. (LawA1643)
... if [the fault be found] in the Souldiers, then every tenth man shall
be punished at discretion, and the rest serve for Pioniers and
Scavengers, till a worthy exploit take off that Blot. (LawA1643)

The technical term for run-away soldiers, deserter (OED 1635), and the corresponding verb desert (OED 1603/1647), did exist then, but both were
rather recent, so that there could be no guar antee of every soldier, or other
citizen, understanding the loan. Similarly, the Romance alternative for (72),
31

With marginalia of a text-structuring function (i.e. those without additional

information) there may be the possibility that they originate not with the author but
with the printer. Thus, only (70a) definitely represents the choice of the author.
32
5.1 phrasal verbs per 1,000 words in this text vs. 3.6 in the whole corpus, and 3.8 in
the domain LAW.

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Making a Choice

expunge, was a newcomer in English (OED 1602); also, it makes a rather

elevated impression stylistically, at least from the modern perspective. T hese
Romance options were found to be actually used in other texts of the
Lampeter Corpus, expunge five times, and desert/desertion (not deserter)
twenty times, but none of the latter in the military sense. Some other
examples where both the multi-word verb and its Romance synonym are
found in the corpus are find out / discover, maintain / keep up, establish / set
up, cause / bring about, demand / call for, intend / have a mind etc.
Sermons are another text type that is, or at least should be, more audi ence-oriented than some others. The following example taken from a sermon
exhibits a nice native-foreign variation within a parallel structure:
(73)

How amazingly hath he laid open that which had lain concealed in the
thickest Darkness! (RelA1696)

If the author had used reveal instead of lay open, the stylistic effect might
have been even more elevated, but both verbs would then have been foreign
loans, which might have been a hindrance to understanding for some hear ers/readers. 33 Making one part of the antonymic pair native could ensure that
the other member would also cause no problem. An interesting point here is
the fact that the author used the native term for the positive concept, some thing which goes together well with the common observation that word s of
foreign origin often tend to be more neutral and abstract, while native items
are more inclined to have emotionally charged connotations. In the next two
examples, the authors resorted to the everyday, colloquial (?) items for
talking about everyday actions or experiences 34, even if only in a
metaphorical context as in (74).
(74)
(75)

33

In the primitive times, this holy fire, though but newly descended into
the hearts of believers, yet presently was in a great part put out by
schisme and contention. (RelA1653)
The Women, without any Sense of Decency, own themselves to be
common Whores, and seem to glory in their shame; and, to supply
their Necessities, they take to Picking of Pockets and Shoplifting, ...
(RelA1730)

A similar example with a native-Romance antonymic pair is found in a SCIENCE text

with a very practical orientation, where rhetorical considerations that might have
influenced the sermon passage will not have played a big role:
(i)
Observe also the Heat of Mines, by Assistance of the Weather-glass, if to be
had, both Summer, and
Winter, noteing how much it exceeds, or falls
short of the Heat at the Surface of the Earth: (SciB1696)
34
This also goes for (75); the sermon in question was preached in London, where
criminal activities of that kind were certainly not uncommon. The preacher is talking
about stage plays in particular, though.

Making a Choice

251

Ordinary people in real life, who wanted somebody to deal with the fire,
would probably, just like the preacher, have asked him/her to put it out, not
to extinguish it. Take to in (75) seemed quite likely the most suitable word to
the minister, as any possible alternative, such as devote or apply oneself to
something, do something habitually , etc., has more explicitly positive
connotations than he could have wished for. Both the phrasal and the
prepositional verb used in the sentences above are the most appropriate
words for the content transported and within the given communicative
situation.
Native forms, besides often being the more familiar, everyday items,
tend also to be multi-functional in so far as their meaning can relatively
easily be stretched to accommodate the needs of the speake r, as the phrasalprepositional verb break in upon illustrates in the following sentences:
(76)
(77)
(78)
(79)
(80)

Josiah, a good King, did much, yet because the peoples spirits were
not wrought to concurre with him, the worke soone vanished, and
Gods Judgements brake in upon them. (RelA1642)
... this was the Belief and Practice of all Christians, until broken in
upon by the Sectaries, that began within less than three hundred years
of the present Age. (RelA1708)
So may we daily be in Expectation of Death, and provide against it,
but it needs not to break in upon, either the usual Business, or
Refreshments of the Day. (RelA1711)
if that Quantity [of Iron] is not enough for Home-Consumption, it
may be enlarged to 40 or 50,000 Tun, without breaking in upon our
Timber. (EcA1720)
And if you suffer those Laws to be broke in upon, and render Life or
Liberty so precarious, as to be affected or taken away, by every idle
Hearsay, that Excellency must soon disappear, ... (LawB1723)

While there is certainly some common element in those five uses of break in
upon, the exact meaning is nevertheless different in each of the sentences.
For (76) there seems to be no simplex synonym, a paraphrase would be
something like "happen suddenly, with unpleasant consequences"; possible
replacements for the other examples are approximately "disrupt, interfere
with" (77), "interrupt, disturb" (78), "deplete" (79), and "violate, abolish"
(80). Polysemous and flexible native items such as this one are thus less
memory-intensive, both for the author of the text and for the audience, while
serving the purpose just as well as the various substitutions would. Taking
the then recent explosion of the English lexicon into account, and the strain
this must have meant for some peoples memory, this might be an important
point.

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Making a Choice

It is not only polysemous individual items that can be a support for

the memory, but also the patterns as such and the smaller networks of words
formed within them. For instance, the relatively predictable effect of phrasa l
particles, within a certain range, can be a help in creating new forms on the
spot if one cannot (or does not want to) think of a more sophisticated alterna tive. Regarding networks of words, there are, for example, quite a number of
formations on the same verb, which can support each other, such as the
phrasal, prepositional, and phrasal-prepositional verbs based on come and
look:
- come at, come by, come of, come upon, come to, come about, come
along, come ashore, come away, come back, come down, come forth,
come in, come off, come on, come out, come over, come together, come
up, come down upon, come in upon, come in with, come over to, come up
to, come up with
- look about, look after, look at, look for, look into, look (up)on, look to,
look back, look down, look on, look out, look over, look back into, look
back upon, look out for, look out to, look up to
New formations within such patterns and networks are probably easier to
understand than a new loan word, especially for speakers who are not
conversant in either Latin or French (which was certainly the majority of the
population).
Sometimes, a multi-word verb and its simplex synonym, usually a Romance verb, are used in coordination, as in (81-84).
(81)
(82)
(83)
(84)

yea, though you meet with Spirits that recoile and start back at the
very mention of an accommodation, that seeme to abhorre all union
and reconciliation ... (RelA1653)
These are never averse to have their principles looked into, and examined by the test of Reason. (SciB1735)
To suppose such a thing would be as absurd, as to expect or look for
it would be rediculous, ... (LawA1732)
Or, in Concealing and keeping close (by several Glosses) the Imperfections, weaknesses, and uncomlinesses, (...) from the sight and ap prehensions of others; (EcA1652)

As stated above, occurrence of native and foreign term in the same context,
or even better directly coordinated like here, can support the familiarization
of speakers with the loan word. However, neither recoil, examine nor
conceal were new words in the Lampeter period; only expect was more
recent then, as it is not quoted by the OED before the late 16th century. It
may be that the authors of the above sentences saw the need to still support
all of them by their native paraphrases (i.e. did not see them as integrated

Making a Choice

253

enough), or that they simply wanted to strengthen the overall effect by using
the synonymous pairs as a sort of emphasis. 35
Looking at the (possible) native-Romance contrasts treated above, the
question arises whether these also imply an automatic informal-formal
distinction, or, in other words, whether an author who wanted to produce a
very formal piece of writing, for example, would avoid certain kinds of
multi-word verbs. It has often been remarked that a great part of the
Romance, especially Latinate, element of the language is on a higher stylistic
level (learned, more elegant rhetorically, also more abstract) than most of the
native words, which, being characterized by their common, everyday usages,
are more concrete, emotional and expressive in their own way (cf. e.g.
Schfer 1973:ix). On the other hand, a native item such as break in upon,
treated above, is termed a "formal expression" by the Collins/COBUILD
Dictionary of Phrasal Verbs; while this judgement refers to PDE, of course,
it is hard to say how it was rated then. Break in upon occurred in the
domains RELIGION, POLITICS, ECONOMY, and LAW, two of which we would
think of as containing rather formal text types but following this train of
thought would lead to a circular argument: we simply do not know how the
domains or text types represented in the Lampeter Corpus were regarded
then. There is also a more general question to be asked in this context: to
what extent is it possible to apply the formal-informal axis to linguistic
situations of the past? According to Samuels (1972:120), the distinction
between "formal" and "less formal" (as he put it) is an old one, existing even
in pre-literate cultures, which means that style -switching has always been a
possibility. Also, in the transition from an oral-based to a literate, print-based
society, with all that this implies linguistically (cf. chap. 2), the more oral
linguistic realizations and the more liter ate/literary ones must have formed a
cline similar to the formal-informal one. Thus, transferring the basic
distinction to the past is possible, but determining the borderlines, or perhaps
rather border areas, between the different stylistic levels is not so easy. The
above general distinction between Romance and native words is claimed by
Schfer (1973:24) to have been visible in its very early stages in linguistic
and stylistic comments made around the year 1600.
Coming back to multi-word verbs in this question, Hiltunen
(1994:139,n.4) argued that phrasal verbs are found less frequently in writing,
precisely because they are more characteristically colloquial in general, and
this is especially true of metaphorical combinations, which tend to be even
more marked as colloquial. One could probably extend this statement also to
35

On the other hand, Nevalainen (1999) points out that "repetitive word pairs were a
more or less automatic feature in the rhetoric of a number of formal registers at the
time" (my italics, CC), especially the legal register.

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Making a Choice

other types of multi-word verbs, with the exception, however, of verbo-nominal combinations. But in my opinion it is not really possible to generalize
over a whole category of words; there are different kinds of Romance verbs
as much as there are multi-word verbs with different stylistic values. A lot
depends on the individual item here, and also on the context it is used in.
Some of the phrasal verbs above (e.g. exs. (72, 74, 81)), for example, do
indeed seem colloquial, but others have a very formal, sometimes even
formalized, ring to them. Others might be completely neutral as to style. Let
us look at a few more phrasal verb examples:
(85)
(86)
(87)

(88)

(89)

(90)

... it is to be observed that the state of the Christian Church is set forth
in the Revelations by 2 Visions of 2 Women. (RelA1679)
The Two before you in the Bill were never yet conjoynd by God, in
the true Meaning of those Words; they may therefore as yet be put
asunder by Men; (LawB1715)
and if they make no better Offers to the Honourable Commissioners
appointed by the State for the Discovery of Longitude than they have
hitherto, all Hopes of their discovering it may be laid aside for good
and all. (SciB1714)
Here we must suppose God working a Miracle upon every trifling
Occasion, to oblige the evil Spirits; (...) and not only this, but likewise
indulge them in several apish, ridiculous Pranks, (...), and to sum up
this Inconsistency, all to humour some poor, decripid, silly Old
Woman. (MscA1712)
but that every Man might write as much Truth as he pleased about the
Administration of the Government, not only by pointing out Faults
and Mistakes, but by publishing his own Comment and Inferences ...
(LawB1738)
... whereupon, consulting with som knowing Friends, hee was advised
to make som Instruments to trie out the experience. (SciB1649)

The first three seem more formal to me than the others. In the case of set
forth (85), this judgment could of course be influenced by the archaic and
rare nature of the particle forth nowadays, but it seems not completely
unjustified, as usually only things of some import (e.g. theory, truth,
discovery, the word of God etc.), and within non-trivial circumstances, are
"set forth" in the Lampeter Corpus. Asunder (86) and aside (87) belong to
the less common particles in the corpus (with 10 and 47 occurrences
respectively), which in itself might already be an argument against
combinations with them being colloquial. The whole sentence in (86),
moreover, contains a rather close paraphrase of a biblical statement 36, and is
36

Matthew 19.6: "What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder."
(Authorized Version).

Making a Choice

255

in that way on a different stylistic level. Lay aside in (87) could be

substituted by another phrasal verb, namely give up, but this would clearly
lead to a change towards a less formal style which shows up the stylistic
cline within the category of phrasal verbs. Both sum up (88) and point out
(89) make a rather neutral impression, even though sum up must have arisen
in more formal, especially written contexts, in the first place. Try out (90),
on the other hand, sounds as if it had its origin in the spoken language;
nevertheless it also remains on a rather neutral plane and does not seem
displaced in the rather learned scientific text it is found in. These few
examples shall suffice to show that generalized statements are problematic.
The same goes for the other multi-word verb categories, cf. for instance the
clear difference between (91) and (92).
(91)
(92)

... projects seldom fail in Holland, nor take effect here, which, by
gross mistake, is imputed to their ingenuity, being indeed, the natural
consequence of low Interest; (EcA1668)
They say, Northampton makes love one hour to you, and he beats the
brains of it out in a quarter. (MscA1650)

However, all this is not to say that especially high frequencies of one or the
other category of multi-word verb in a whole text (cf. the approach taken in
chap.7) cannot produce a stylistic shift in a certain direction, which may have
been intended by the author.
Apart from stylistic levels, there are also other stylistic considerations
that may play a part in determining the use of multi-word verbs. Talking
about phrasal (and to some degree prepositional) verbs, Kennedy (1920:33)
attributed their existence and use to the striving for a certain rhythmic effect
in our speech. Once again, a remark made on one type also is true of the
others; probably it applies even more to verbo-nominal combinations than to
phrasal verbs. Using more words and being able (in many cases at least) to
spread them across the sentence in different ways allows speakers to
influence the rhythm of the sentence more effectively. Furthermore, using a
multi-word verb can prevent a sentence (or clause), especially if it is a short
one, from sounding too abrupt. Consider the rhythm of the following
sentences with and without the multi-word verb:
(93a) To all which I shall give no answer. (SciB1735)
(93b) All which I shall not answer.
(94a) It will behove you to make your Answer, what reason had you for it?
(LawA1668)
(94b) It will behove you to answer, what reason had you for it?
(95a) THERE are, I make no doubt, among the Mathematicians many sincere Believers in Jesus Christ; (SciB1735)

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Making a Choice

(95b) There are, I doubt not, ... / ?There are, I dont/do not doubt, ...
Each of the (a)-sentences has a somewhat more harmonious melody than the
rewriting with a simplex. What is important to remember here is the fact that
EModE writing was still more thoroughly grounded in an oral background
(cf. chap.2) than is the case in later times, i.e. writers would probably have
an auditory impression of what they wrote in the back of their heads. This is
even more likely in the case of speech-related genres such as sermons,
(political and legal) speeches, and dialogues, all of which are represented in
the corpus. Example (94) is of special interest here, because it is actually
taken from a text transcribing direct courtroom speech, the quote showing
the judge talking to a defendant. Of course, in each of the instances given
above one can also find other than rhythmic reasons why the multi -word
variants were used, e.g. kinds of modification, but these will be dealt with in
the next section.
Another stylistic consideration is quite simply variation. While writing
about one topic, the same or very similar things will usually come up again
and again, and the author will have to make a choice whether he will present
them in the identical words, or whether he wants to vary his expressions.
Most authors, at least the better ones, will opt for the second possibility, and
the English language with its wealth of (near-)synonyms, to which multiword verbs contribute, offers ample opportunities for doing so. Variation of
this kind is really only visible across longer stretches of text, ideally the
whole text; for reasons of space I will restrict myself here to some examples
in smaller contexts (96-98), and only hint at the larger textual contexts in
(99).
(96)

(97)

(98)

(99)

I quickly concluded therefore that all their endeavours must have hith erto been ineffectual to this purpose, and that they had not been less
imposed on themselves, then they had deceived others by their mistaken observations. (SciA1674)
By such as take heed to themselves, but tis not in a spiritual but
carnal sense; who will look narrowly to themselves, as to their
worldly concerns, their Revenue and Income; but are too careless to
the spiritual concerns both of themselves and their Flock, ...
(RelA1669)
But to return to the last Revolution: Tho we must own that we owe
our Deliverance to his present Majesty, and were obligd in
Conscience and Honour to concur with him; yet who could have
blamd us to have stood upon Terms before we had fallen in with
England? (PolA1699)
... yet his being a Parson, for which they ought to honour him more
than for any other Character, or than for all the rest put together, so

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257

degrades him, and renders him vile in their Eyes; that it takes off from
That Respect, which upon other Accounts they would otherwise pay
him. (...)
Nor does our admitting That Word, as applyd to Marriage, in the
least derogate from the Truth of what I observe under This Head.
(RelA1721)
(96) and (98) present the expected kinds of variation, between a
prepositional verb or a phrasal-prepositional verb on the one hand and a
Romance verb on the other, whereas (97) shows that different multi -word
verbs can also be used for that purpose. A synonymous pair of a verbo nominal combination and a prepositional verb contrast further with a case of
adjectival complementation. (99) is like (98) in kind, but the instances of
variation are much wider apart in the text, take off from being found on page
14 and derogate on page 1937 with c. 1,200 words in between them.
Nevertheless, I think it can still count as conscious variation, as the contexts
are rather similar and the two verbs form a neat contrast (native phrasal prepositional verb vs. "hard word"). Not all variation has to involve different
words, however; even the relatively simple change between verbo -nominal
combination and its related verb, as in (100, 101), can do the job.
(100) or suppose the Collectors should omit or defer to make a Demand for
any of these Taxes; must the Freeman lose his Right to vote for that
reason, though he was ready to have paid this as well as all the rest, if
it had been demanded? (PolB1724)
(101) I did next contrive a way of making observations that might be free
from all the former inconveniencies and exceptions, and as near as
might be, fortified against any other that could be invented or raised
against it. This way then was to observe by the passing of some considerable Star near the Zenith of Gresham Colledge, ... (SciA1674)
On the other hand, sometimes variation seems not to be an aim. The direct
speech text mentioned above, LawA1668, contains the trial of one specific
offence, namely, as the pamphlet title states, that of "pullin g down bawdyhouses", and throughout the whole text only the verb pull down is used (32
times in all) to describe the offensive action, no other possible variant. On
the written page, this creates the impression of monotony, but in the context
of the original spoken intercourse, and also for the sake of legal clarity, it
was probably quite appropriate. In a purely written context, such repetition is
even more conspicuous, however: in example (102) there is a bit too much
notice given and taken in such a short space.
37

These are the page numbers of the original text, retrievable from the SGMLencoding of the electronic version.

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Making a Choice

(102) and giving notice to my Assistant to prepare, he upon the sign given
took notice exactly by a Pendulum Clock to the parts of a Second
when the said Stars past, and also took notice what division the
Diagonal thread mr cut upon the Rule op. (SciA1674)
Robert Hooke, the author of that sentence, was obviously more concerned
with the content than with the form of his message.
Hooke in passage (102) exhibits a rather nominal style, even apart
from the verbo-nominal combinations (cf. also upon the sign given, what
division), a style which according to Wells (1960:217) is easier to produce
than a more verbal style, and thus suited to people emphasizing the content.
Obviously then, verbo-nominal combinations can be seen in the context of
nominal style, as they are one, though by no means the only, of its elements.
Thus, negative criticism directed at nominal style is also relevant to them.
Wells (ibid.) summarizes the reasons given by critics as follows: (i) nouns
are more static and less vivid than verbs, (ii) longer sentences, which usually
are a consequence of a nominal style, are on the whole less vivid and less
comprehensible than shorter (i.e. verbal) ones, and, finally, (iii) nominal style
creates monotony, whereas a verbal style allows for m ore diversity. I will
only deal with the first of these points here. Without any negative
undercurrent, McIntosh (1977:120,n.1) also calls nominal predication 38
stative, because it is least verb-like. Deutschbein (1932:8), on the other hand,
attributes expressive and dynamic characteristics to the nominal style he sees
as typical of modern English prose. Talking expressly of verbo -nominal
combinations (his examples: make a return, take a walk, give N a dust etc.),
he says (ibid. 130f) that an action becomes more intensive, vivid, and
forceful if it is expressed through them instead of a purely verbal
construction. Static (Wells) and stative (McIntosh), while not being
identical, are certainly connected as they both work towards the same general
impression produced by a piece of writing. I will take static to be a stylistic
feature, and stative to be a semantic one.
Lets look at some few examples from the Lampeter Corpus, setting
multi-word and simplex uses of the same item side by side:
(103a)
(103b)

38

And no Vote in this House can hinder a Man from making use
of what Arguments he thinks fit. (PolB1706)
And if it were necessary to use any further Arguments for the
proof of this Matter, they would plainly appear by comparing
ancient Histories with Modern in the Descriptions they give of
the Countries. (MscB1685)

He is talking of all possible kinds of nominal predication, i.e. not exclusively, not
even preferably, of verbo-nominal combinations.

Making a Choice
(104a)
(104b)
(105a)
(105b)

(106a)
(106b)

259

Secondly, for Importing of forraign Goods, such as Linnen,

Sugars, Raw-silk, &c. which we stand in need of. (EcB1660)
It is certain, they need not for Meat and Drink in Ireland, ...
(EcB1700)
Yet I must acknowledg, that what was precipitated was very
inconsiderable to what was decocted, and not so much as to
make much alteration in the colour of the water; (SciB1676)
For tis a most dangerous thing to shake or alter any of the
rules or fundamental points of the common Law, ...
(LawA1680)
How does it appear that the Emperor (...) gave them any Assistance, when They actually besieged it? (PolA1731)
All Captains, Officers, and Souldiers, shall do their endeavours
to detect, apprehend, and bring to punishment all Offenders,
and shall assist the Officers of the Army for that purpose, ...
(LawA1643)

The general impression from these examples, and also from the rest of the
data, is that verbo-nominal combinations do not automatically increase either
the stative or the static element in the predication. The deverbal nouns in the
combinations basically share the semantic traits of the underlying verbs,
added to by some nominal features, which are mostly of a formal nature. The
more the noun stays like the verb, e.g. by being isomorphic with it or by not
taking an article (cf. esp. (103), also (104)), the less noun -like, the less
static/stative it feels. Combinations fulfilling these conditions are very
common in the data; slightly more than half of the types, and certainly the
majority of the tokens, contain zero-derived nouns for instance. Suffixderived nouns, as in (105-106), are phonologically heavier, slowing down
the pace of the sentence, and may thus possibly seem more static
stylistically. Semantically, however, they 39 can be interpreted as both
result/abstract entity on the one hand or as process on the other, the latter
possibility of course retaining all the dynamic verbal force. In my opinion,
the stative meaning of result is somewhat more salient in alteration (105),
whereas assistance (106) retains more dynamism; there are also cases like
need (104) where both verb and noun have a stative feature. In contrast to
other forms of nominal style, there is alwa ys a finite verb present in verbonominal combinations, which, especially in the case of action verbs such as
make, give, also adds some dynamic force. Modification, as is present in
(105-106), may be used to increase both staticness and stativ ity, depending
on how specific and individualizing the modification used is. To sum up
39

This goes for all nouns in the combinations, not only the suffixal ones.

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Making a Choice

then, using verbo-nominal combinations as such does not dramatically

increase the static and/or stative nature of a discourse, but it does give the
author more of an opportunity to fine-tune these features if he wants to. As
to Deutschbeins terms of praise quoted above, the sheer additional weight
provided by the combination can of course give a more intensive and
forceful imprint to the predication. Mller (1978:223) also points out that
verbo-nominal combinations actually emphasize the activity as such,
whereas the use of simplexes tends to rather stress the manner and the
circumstances of the activity. All in all, therefore, verbo-nominal
combinations are not hit overmuch by this particular criticism of nominal
style.
This section has shown that multi-word verbs offer ample
opportunities to an author for varying his expression and for adapting to the
needs of his audience as well as to the needs of the topics treated.
Furthermore, they can (but need not necessarily) be used to create an overall
stylistic effect.
9.3 Syntax and Message
The semantic spreading exhibited by multi-word verbs (cf. 9.1) could not
exist without syntactic spreading, which means that a combination take s up
more, and different kinds of slots, within the clause or sentence than a
simplex verb. It thus occupies more syntactic and phonological space, not
only through the various elements but also in some cases through longer
words (e.g. Romance/suffixal nouns). These basic facts attribute more
weight to the predication with a multi-word item than to that with a simplex,
and already go some way in emphasizing it as such. Perhaps those
prepositional verbs, e.g. fail of, accept of, admire at etc., in which the
preposition seems superfluous to the modern and even some contemporary
speakers, are due to a desire for more weight. A good example is certainly
make/have use of in contrast to the extremely short monosyllabic simplex
use, which tends to be rather inconspicuous. Nevertheless, with 451
occurrences the simplex is nearly three times more frequent than the verbo nominal combination (158 occ.). Table 9.1 shows the spread of both forms
over the corpus decades: 40

40

Cf. Kyt in Brinton/Akimoto (1999) for the same comparison on the basis of the
EModE part of the Helsinki Corpus. She further compares care with take/have care,
which is seen as less suitable here because of the semantic difference between the
simplex and multi-word forms; also, the simplex care hardly exists, the usual form
being the prepositional verb care for. In the present investigation of use-make/have use

Making a Choice

261

Table 9.1: use vs. make/have use of in the Lampeter Corpus (tokens)
use
make/have use of

1640s
58
11

1650s
39
17

1660s
26
12

1670s
44
26

1680s
63
12

use
make/have use of

1690s
43
23

1700s
60
12

1710s
25
18

1720s
45
12

1730s
48
15

Thus, more phonological and syntactic weight alone are obviously not reason
enough for the use of multi-word structure. Other points, like those pointed
out above, and those of a more syntactic nature that will follow, will play a
role in every individual instance of choice. What is furthermore important
about syntactic spreading is that it offers a number of specific features and
procedures, which can help an author to make what he has to say more pre cise and/or more effective. This last section will therefore be devoted to how
syntax can influence and enhance the message.
Elements of a multi-word verb can occupy positions in a clause which
a simplex cannot occupy at all or only with difficulty. Those are primarily
front and final position, i.e. the most prominent places in a clause. The norm
in English is the "principle of end-focus" (Quirk et al. 1985:1357) with the
final position carrying both most stress and most information value, but a
kind of front-focus is also possible, cf. the process of fronting, for instance.
In this case, focusing is much more a question of emphasis, not of high
information value, the fronted item usually being marked theme. I will now
deal with end-focus first.
Within the SV(O)-structure of English a simplex verb would not normally end a clause or sentence, unless in the case of an intransitive verb
without further complementation or circumstantial modification, i.e. plain
SV. However, English speakers tend to avoid such abrupt structures. More
complex syntactic rearrangements, such as cleft sentences like the one found
in (107), can also leave the verb at the end.
(107) 3. Pursue it [=love] earnestly, because it is well worth the greatest
vehemency and intention of spirit. (...) It is that which God delights
in, that which God himself is. (RelA1653)
This then is actually a case of divided focus (cf. Quirk et al. 1985:1384),
with the emphasis not unequivocally or not primarily on the verb. Also, it
of, all variants of use denoting habituality (used to do s.th., etc.) and such cases as they
used him civilly where discarded in order to achieve semantic equivalence.

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requires some syntactic effort to produce cleft and similar kinds of

structures. 41 In contrast, elements of some multi-word verbs can take end
position, and thus end-focus, quite naturally: the particle of phrasal verbs, the
adjective of verb-adjective combinations, and the noun of verbo-nominal
combinations. Phrasal verbs with a non-pronominal object leave it to the
author which of the two structures, V-p-O or V-O-p, he will opt for. If he
chooses the latter, as in (108), he gives end -focus to the greater part of the
verbal force inherent in the particle (cf. 10.1.) and thus emphasizes the verb.
(108) The Tears of Widows and Orphans are our Summons to This chearful
Meeting: Which yet ought to be a chearful one, because the End of it
is to contribute what we can to wipe Those Tears away. (RelA1721)
The same procedure is possible with verb-adjective combinations, which behave similarly to phrasal verbs in that respect (cf. chap.4).
(109) And therefore you that are rich had need double your diligence to
make your calling and election sure. (MscB1658)
(110) The Consent of the Empire was obtaind, and the Letters expectative
deliverd before the Differences between the Empire and Spain were
adjusted; so that the Emperor had made all his Engagements good;
(PolA1731)
(111) ... with Assurances that They would effectually make good ALL
SUCH EXPENCES and ENGAGEMENTS. (PolA1731)
While (109-110) focus on the verb by placing its adjectival element at the
end, even after a longer and coordinated noun phrase, (111) makes it very
clear that end-focus and emphasis is reserved for the object noun phrase, and
accordingly leaves the adjective attached to its verbal part. (112-113) are
examples of verbo-nominal combinations providing end-focus with the help
of their noun taking clause-final (112) or sentence-final (113) position.
(112) That I and all men have reason to make this a doubt, your own action,
as well as your tame sufferings do but too plainly manifest.
(PolB1659)
(113) ... but it is plain, from this Account, that the formidable Union of
Spain and the Emperor gave these two Courts no Alarm. (PolA1731)

41

I have not checked the Lampeter Corpus for all possible syntactic topicalization
structures, but only looked for some types of cleft sentences in the present and past
(search string: it is/it was + who/whom/which [range of 5 to the right]). There were
only three or four likely candidates, perhaps indicating that the structure was not very
common then. It may also be noteworthy that the example quoted in the text is from a
sermon, i.e. a text with connections to the spoken language.

Making a Choice

263

In both cases there would have been an alternative, if t he author had not
wanted that particular focus: make (a) doubt of N is possible, and (113),
which is a so-called ditransitive give-construction, can be paraphrased by "...
gave no alarm to these two courts". 42 With most transitive verbo-nominal
combinations of Group III, final position and end-focus is the natural place
of preposition-noun sequence, as in the following two examples.
(114) ... the honourable Houses, who upon better reasons both may, and (we
hope) will take their Vote into further consideration: (PolA1646)
(115) Their Resolution and Constancy had almost cost em their Lives, for
dreading the Courage and Indignation of Gustavus, if he shoud be releasd, gave secret Orders to put him and the other Lords to Death.
(MscB1739)
In contrast, those combinations belonging to Group II, such as lose sight of,
make use of etc., do not offer the possibility of giving end-focus to the noun;
the final obligatory preposition precludes this. The same is true of preposi tional and phrasal-prepositional verbs. But in all other cases, as the above
examples show, end-focus comes about naturally and easily through the
structure of the multi-word verb, and requires no extra effort from the
author. Furthermore, it is equally easy to avoid it if not desired. 43
What I intend front-focus to mean is (a) positioning of part of the
verbal predication at or very near the beginning of a sentence or clause, but
also (b) the prominent placing of the non-verbal part of a multi-word
structure in front position of the structure its elf (a kind of internal
fronting), i.e. usually in a position a simplex could not take. Fronting can,
but need not, mean that the element is the theme, i.e. given information. The
same group of multi-word verbs that allows end-focus also makes frontfocus possible. Some phrasal verbs, namely the most literal ones, allow their
particle to be pre-posed, as in (116):
(116) He had not talkd with him long, before he was desired to take
measure of him; and whilst that was doing, up came a Foot-man in a
gentile Livery, and paying him much Respect and Reverence, told him

42

This is possible even though Quirk et al. (1985:753) state that the affected "direct
object" naturally takes end-focus and the indirect object is therefore not normally
replaceable by a prepositional structure. Cf. the following example, which can stand
representative for others found in the Lampeter Corpus:
(i)
This Clause in his Majesties Proclamation, gave the Alaram to some persons
that are Wiredrawers, to ingage some worthy Gentlemen to be instrumental to
procure the Wiredrawers a Corporation from his sacred Majesty: (LawB1661)
43
With the exception of phrasal verbs and verb-adjective combinations with
pronominal object, where there is no positional choice.

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Making a Choice
that Sir John, his Master, desired his Company at Dinner.
(MscB1692)

This is not very common (cf. chap.6), and usually only found in narrative
contexts like the above. The fronting of the partic le is a simple narrative device, making the account more vivid by indicating a sudden, unexpected or
surprising event. Even more uncommon than particle fronting is fronting in
verb-adjective combinations: it occurs only twice in the whole corpus, (117)
representing one of these two instances:
(117) How exceeding short doth this fall of the Admirable Sweetness of his
Nature, who is Lord of the Christian-Religion, that was so far from
Indulging Hatred to his Conscientious Friends, that he forbid it to his
greatest Enemies? (RelB1674)
The second example not only concerns the very same item but also the
identical syntactic pattern (a Report how far short they fall of those
Qualifications, MscA1712). This might mean that fronting in verb-adjective
combinations is highly restricted to certain individual items. Surprisingly, the
item in question here is one of the most lexicalized and idiomatic units
within its category, i.e. a type where one would not have expected such
transformational freedom. Thus, the phenomenon may be more widespread
and become visible in a larger database. I will thus have to leave this
question open.
The items most flexible with regard to possibilities of fronting are
verbo-nominal combinations from Groups I and II, among which internal
fronting is not at all uncommon. The simplest way of achieving that effect is
using the inner passive (cf. chap.6), as is to be seen in (118-119):
(118) She being suspected for them, and that she was run away, Pursuit was
made after her by a young man, who overtook her, and found the
things about her; (LawB1678)
(119) He answered himself thus, Even that which hath been already done.
(...) The like Answer may not be unfitly returned, Even that which
hath been already spoken. (PolA1659)
The clausal fronting of pursuit in (118) neatly links up with the final element
of the preceding clause, run away, bringing the logical sequence of events
into neighbouring position; pursuit here represents new information. Answer
in (119) takes up the thread of verbal answer used earlier, and thus serves as
a cohesive element, at the same time varying the parallel structure. Other
than inner-passive fronting structures are exemplified in the following
sentences:

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265

(120) And though it be manifest enough, that Galilo, as to some

particulars, was mistaken in the account which there he gives of it;
(SciA1666)
(121) And what influence this will have into the state of this Nation; time
will manifest, if men are not as yet at leasure to consider. (RelB1667)
(122) There is mention made before p. 7 of the anthos tes horas, of the Emperour, which the Interpreter renders, tatis flos & vigor. (RelB1692)
(123) For as to his Call, he had no other that we read of, but the neccesity
his brother stood in of his help. (PolB1659)
The multi-word internal relative clause in (120), the indirect question as in
(121), and the existential sentence of (122) give an idea of the transforma tional and focusing possibilities verbo-nominal combinations can offer.
While this does not mean that every single type allows all or even any of
them, the phenomenon is nevertheless rather widespread. It does not even
exclude lexicalized (e.g. (122), also take notice of, make use of) or idiomatic
combinations, cf. the idiomatic meaning present in (120), "explain, account
for", which is present despite the syntactic transformation. (123) shows that
fronting, here with the help of a relative structure, is, unexpectedly, also
possible in Group III; this was the only example found, however. It is in
these fronted uses that the verb is downgraded most to operator-status, while
the noun retrieves most fully its nominal characteristics and gets even greater
weight than in all other uses. While fronting, or front -focus, is more
sophisticated and somewhat more complicated to bring about than end-focus,
it is nevertheless an important possibility and at least in the case of verbo nominal combinations it is freely made use of by the authors in the Lampeter
Corpus.
Syntactic spreading also enables the writer to single out individual
elements of the combination for modification. This means that the modifica tion can in some circumstances be more specific, namely by modifying one
particular part of the overall meaning instead of the more indistinct whole.
The category that immediately comes to mind with respect to modificatory
possibilities is of course verbo-nominal combinations, but some other items
offer themselves as well. I have given both the decidedly low frequency figures and some examples of phrasal verb and verb-adjective modification in
chapter 6, and there is no need to repeat all of that here. But some more ex amples may be in order:
(124) ... that such as are unwearied of your Majesties government, dare not
attempt to cast it totally off, ... (PolA1646)
(125) And surely were there no other consideration but this (give me leave
to repeat it, though I have said it once before) this alone were
sufficient to make us keep close together, ... (PolA1659)

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Making a Choice

(126) And now if one may make so bold as to give Law to the Geographers,
... (SciB1649)
The adverbs totally, close, and so clearly refer to and modify specifically the
non-verbal element of the combination. They can thus be more to the point
intended by the author. However, because of the infrequency of these cases
and because of an obviously existing tendency to restrict intervening
elements in these types of verbs, modification in phrasal verbs and verb adjective combinations cannot be seen as an important reason for their use.
The situation is more complex with regard to verbo -nominal combinations. First of all, because modification has been identified as a major reason
for their use, both in PDE (e.g. Mller 1978) and in earlier stages of the lan guage (e.g. Kyt on EModE in Brinton/Akimoto 1999). And secondly, because the possibilities for modification are greater and more diverse in this
than in any other type. First, adjectival modification is usually easier to pro duce than the adverbial one a simplex verb would require, and the plural
morpheme compared to an adverbial phrase of frequency or duration is
probably as simple as one can get. The verbal alternative to (127), have been
altered many times, requires one or two words more than the nominal
structure, and (128) is rephraseable as I can use this in no other way.
(127) And which [laws] have received many alterations, and may at any
time when it seems good to the King and Parliament receive more;
(RelB1667)
(128) I have no other use to make of this, but to infer that the Directors
have in them a Power to dispose of the Money (...) as they shall think
fit. (EcA1705)
Also, adverbial descriptions can often sound rather clumsy or at any rate less
elegant than the adjectival/nominal alternatives. To "answer something satisfactorily" would probably not be rated as a stylistic highlight, whereas the
adjectival solution in (129) is not in the least awkward.
(129) By all this I intend no more than to give a satisfactory Answer to the
Argument of Merit pleaded upon this Head; (EcA1705)
Furthermore, there are things which cannot be adequately expressed adverbially, but cause no problem as nominal modification structures, e.g. you can
have little need (RelB1667) of somebody or something, but *need littly of
course would not work. The following represent some other examples for
which there is no obvious or easy adverbial alternative:
(130) Judges and Lawyers have ill successe: (SciA1644)
(131) To this Objection, I give this plain Answer. (PolB1674)

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267

(132) In the mean time my Friends in England had taken some care for my
Ransome, ... (MscA1685)
The demonstrative pronoun, as in (131), is not an uncommon modification,
also occurring on its own without additional adjectives. It is of course easy to
give this kind of definiteness to a noun, but it is impossible to do something
like this directly to the verb. Some, especially when it is more clearly a
marker of indefiniteness than it is in (132), presents the same problem. Even
if both the adverbial and adjectival and/or determiner alternatives work, e.g.
have a secret influence (RelB1667) on somebody and influence N secretly,
they might not convey exactly the same meaning. Similarly, a hasty account,
as in (133), is not necessarily the same as telling something hastily one
can after all simply speak very fast, while the adjectival modificati on also
makes a statement about the characteristics of the report.
(133) I have given Mr Boyle an hasty account thereof in a Letter, which I
send now to you, that you may not be ignorant of it. (MscB1666)
Postmodification is also found, and apart from very few exceptions it usually
comes in the form of a relative clause, as in (134):
(134) Be serious in the consideration of these particulars, and upon liking,
give what promotion you can towards their settlement. (LawB1659)
Just as in this example, postmodification in nearly all cases is accompanied
by a premodifying element. Finally, there is the possibility of using
modification to personalize the action by adding a possessive adjective (135)
or pronoun (136):
(135) our Gracious Sovereign Queen ANN was Graciously pleased to give
the Royal Assent to our Act of Security, ... (PolB1706)
(136) ... and when left to his free Will and Pleasure to take his Choice,
whether he will promote the publick Good, and his own Interest, by
accepting a Sum of Money for his Annuity,... (EcB1720)
In some combinations; this is more common than in others, e.g. take leave of
occurs very often with a possessive pronoun, and at least one item, make
ones way, has a pronoun slot to be filled obligatorily. Thus, the possibilities
of modification, and the advantages going with it, offered by verbo -nominal
combinations are quite impressive, but as pointed out in chapter 6 the overall
frequency of modification (about 28%) is not very high, definitely less than
one would expect against the background of other studies. In the context of
the present data, modification can therefore not be taken as the most
powerful reason for the existence and use of the whole group of verbo nominal combinations, especially not for Group III items. In individual

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Making a Choice

cases, however, it might very well have influenced the decision of one or the
other author in favour of the multi -word unit.
Nominal negation, just like modification above, has also been seen as
a reason for using verbo-nominal structures, basically because it is
syntactically simpler than verbal negation. This feature again was not found
to be very common in the corpus data (cf. chap.6), and moreover it is not
applicable to Group III combinations at all. The idea of nominal negation
being simpler must be based mainly on a comparison of negation with the
help of the do-periphrasis however, this latter structure was not yet fully
and exclusively in place in the period of the Lampeter Corpus (e.g. Barber
1997:193ff; Rissanen 1999). One also finds straightforward non-periphrastic
verbal negation, i.e. without do-support, in the corpus. Infinitival negation
does not require do at all. And then there are those cases in which the
presence of a modal or other auxiliary make non-periphrastic negation
possible. Cases of uses of never and neither/nor-constructions will also have
to be taken into consideration. Examples (137-140) illustrate some different
possibilities:
(137) I take no pleasure in War, ... (EcB1653)
(138) ... for though His Majesty doth not make use of them [= Test Acts],
They may stand as Rods doth <sic> upon Mantle-Trees, to keep Rebellious Children in Subjection. (RelB1687)
(139) ... [he] asks her, if she had any hand in bewitching Anne Thorn; to
which at first she gave not positive Answer; (MscA1712)
(140) That (...) what He should say in that Court might not be made use of
against him in any Inferiour Court; (LawB1697)
Thus, it is necessary to look at all negated verbo-nominal combinations of
Groups I and II in order to find out how frequen t or infrequent nominal negation is in comparison with them. The examples of nominal negation found
amounted to 99 instances for Groups I and II together (cf. chap.6), and all
the cases of non-nominal negation together only come to 44 instances, again
for both groups. There are also cases that can only take verbal negation:
(141) I must here again repeat it, (because what is never out of my Mind, I
would not lose sight of one Moment,) that I have no design to accuse
the Ministry. (PolB1713)
In (141), nominal negation, *lose no sight of, would create nonsense, for
instance. All in all, negation of any kind of verbo-nominal combinations is
obviously not very common in the first place. It is clear, however, that the
nominal variant, with more than double the occurrences, is the preferred
method of negation in the data. This may be due to its greater simplicity at
least in some cases, but an additional factor may be found in a possible se-

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269

mantic or pragmatic difference between verbal and nominal negation. Com paring (139) above with the two examples in (142), a distinction is
discernible.
(142a)
(142b)

of all which I shall give no answer. (SciB1735)

the Moors themselves calld to us, We made no answer and
traveld on, (MscA1685)

In (139), an answer as such was given, though it was not a positive one; it
even seems that finally a positive answer was made (cf. at first). In contrast,
in (142a+b) it is clear that no answer at all exists. This may be the reason for
the different choice made by the authors in questio n.
What may play a role in influencing the use of verbo-nominal
combinations of Group I is the possible intransitivizing function of these
items, so that it is not necessary to specify an actual object of the activity.
The figures given in chapter 6 show that intransitive usage in Group I is not
uncommon, but it is necessary to be aware that this figure also contains such
items as make an escape, which do not have a transitive use at all.
Nevertheless, a considerable group of items can be used both transi tively or
intransitively, i.e. with or without an object. Wishing to avoid mentioning the
object can have different reasons, some of which the following examples are
to illustrate:
(143) he interposes not his own authority and appoints not himself who
shall be his Vice-gerents and rule under him; he leaves it to none but
the people themselves to make the election, ... (PolB1659)
(144) To which may be added the Experience and Testimony of my Honoured and Learned Friends Sir Edward Greaves, and Dr. Nat. Highmore, who have both made trial, and found the Waters turn.
(SciB1676)
(145) One was a Pretence to make a Discovery, and to get time by sending a
Letter over Sea to the King; (LawB1697)
(146) Tis plainly for this reason, that very severe Laws are still in force
against Papists, though no one feels the rigour of them while he lives
quiet, and gives no offence. (RelB1721)
In the first of these examples, (143), the object of election has already been
mentioned in the preceding text (i.e. his Vice-gerents), and therefore does
not need to be repeated; using the verb "elect", however, would have
required a pronominal object at the least. (144) is from a text concerned with
various scientific experiments performed on the waters of Bath, to which
make trial refers. Thus, the object here is implicitly present, easily
retrievable from the overall topic of the discourse. In (145), it is not known

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Making a Choice

what is to be discovered, so that no object could possibly be stated. While in

this example it is implied that it is unknown because it does not exist (cf.
Pretence), most cases, e.g. the many uses of make (an) observation in
scientific texts, are simply a question of an unknown object. In the last
instance above, (146), it is clear that the action denoted by the combination
is the important point as such; also, the action denoted basically affects
everybody and anybody. These and all the other instances of not intrinsically
intransitive, but intransitively used combinations point to the fact that this is
a very important reason for the use of many Group I verbo-nominal
combinations.
Some multi-word verbs provide the opportunity of expressing a passive signification with an active form, i.e. they avoid the formal passive
which an alternative simplex would require. Kennedy (1920:27) remarked
that this is not uncommon with phrasal verbs, but the present data does not
contain evidence for this. The only category in which this phenomenon is
common and rather systematic is once again verbo -nominal combinations of
Group I. The following sentences represent some examples:
(147) Sir Iohn Meldram at Newarke upon Trent, upon the 21. had his defeate: (SciA1644)
(148) They were sure to get the preference of the Market of us in other
Countries, and if occasion were, to under-sel us also as much per
Cent. in all places, and upon all Trades; (EcA1652)
(149) ... we shall at length discover him by his divided, and dividing foot;
and thence take warning to avoid him. (PolA1659)
(150) The Labours of no Adversary hath had more grateful Acceptance in
the Thoughts of your Reverend Author J. Faldo, then a noted
Socinian, of whose Attempt he speaks thus; (RelB1674)
In the case of (147) and (149), the items are part of contrastive active passive pairs, i.e. give defeat to / have defeat, give warning / take warning.
This effect is reached very simply by varying the verbal element, using give,
or sometimes make, for the active sense, and, as a rule, take or have for the
passive. Other instances of this kind are give/have notice, give/take alarm,
give/take offence, make/have a variation, or give, make/receive an
alteration. Not all passive items can be paired up with an active
counterpart, however, cf. for instance (148) and (150) above. It is possible
that all these cases reflect a certain re luctance to use the formal passive
voice, or even a dislike of it, but they are too few and too infrequent in the

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271

data to state this with certainty. 44 At any rate, like the passive, these forms
help to shift items into subject position according to the wishes to the writer.
In chapter 6, I have treated coordination with other verbs as an im portant point of emphasizing unitary status of the multi -word verb. What was
mainly at issue there was the syntax around the item, but these forms also
offer the possibility of internal coordination. One rather complex multi -word
verb can thus contain two, or sometimes more, verbs, i.e. denote various
activities or different aspects of one activity. This is not possible with all
categories; prepositional and phrasal-prepositional verbs cannot allow it, but
the other types can. In the case of verb-adjective combinations, the verbal
element is doubled up, as in (151):
(151) Maintaine amongst us a free course of trading for eternall happinesse,
set and keepe open those shops, such Pulpits, such mouthes, as any
Prelaticall usurpations have, or would have, shut up. (RelA1642)
Phrasal verbs can combine one verb with two particles, as in (152), or one
particle with two verbs (153):
(152) I suppose the increase of Heat, which sometimes that Bath wants,
procured by keeping the Air out, and the steam in great measure in,
(...) will make a sufficient recompence for this supposed molestation.
(SciB1676)
(153) Ye cannot Preach nor Pray them down directly and immediately
Well, That which the Word cannot do, the Sword shall: (RelB1674)
Most commonly, however, internal coordination is found with verbo -nominal
combinations, again with those of Group I being the most prominently, but
not exclusively used ones. While (154) coordinates items that seem to be not
that well established on their own (give outcry 45 as such is not found at all in
the corpus, and give alarm only four other times besides this occurrence),
nouns which are part of very fixed combinations can nevertheless also be
coordinated, as (155, 156) show.
(154) And then let all Mankind judge, whether of the two is more to be
blamed, he that hath lead his Prince out of the old via Regia (...) or he
that hath given an honest Alarm or Outcry of this evil Dealing.
(PolB1674)

44

Regarding a possible dislike of the passive the following point is of interest: a pilot
study on the use of the passive voice in the Lampeter Corpus domain SCIENCE, a
register noted for its preference of the passive in PDE, has shown that it was used
much less frequently than today.
45
This type, if it existed, would be a precursor of the common PDE formations with a
zero-derived phrasal verb, e.g. make a mess-up (Srensen 1986:279).

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(155) AFter the Clothier hath taken all the care and pains that possibly he
can, to make his Cloth both cheap and good, yet when he cometh to
sell it, he cannot do it himself, ... (EcA1681)
(156) ... and yet they [= goods] are complaind off there, as much as here,
and stops and restraints are often put upon the bringing of them from
India: (EcA1697)
In both the latter cases, the coordinated nouns are connected with identical
verbs, and in (156) even the same preposition, in their usual non-coordinated
use. In one example, namely any such care and provision should be had and
taken (PolB1660), however, the author felt it necessary to coordinate two
verbs as well, producing a rather awkward structure. He could have avoided
it by taking the more common take care instead of have (a) care as his basis,
but perhaps he saw a semantic difference there which was important to him.
Cases in which two verbs are coordinated with only one noun are not found
in the data. Looking at all the examples of internal coordination given above,
one can see that they either contain not much extra information (154, 155),
i.e. function mainly as emphasizers, that they express different aspects of the
activity (151, 153), or that they denote essentially different activities (152,
156). Thus, they can provide rather useful expressive opportunities for a
writer.
A last point I would like to make here regarding verbo-nominal
combinations is the fact that, theoretically, the presence of the noun in the
predicate makes nominal types of reference (e.g. pronouns) to the verbal
predication possible. In order for this to be possible, the noun must have an
independent semantic presence within the combination (cf. Krenn 1977:108),
which is the case in the great majority of cases, even the idiomatic ones. An
example of such referencing is found in (127) above, which I again quote
here as (157):
(157) ... mutable and changeable Laws; And which have received many alterations, and may at any time when it seems good to the King and
Parliament receive more; (RelB1667)
More takes up and refers back to alterations; while it is necessary to repeat
receive as well, i.e. to retain the multi-word context (cf. Krenn 1977:112),
this process is nevertheless easier than expressing (157) entirely verbally. All
instances of relative clauses, as in (158), are of course also examples of such
nominal reference.
(158) ... they have given all Incouragements that were requisite to their
Trade in their own Countrie: (EcA1652)
Clear-cut pronominal reference examples were, however, not found in the
data, but one has to make allowances for the fact they may easily be over -

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273

looked in the process of data collection if they go beyond the context of one
sentence. The following examples of the repetition of the noun as such might
be of interest here as well:
(159) He [=God] many times made the choice, but left the Continuation and
Ratification of that choice to the people themselves. (PolB1659)
(160) CHarles Hore, the Complainer in the following Case, did in the Year
1701 make Complaint to the House of Commons, of a great Abuse
Committed in Her Majestys Brew-house at St. Katharines; which
Complaint was Referrd to the Consideration of a Committee, ...
(LawA1703)
The italicized occurrences of the nouns would be possible following a purely
verbal structure as well, but the connection is closer and clearer with the use
of the verbo-nominal combinations. While pronominal or other reference is
certainly not a major point for the use of these combinations, it is
nevertheless interesting and merits furth er investigations, in my opinion.
I hope to have shown in the foregoing chapter that the use of multi word verbs often opens up interesting semantic, stylistic and syntactical ave nues, which can be followed by the writer and exploited for his expressive
and communicative purposes. However, it should also have become clear
that not all multi-word categories treated here offer the same possibilities or
even an equal range of them. Prepositional verbs are in a way the least
versatile of all, which is due to the syntactically immobilizing effect of their
prepositional second element on the one hand, and to the high number of
purely syntactically determined combinations (consist of, depend on etc.) on
the other hand. But the native members of this class (look into, catch at
etc.) team up with phrasal and phrasal-prepositional verbs as well as verbadjective combinations to make considerable semantic and stylistic
contributions to the resources of the English language. Phrasal verbs, and to
a lesser extent also verb-adjective combinations, additionally possess enough
syntactic flexibility to be useful in producing shifts in meaning and emphasis
in that respect as well. With regard to that last point, verbo -nominal
combinations of all categories certainly offer the most opportunities while
also providing some semantic expansions. Writers can exploit all these things
for their purposes, or they can decide against them, of course: it is all these
individual decisions taken and choices made that have produced the mixture
of simplex and multi-word verbs found in the texts of the Lampeter Corpus.

10. Conclusion
This study has been concerned with providing some insights into the use of
multi-word verbs in the late EModE period. Its aims were on the one hand
purely factual description of the state of affairs as regards linguistic features,
and on the other hand a more speculative assessment of the status of these
structures with respect to language attitudes, stylistics etc.
As to the first, all the categories of multi -word verbs as defined on a
PDE basis in chapter 4 were also found in the Lampeter Corpus (chapter 6).
In each category, so-called prototypical types were encountered (cf. for
instance set out, rely on, come by, look up to, make good, give a shout, make
use of, take into consideration), indicating that the core defining features
were also at work then. The number of identical, or highly similar,
combinations in PDE and EModE points to stability within the system as
such, and, furthermore, provides evidence for the habitual nature
(mentioned in chapter 3 as an additional point to the definition) of many
items, empirically proving their status as institutionalized items or even
lexicalizations. While quite a number of combinations occurred again and
again throughout the corpus period, many turned up only once, making for
great variety within the data. This highlights the productivity of the patterns,
in particular the phrasal and verbo-nominal ones.
The phrasal verb data exhibits mostly familiar kinds of types for the
modern observer, built on the same kind of verbs and particles still common
today, with only minor shifts with regard to the latter (especially the decline
of forth and the rise of back). The verbal elements are in accordance with
PDE expectations, being made up of c. 81% monosyllabic verbs and only
three items with a polysyllabic structure, and containing about 62% native
versus c. 32% Romance verbs. The combinations syntactic behaviour is not
surprising either. As suspected by Fraser (1976), only a minority is used
intransitively. With transitive items, the rules of obje ct position, especially
intervening pronominal objects and post-particle position of heavy object
noun phrases, are observed by the overwhelming majority; the very few
exceptions found could, as a rule, be explained on reasons of, e.g., emphasis
or style.
Prepositional verbs revealed a roughly 50:50 internal split between
loan words with syntactically obligatory preposition on the one hand, and
native or highly integrated foreign items with (mostly) semantically
determined preposition on the other hand. The fact that the latter group, in
terms of tokens, consistently contributed around 50%, sometimes even as
much as 60% to the overall amount throughout the ten corpus decades was a

Conclusion

275

surprising result of this study. This makes a major proportion of

prepositional verb instances comparable in character to phrasal and phrasal prepositional verbs in so far as items with new or additional meaning are
created. The most important syntactic points with regard to this category are
the occurrences of passives and preposition stranding. Prepositional passives
were found in reasonable numbers, and preposition stranding was also not
uncommon in other, i.e. non-passive, contexts. Neither of these two unityemphasizing structures seems to have been shunned by speakers; st randing is
even found in contexts where it could easily have been avoided if desired.
Pied-piping, in contrast, is rare, and occurs usually only with emptypreposition items, such as belong to, depend on.
The class of phrasal-prepositional verbs is made up of two groups,
namely prototypical, (highly) idiomatic items, e.g. come up with, given over
to, fall in with, and nonce-like formations such as look back into, search out
for. Ditransitive items, like give N up for N, are rare in this class. Their syntactic behaviour revealed nothing extraordinary; passives and preposition
stranding both occur, but are infrequent. Verb-adjective combinations fall
into a larger class of preposition-less items, and a smaller one of
combinations involving a final preposition. Intransitive uses, which are
possible among the preposition-less ones, are very uncommon. With regard
to object position, this category behaves just like phrasal verbs.
Representatives of all three groups of verbo-nominal combinations
were found, but in varying proportions. Group I (verb+noun) was the most
common type, followed relatively closely by Group II (verb+noun+
preposition), whereas Group III (verb+prepositional phrase) fell far behind
the other two. However, even this last group was frequent enough not to
warrant its common exclusion from PDE studies of the verbo -nominal
phenomenon. The strength of Group II showed that combinations with an
obligatory preposition are by no means rare, making institutionalization
within this type rather likely; instances such as take notice of, take care of,
give account of etc. are good examples of this process.
The internal make-up of the verbo-nominal combinations found in the
Lampeter Corpus points to the possibility that the fixation on a very
narrowly defined, prototypical pattern common in PDE studies might not be
justified. While the most common verbs are in fact make, take, give and have
(in that sequence), followed by put and do, a number of other verbs occur as
well, even if considerably less frequently. The deviance regarding the type of
nouns between PDE assumptions and what was actually found is more
striking. In many cases somewhat more than half in Group I, about a third
in Group II, and 50% in Group III the noun was not isomorphic with a
simplex verb, but a derived or unrelated item. Furthermore, the proportion of

276

Conclusion

nouns of Romance origin came to about 80% in both Group I and II, and was
still as high as 57% in Group III. Thus, many at first sight unusual
combinations were encountered in this category. A future PDE investigation
on the basis of a broader definition, which is to be desired, might, however,
show that they are not at all unusual.
Syntactically, verbo-nominal combinations, in particular those of
Groups I and II, can be very versatile. A major feature with Group I
combinations seems to be the intransitivizing function, or, put in other
words, the blurring of the notion transitivity. With regard to object position,
in Group II the object actually has to follow the whole combinati on, but
some few exceptions were met with. Group III combinations largely behave
like phrasal verbs in this question; pronominal objects especially have to
precede the prepositional phrase. Group I items, in particular those formed
with give, leave the most choice, and thus quite a number of intervening
objects, mostly pronominal ones, are found in this group. Passives occurred
with all three groups, but not very frequently; in the first two, which permit
both inner and outer passives, the inner type, emphasizing the independence
of the noun, was clearly predominant. Outer passives showed a clear
preference for well-established items, such as take notice of, make use of.
Preposition stranding in Group II, both in passive and other contexts, was
found as well, but to a lesser extent than with prepositional verbs.
Modification (including nominal negation and pluralization) has been
identified as the major reason for the use of the combi nations in many other,
mainly PDE, studies, but the amount of actually modified structures found in
the Lampeter Corpus does not entirely warrant such a general statement.
While it is difficult to guess at the perception of multi -word verbs as
unitary lexical items by speakers in the past, there are some indications
pointing in this direction. Some have already been mentioned, such as
passives and preposition stranding. Another syntactic indication of unity is
coordination of a multi-word combination with another verb; this was found
to some, usually small, degree with all categories, but most frequently with
phrasal verbs. The semantics of an item can also indicate or emphasize
lexicalized status. While it is true that, except for phrasal -prepositional
verbs, the majority of all items were used in a literal sense, idiomatic ity was
not completely underdeveloped. As many as half of all phrasal verbs were
found in a transferred or metaphori cal use, a third of verb-adjective
combinations were idiomatic types, the prepositional verb class contained a
quarter of idiomatic combinations, and even in the verbo-nominal category,
which certainly does not lend itself as much to idiomatization as the other
ones, about 15% of all occurrences were idiomatic. Thus, all the categories
contributed new lexical material to the language.

Conclusion

277

As to the observations on frequencies, only some tentative statements

are possible. Phrasal verbs seem to have been used less frequently than
today, whereas verbo-nominal combinations might already have reached
their present level of use in the 17th and 18th cen turies. As comparable PDE
data for the other kinds of multi-word verbs is unfortunately missing, no
conclusions can be drawn here in this respect. Considerations of register and
stylistic level will probably play a role for the usage of all the categories.
Phrasal verbs, possibly also phrasal-prepositional verbs, were found to be
preferred in spoken or speech-related contexts, cf. their higher frequency in
dialogues and sermons. Nevertheless, it is not possible to call the whole class
as such colloquial. Verbo-nominal combinations yielded a somewhat
ambiguous picture, being equally common in both more formal and more
informal contexts, leading me to the hypothesis that they, or the majority of
them, might be part of a stylistically rather neutral level of the language.
However, the register approach as tried out here needs to be refined, and
connected to a full-scale stylistic analysis of whole texts.
Another point regarding frequencies concerns the question of
linguistic change raised in the introduction, in particular Konishis (1958)
and Spasovs (1966) claim of a decline of phrasal verbs in the period in
question here. This is connected with the question of the suitability of the
Lampeter Corpus for this investigation. While nothing can be said about
phrasal-prepositional verbs, because their overall frequency is too low, three
categories, namely prepositional verbs, verb-adjective combinations and
verbo-nominal combinations, were found to be rather stable patterns, staying
very much around the same frequency level throughout the one hundred
years from 1640 to 1740. But not all the categories behave in the same way,
as phrasal verbs, on the other hand, produced a rather erratic graph, which
failed to point to either stability or any clear development. Thus, the above
authors suggestion can neither be substantiated nor repudiated on the basis
of the present data. However, the pres??ent result might be taken as an
indication that their data basis was too small to really warrant such a claim.
A problem regarding the Lampeter Corpus in this respect may lie in its time
frame, i.e. a corpus covering more than one hundred years would be
advantageous for linguistic changes that are not qualitative but quantitative
in nature. As the turning points proper of the assumed development of
phrasal verbs lie outside the period covered by the Lampeter Corpus a
further investigation with similar material, covering at least the periods from
1600 to 1640, and from 1740 to 1800, might help to conclude the question.
The kind of data offered by the corpus did not constitute a problem, though,
as there was enough variation with regard to domains, text types, and

278

Conclusion

authors. Also, the inclusion of whole texts did not produce skewing of the
data to any serious extent.
It was particularly because of the proposed change just discussed that
I decided also to look at attitudes towards multi -word verbs during and
around that period. While the 17th century showed hardly any awareness of
the existence of phrasal and prepositional verbs, th ere were some few
hopeful beginnings to be made out in the 18th century, which developed into
explicit, sometimes even advanced, statements about and descriptions of
such kinds of verb. In contrast, explicit awareness of verb -adjective and
verbo-nominal combinations obviously remained non-existent throughout the
two centuries. No clearly negative, proscriptive pronouncements about the
five categories were found, and not even individual items were criticized to a
noticeable extent. Thus, the prescriptivist s, and probably most people then,
seem to have had a rather neutral or tolerant attitude towards these verbal
combinations. This is of importance in so far as, within the context of
standardization, a prevailing negative attitude could have impeded the
selection of these types as suitable candidates for the standard written
language. However, this was definitely not the case.
Rather than looking for openly expressed attitudes, which may not
exist at all, as in this case, or which, if they exist, may be not quite honest,
Milroy & Milroy (1991:19) suggest that "[i]n fact, statistical counts of vari ants actually used are probably the best way of assessing attitudes". All the
multi-word verbs, with the possible exception of phrasal-prepositional verbs,
occur frequently enough to at least assume a neutral attitude towards them.
What is equally important as "statistical counts", in my opinion, is looking at
the individual contexts they occur in. I have tried to show that in many,
probably even the majority of all, cases, there was a choice for the author to
either use a multi-word structure or a simplex verb of whatever nature
(native simple or compound verb, Romance verb). Often, the multi -word
verb offered advantages over a corresponding simplex, such as more
expressiveness, greater intelligibility, and syntactic flexibility. Choosing the
complex verb meant exploiting these features, but it also implied tacit
acceptance of the item in question. A stigmatized feature, however
advantageous, would not have been used that often. Furthermore, these
multi-word combinations increased the stock of vocabulary, produced more
variety overall as well as in individual texts in short, contributed to the
copiousness of the language which the 17th century, in particular, pr ized so
much. Because of their versatile nature, and the different stylistic levels
present within the categories, they were not even detrimental to the
decorum so important to the 18th century.

Conclusion

279

In conclusion, multi-word verbs were a well-established feature of the

language in the 17th and 18th centuries. Burdened with no negative attitudes,
all the patterns in question continued to thrive, and seemingly even increased
their frequency in some cases, in particular phrasal verbs.

Appendices:
All Multi-word Verbs Found in the Lampeter Corpus
A note on the ordering of the following lists: The alphabetical order is based
on the verbs with respect to phrasal, prepositional, and phrasal -prepositional
verbs, on the adjectives in the case of verb-adjective combinations, and on
the nouns for verbo-nominal combinations.
Appendix 1: Phrasal Verbs (669 types)
assemble together
bail out
bandy about
barter off
batter down
bear away
bear down
bear out
bear up
beat down
beat off
beat out
beat up
bind over
bind together
bind up
blab out
block up
blot out
blow about
blow away
blow down
blow out
blow over
blow up
boil over
bolt out
bottle out
bow down
branch out
break asunder
break down

break forth
break in
break off
break out
break up
breath forth
breath off
breath out
breed up
bring about
bring along
bring away
bring back
bring down
bring forth
bring home
bring in
bring off
bring on
bring out
bring over
bring to
bring together
bring under
bring up
bruise away
buoy up
burn down
burn off
burn out
burst forth
burst out

build up
buy back
buy off
buy up
call forth
call in
call out
carry about
carry along
carry away
carry back
carry down
carry forth
carry in
carry off
carry on
carry out
carry over
carry up
cast away
cast down
cast in
cast off
cast out
cast up
chaffer away
chain up
chalk out
chase ashore
chase away
chequer out
cheer up

Appendices
choke up
choose out
clap up
clear out
clear up
cleave asunder
climb up
cloister up
close in
close up
combine together
come about
come along
come ashore
come away
come back
come by
come down
come forth
come in
come off
come on
come out
come over
come together
come up
conjure down
conjure out
convey away
convey off
convey over
copy out
cover over
crackle off
cram in
crop off
crush out
cry down
cry out
cry up
cut down
cut off
cut out
cut up

dam up
deal about
deal out
decry down
deliver back
deliver in
deliver out
deliver up
die away
dig down
dig up
do up
draw away
draw back
draw down
draw forth
draw in
draw off
draw on
draw out
draw up
dress out
dress up
drink in
drink out
drink up
drive away
drive back
drive off
drive on
drive out
drive up
droll down
drop off
dry off
dry up
dwindle away
eat away
eat down
eat out
eat up
echo back
emit forth
entice away

escape away
explain away
fade away
fall asunder
fall away
fall back
fall down
fall in
fall off
fall out
feed up
fence in
fence off
fetch in
fetch out
fetch up
fight out
fill up
find out
fit out
fit up
flee away
fling away
fling down
fling forth
fling in
fling off
fling up
flow in
flow forth
fly away
fly off
fly out
fly up
foam out
fodder up
force away
force out
freeze up
furnish out
gather in
gather out
gather together
gather up

281

282

Appendices

get away
get down
get in
get off
get out
get together
get up
give away
give back
give forth
give in
give off
give out
give over
give up
gloss over
go about
go along
go aside
go away
go back
go down
go forth
go in
go off
go on
go out
go over
go together
go up
gold over
graft in
grow up
gush forth
hammer out
hand about
hand down
hang down
hang on
hang up
haul up
heal up
heap together
heap up

help off
help out
hem in
hew out
hire out
hoard up
hoist in
hoist out
hold forth
hold out
hold together
hold up
hook in
huddle together
huddle up
huckster up
interpret away
issue forth
issue out
join together
jostle out
keep back
keep down
keep in
keep off
keep on
keep out
keep together
keep under
keep up
kidnap away
kneel down
knock down
knock out
lap up
laugh out
lay aside
lay down
lay forth
lay in
lay on
lay out
lay together
lay up

lead aside
lead down
lead on
lead up
league together
learn out
leave off
leave out
lengthen out
let down
let in
let out
lie by
lie down
lift up
link together
live out
lock up
look back
look down
look on
look out
look over
lop off
make away
make out
make over
make up
man out
march away
march forth
march off
march on
march up
mark out
meet together
melt down
melt off
mix together
moulder away
mount up
move about
move off
muffle up

Appendices
muster up
nail down
nail up
note down
note out
offer up
pace away
pack up
paint out
paint over
parcel out
pare off
pass along
pass away
pass by
pass on
pass out
pass over
patch up
pay down
pay in
pay off
pay out
pent up
pick off
pick out
pick up
pin down
pin up
pine away
place forth
plain away
plot down
plough up
pluck down
pluck out
pluck up
plump up
ply in
ply off
point out
pour in
pour off
pour out

preach/pray down
prick off
prop up
prune off
puff up
pull down
pull off
pull out
pull up
pump out
purge out
purse up
put ashore
put aside
put asunder
put away
put by
put down
put forth
put in
put off
put on
put out
put over
put together
put up
raise up
rake up
rally up
reach forth
reach up
read out
read over
reckon in
reckon up
rent out
resign up
retail out
retreat back
return back
return up
ride down
ride off
ride out

ride up
rime out
rinse away
rip up
rise up
roll up
root out
root up
rouse up
rub off
rub out
run along
run away
run counter
run down
run in
run off
run out
run over
run through
rush in
sail back
sally out
salve up
scrape together
scrape up
screen off
screw up
scum off
seal up
search out
seek out
sell off
sell out
send away
send back
send down
send forth
send in
send out
send over
send up
serve out
serve up

283

284

Appendices

set apart
set aside
set back
set down
set forth
set in
set off
set out
set up
sew up
shake off
shatter off
shave away
ship off
ship out
shoot off
shoot out
show forth
show out
shower down
shrink up
shuffle off
shuffle out
shut out
shut up
sift out
sing forth
single out
sink down
sink in
sit down
sit up
slide back
smooth over
snatch away
snatch up
sound forth
speak out
speed off
spew forth
spew up
spin out
spirit away
spirit up

spit out
spring forth
spring up
sprout forth
spur on
spy out
squeeze out
squirt forth
squirt out
stand by
stand out
stand up
start back
(start up) upstart
stave off
stay behind
steal away
steal out
step down
step forth
step in
stick down
stick in
stifle up
stir up
stitch up
stop up
store up
strain out
stretch forth
stretch out
strike down
strike off
strike out
strike through
strike up
stroke out
stuff up
suck in
suck out
suck up
sue out
sum up
swallow in

swallow down
swallow up
sweep away
sweep up
take along
take away
take back
take down
take forth
take in
take off
take out
take together
take up
tear off
tear out
tear up
tell out
tempt away
throng up
throw aside
throw away
throw down
throw in
throw off
throw out
throw over
throw up
thrust out
tie down
tie up
tire out
toss up
trace out
trade away
train up
tramble down
tread down
treasure up
trifle away
trip away
trip out
troop off
truck off

Appendices
trump up
try out
tumble down
turn about
turn away
turn back
turn off
turn out
turn over
turn up
twist together
unite together
usher in
vamp up
vanish away

vote down
wall up
wash away
wash down
wash off
wash out
wear away
wear off
wear out
weary out
weather out
weigh down
wheel about
whip up
whirl about

win over
wind up
wipe away
wipe off
wipe out
work out
work up
wrap up
write down
write out
write over
wrought out
wrought up
yield up

285

286

Appendices

Appendix 2: Prepositional Verbs (199 types)

abound in
abound with
abstain from
accept of
account for
acquiesce in
adhere to
admire at
admit of
adventure upon
agree (up)on
agree (un)to
agree with
aim at
allow of
amount (un)to
answer for
answer to
appertain to
approve of/on
arrive at
ask for
aspire to
assent (un)to
attain to
attend (up)on
attend (un)to
beg at
believe in
belong (un)to
beware of
blench at
call for
call (up)on
care for
carp at
catch at
center in/(up)on
come at
come by
come of
come (up)on

come to
comment (up)on
complain of
comply with
conceive of
concenter in
conclude (up)on
concur with
conduce to
confide in
conform
(un)to/with
connive at
consider of
consist in
consist of
consist with
consult with
cope with
correspond to/with
cry for
deal with
delight in
depart from
depend (up)on
descant (up)on
desist from
despair of
differ from
disapprove of
discourse of/upon
dispense with
dispose of/on
doubt of
drive at
dwell (up)on
encroach upon
engage in(to)
enlarge (up)on
enquire after/into
enter into/unto
enter upon

entrench upon
fail of
fall from
fall (up)on
fall to
fawn on
fix on
get over
given to
go about
go by
go (up)on
go over
go through
grasp at
grope for
guess at
hanker after
hear of
hint at
hope for/on
hunt after
impose (up)on
insist (up)on
interfere with
intermeddle with
join with
judge of
labour under
laugh at
launch into
lay about
light (up)on
long after/for
look about
look after
look for
look at/(up)on
look into
look to
look (up)on
make at

Appendices
make for
marvel at
meddle with
meet with
miss of
mutter at
object to
part from
part with
partake of
pass by
pass for
persist in
play at
play upon
point at
pretend to
prevail with/upon
prey upon
provide for
pry into
push at
reach after
read of
reckon upon

refer to
reflect (up)on
relate (un)to
rely (up)on
repine at
resolve (up)on
run over
run through
scoff at
search after/for
search into
see to
seek after/for
seize (up)on
send for
set about
side with
snatch at
speak of
stand by
stand for
stand to
stand (up)on
stand with
strike at

strive for
submit to
subscribe to
succeed in
suit with
take (up)on
take to
taken with
talk of/on
tally with
tend to
think of/(up)on
touch (up)on
treat of/(up)on
trench on
trifle with
trust in
turn (in)to
turn over
wait for
wait (up)on
want of
wish for
wonder at

287

288

Appendices

Appendix 3: Phrasal-prepositional Verbs (40 types)

bear down upon
break in (up)on
call out for
come down upon
come in upon
come in with
come over to
come up to
come up with
fall in with
give into
give(n) over to
give over for
give up for

give up to
go along with
go down with
go off with
go through with
grow up (in)to
live up to
look back into
look back upon
look out for
look out to
look up to
make away with
part away with

rise up into
run away with
run counter to
run out of
search out for
send in for
sit down by
strike in with
take off from
take(n) up with
turn down to
turn over to

Appendices
Appendix 4: Verb-adjective Combinations (47 types)
make bold
make bold with
get clear
get clear of
make clear
keep close
make easy
hold fast
judge fit
see fit
think fit
fall foul of/upon
make free with
stand free
hold good
make good

stand good
think good
take ill
make known
make light of
break loose
let loose
turn loose
lay low
see meet
think meet
make merry
break open
force open
lay open
lay oneself open to

set(/keep) open
rip open
slit open
throw open
get rid of
come short
come short of
fall short
fall short of
cut straight
make sure
make sure of
make void
lay waste
grow weary of

289

290

Appendices

Appendix 5: Verbo-nominal Combinations

5.1. Group I (191 types)
have acceptance
give an account (of)
do an act
make an addition (to)
take (the) advantage
(of/over)
give advice
make an agreement
give an? alarm
take (the) alarm
give alteration
make an alteration
receive an? alteration
make amends
give answer
make answer
return answer
make apology
bear an? appearance
make application (to)
make an? assault
(upon)
give assistance
give assurance
make atonement
make an attempt
give battle
have ones beginning
take beginning
have benefit
reap the? benefit
take (the) benefit (of)
take (the) boldness
have a breach
do business
have (a) care
take care
see cause
give a? change
make a? change

give charge
take charge (of)
give chase
make choice (of)
take ones choice
make a claim (to)
put in a? claim
make collection
give comfort
make a? comment
make a? comparison
make compensation
make complaint (of)
give consent
take a? consideration
make a declaration
(of)
have a? defeat
make defence
make a? demand
made a descent
give the/a?
description of
make a? diminution
give direction
have discourse (with)
make a? discovery
(of)
make a distinction
give disturbance
give ear
take effect
make election
give encouragement
make enquiry
make ones entrance
make an escape
give evidence (of)
make an examination
(into)

make an?
exclamation
do execution
have existence
give fire
make gain
do harm
make haste
give heed
take heed (of)
give help
do homage
do honour
do hurt
draw an? inference
make an? inference
have an? influence
(upon/into)
do injury
take inspection
give instruction
have (an) intent
do justice
take knowledge
beg leave
crave leave
give leave
have leave
take leave
have (the) liberty
(of)
take (the) liberty
make a lie
cast a look
make love
have a mind
give notice (of)/(to)
have notice (of)
make an? objection

Appendices
make an?
observation (of)
give offence (to)
take offence
make an? offer
give order
make an order
keep pace (with)
take pains
take part
make a pause
make payment of
make (a) peace
give place (to)
have place
take place
give pleasure (to)
take pleasure (in)
get the preference
(of)
have the preference
(of)
make preparation
take prisoner
make proclamation
make a? profession
make progress
give promotion
give protection

291

give provocation
make pursuit
pick a quarrel
give a relation
make a? remark (on)
make repetition
give (a) report (of)
make (a) report (of)
make a? reply
return a? reply
make a? request
make resistance
make a resolution
take a resolution
pay respect
make a retrospect
(into)
make a return
take revenge (of)
do reverence
do right
run a?/the risk
make room (for)
take root
bring ruin (upon)
make sail
set sail
give satisfaction

make satisfaction
(to)
make search (into)
make semblance
do service
take shelter
make shift
give a? shout
lay siege (to)
have speech
make a stand
have success
give thanks
render thanks
return thanks
give trouble
have a? variation
make a variation
do violence
make war (upon)
wage war
give warning
take warning
give way (to)
make way
make ones way
take a whisper
bear witness (to/of)
do wrong

make the best of

put blame on
make boast of
make (a) breach of
have (a) care of
take care of
lay a charge to/on
give check to
lay claim unto
take cognizance of
have communication
with

give control to
give countenance to
give credit to
give a? defeat to
have delight in
take delight in
have dependance
upon
make (a?) doubt of
make an end of
put an end to
make enquiry into

5.2. Group II (105 types)

give account of
make account of
render an account of
take (an) account of
make (the) advantage
of
run the adventure of
have an aim upon
make application of
have assault against
make assay of
give assent to

292

Appendices

give entertainment to
make essay of
take an? examination
of
make an exchange of
take exception unto
cast an eye upon
have an eye upon
set eye upon/of
find fault with
set fire to
run (the) hazard of
catch hold of
get hold of
lay hold (up)on/of
take hold on/of
make judgment of
pass judgment on
do justice upon
take leave of
give the lie to
get the mastery of
make mention of
make the most of
make narration of

have need of
take notice of
give occasion to
make opposition to
take part with
put a period to
take pity upon
get possession of
take possession of
take preference of
make prize of
give proof of
make proof of
take a prospect of
make provision for
make question of
have recourse (un)to
make reflection upon
have regard to
have relation to
lay a restraint upon
put a restraint upon
make return of
make a review of
give rise to

make a sacrifice of
make sense of
make shipwreck of
make (a) show of
get sight of
lose sight of
have signification of
get the start of
have the start of
give (a?) stop to
make (a?) stop of
put a stop upon/to
lay stress upon
make surrender of
take a survey of
give testimony of
have a? thought of
take thought of
have the trial of
make trial of
have use of
make use of
take a view of

put in hazard
set at liberty
bring to light
come to light
be at a loss
be in love with
bring (in)to mind
call to mind
put in mind (of)
put into motion
stand in necessity of
stand in need of
be in operation
be of opinion
bring to perfection
put in practice

bring in question
call in(to) question
come in question
be at rest
run to ruin
put to sale
set to sale
come to a stop
bring under
subjection
keep in subjection
put into surprise
put in use
be in want of

5.3. Group III (43 types)

call to (an) account
put to an amazement
put to confusion
take into
consideration
put into
consternation
put to death
be in doubt
be at an end
come to an end
put in execution
set on fire
take to flight
set on foot/a-foot
put into a? fright

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