Phrasal Verbs and Prepositional Verbs

Most coursebooks file look at, look after, look for and look up together under phrasal verbs, and for everyday teaching that is a reasonable simplification. Grammarians split them, and the split is worth knowing, because it explains something the simplified version can only ask you to memorise.

In a particle verb such as turn off, off is an adverb particle. In look at, at is a preposition. Object placement helps distinguish these examples, but it is not true that prepositions can never be separated from their objects: English questions often leave a preposition at the end.

The movement test

The examples show a distinction between particle placement and the placement of a prepositional object. Do not extend it to a claim that a preposition can never leave its noun. Which picture are you looking at? is a normal question with at at the end.

The labels separable and inseparable summarise common learner patterns. They do not exhaust every construction: bring someone to has a fixed object position, and intransitive particle verbs have no direct object to move. Learn the whole dictionary pattern.

Listen to stress in context

Listen to complete sentences and notice what the speaker emphasises. You might hear LOOK at it when directing attention, or what are you looking AT? when asking about the object. Neither stress pattern changes at into a particle.

For pronunciation practice, repeat a recorded sentence with its rhythm and context. Avoid stressing every particle mechanically. Dictionary audio can help with individual words, while example recordings show how focus changes in a sentence.

Three structures side by side

The third row is what most courses call three-word phrasal verbs.

The three-part examples shown here put the prepositional object at the end of an ordinary statement. Other three-part patterns include an earlier direct object: put someone up to something.

Why this explains the inseparable list

Prepositional verbs explain many of the expressions taught as inseparable. In ordinary statements, the object of after follows it: look after the children. This does not prohibit questions such as who are you looking after?, or prepositional passives such as the children were looked after.

You already know this rule from ordinary grammar. Nobody writes she sat the table at or I listened the radio to. The same instinct that blocks those blocks look the children after, and it is the same instinct, not a new one.

The distinction can help organise examples, but it does not remove the need to learn a new verb. The same short word may be a particle in one construction and a preposition in another, so spelling alone is not enough.

Prepositional verbs you already use

In the meanings and ordinary statements shown, the prepositional object follows the preposition. Questions and relative clauses can have a different surface order.

Compare these with turn off, hand in, look up and call off, every one of which can take its object in the middle.

Two more tests, if you like this sort of thing

An adverb can sometimes help reveal structure: she looked carefully at the picture is natural. For turn off, use she carefully turned off the light or she turned the light off carefully. Adverb placement depends on the adverb and construction, so it is supporting evidence rather than an automatic test.

A preposition can also be moved to the front of a question or a relative clause in formal writing, and a particle cannot. At which picture was she looking is stiff but grammatical. Off which light did she turn is simply broken.

Neither test is something you need in conversation. They are here because they confirm the same split from two other directions, which is how you can be confident the distinction is real rather than a tidy story.

Does a learner actually need this?

Honestly: not to speak well. Plenty of fluent speakers of English as a second language have never heard the word particle and place every object correctly, because they learned the verbs in use rather than in categories.

It earns its place for two kinds of learner. If you are studying for an exam that asks about sentence structure, this is the analysis behind the questions. And if you are the sort of person for whom a rule sticks better once it makes sense, this turns the separability lists from arbitrary into obvious, which is worth ten minutes of your time.

For practical learning, check the dictionary pattern and practise a noun and pronoun example. Do not rely on a pronoun test to decide whether an unfamiliar sentence is acceptable: the test itself requires knowledge of the expression.

Mistakes worth catching

• Not English: I am looking the children after this weekend.
  Correct: I am looking after the children this weekend.

  After is a preposition here, so it cannot leave its object. This is usually a case of over-applying the turn the light off pattern.

• Not English: Please listen me to.
  Correct: Please listen to me.

  Same cause. Listen to is a prepositional verb and the pronoun stays after the preposition.

• Not English: Turn off it.
  Correct: Turn it off.

  The opposite error. Off is an adverb particle here, and a pronoun object must come before it.

• Not English: I ran my old teacher into at the station.
  Correct: I ran into my old teacher at the station.

  Into is a preposition. Run into looks like run over or run out, but it belongs to the other structure.

Common questions