Using two word verbs in sentences

Two Word Verbs

In English we have some verbs that are formed by putting to two words together. The first word is always the verb. The second word is a noun, an adjective, an adverb or a preposition.
Together, these two word verbs have a particular meaning, but separately the words have a different meaning.

To take a trip	(verb + noun)
To make good	(verb + adjective)
To go away	(verb + preposition)
To get up	(verb + preposition)

Some of the two word verbs have their equivalence as a one word verb, depending on the context of the situation.

To get on	=   to board a plane, train, ship, etc.
To get over	=   to recuperate

The two word verbs are divided into two categories:
Separable and non-separable (transitive or intransitive).

We separate the transitive two word verbs just by putting an object pronoun in between the verb and the preposition, especially when we transform the two word verbs in commands,
but for this the subject must be understood.

Take out the garbage.	Object after the verb.
Take the garbage out.	Object separating the verb and the preposition.
Take it out.	Object pronoun “it” separating the verb and the preposition.

Object Pronouns

• Me
• You
• Him
• Her
• It
• Us
• You
• Them

The intransitive two-word verbs are those that are used to talk about actions, habits, or things that we do. We can separate some of them and others we cannot.

• She gets on the bus at this corner every morning. 
• I always get lost when I’m in this neighborhood. 
• Think of me while I’m gone. 

Notice that in the above examples, we CAN NOT SAY:

• She gets the bus on at this corner every morning.
• I always get in this neighborhood lost when I’m here.
• Think while I’m gone of me.

Sometimes you are going to find some two word verbs with the words “one’s” and “someone”.

• To change one’s mind.
• To give someone a break.

• We have to replace “one’s” with the possessive adjective.
• (my, your his, her, its, our, your, their).
• We have to replace “someone” with the object pronouns
• (me, you, him, her, it, us, you, them).

• To change one’s mind.

• My brother changed his mind and now he doesn’t want to go to the concert.
• My girlfriend changed her mind and now she wants to leave me. 
• The president changed his mind and he doesn’t want to raise taxes. 
• Don’t change your mind! 

• To give someone a break.

• Give me a break! 
• Give your parents a break! Don’t make too much noise. 

Many English verbs can be followed by prepositions or adverb particles.

• Do sit down.
• Alice ran down the road without looking at anybody.

Some verbs and prepositions / particles are regularly used together. Examples are: look at, listen to, stand up and switch off. These combinations are rather like two-word verbs. In grammars these are often called phrasal verbs.

The meaning of a two-word verb can be very different from the meanings of the two-parts taken separately.

• The meeting had to be put off. (The meaning of put off is not the same as the meanings of put and off.)

Some verbs can be used with both an adverb particle and a preposition.
Examples are: get on with, put up with and look out for.

The two parts of a phrasal verb made with a verb + adverb particle are often separable. That means the particle can go before or after noun objects.

• Can you switch off the light? OR Can you switch the light off?

Note that adverb particles can only go after pronoun objects.

• She turned it off. (NOT She turned off it.)

The preposition in a verb + preposition combination usually goes with the verb. It can’t be separated from the verb.

• He fell off the ladder. (NOT He fell the ladder off.)

TWO-WORD (PHRASAL) VERBS

Verbs can be single words or can have «helpers» such as has, have, had, is, am, was, or were. Verbs can be accompanied by modals such as could, would, might, or may. As if that were not confusing enough, there exists another kind of verb, phrasal verbs, which look like verbs with prepositions (or adverbs) attached: hand in, break up, fill out, run into. Some are three words: come up with, check up on.

You probably have run into many verbs like these without experiencing any discomfort. You might never even need to know that phrasal verbs exist. However, if you have learned to identify the subject and verb of a sentence by crossing out all the prepositional phrases (up the stairs, out the door), then phrasal verbs may be problematic. For instance, in the phrasal verb come up with, is with a preposition? Then where is the object of the preposition? Or is it part of the verb?

Take, for example, this sentence: «You have run into verbs like these.»  It would be easy to make the mistake of calling the verb run, and identifying into verbs as a prepositional phrase. In fact, the verb is run into, meaning encountered; verbs is a direct object: what you encountered. You have not run. You have encountered.

Phrasals can look like a verb + preposition (look into), or a verb + adverb (get away), or a verb + adverb + preposition (get away from). An Internet search turns up exhaustive discussions of phrasals (they are separable, inseparable, transitive, intransitive) and word order related to phrasals, but in general, phrasal verbs have the following general characteristics:

• They are informal; usually there exists another, more «proper» word with the same or similar meaning.
• They are idiomatic; that is, you cannot easily make out the meaning of the verb by adding up the meanings of its parts.
• They are, nevertheless, often sensible, even if not obvious; phrasals do make a certain amount of sense, depending on how you understand the particle, or preposition-like attachment.

Informal
Phrasal verbs are informal, though perfectly acceptable in most academic papers. However, some phrasal verbs contain «filler» words that do not add meaning (keep on going means the same thing as keep going, for example; fell off of means the same as fell off). Some are vague or somewhat cliché. In order to attain vivid writing, you will sometimes want to substitute other, stronger verbs. 

For example, here are some phrasal verbs and possible substitutes:

Phrasal verb	Substitution
Hand in	Submit
Check out	Examine or borrow
Look up to	Admire

Some phrasal verbs are difficult to replace. It’s hard to think of a better way, for example, to say, «I had to look up the word in the dictionary.» And if you happen to be writing dialogue, the informality of phrasals may be more authentic than stuffier language.

There are a great many phrasal verbs, far too many to list or memorize. For lists of phrasal verbs with their corresponding meanings, try searching the Internet using the keyword «phrasal verbs.»

Idiomatic
Phrasal verbs are idiomatic. For example, even if you know the meanings of blow and up, you cannot add them together to arrive obviously at the intended meaning of blow up, which means explode or erupt with force. Blow + up might just as easily refer to a gentle updraft of wind.

Because they are idiomatic, phrasals and their meanings might vary depending on where the speaker lives. This TIP Sheet uses meanings commonly understood in the United States, specifically in California, and even more specifically in a rural area of Northern California. Speakers of British English or even speakers from other regions of the U.S. might understand some of these expressions differently. For example, while an American might call you up on your cell phone, a Brit would ring you up to tell you he needed to kip down (stay temporarily, the American equivalent of crash) in your apartment. In the southern U.S., one might scoot down the car; in California one would hose it down with water.

The website Phrasal Verb Demon offers a great discussion of phrasals. At the same time, it illustrates the idiomatic nature of phrasals, giving definitions as they are commonly understood in Great Britian; some of these may be new to U.S. readers (whose computers, for example, usually freeze up, while British computers pack up.)

Sensible
Even though they are idiomatic, many phrasals do make a certain amount of sense, depending on how you understand the particle, or preposition-like attachment. A single preposition/particle can carry any of a multitude of meanings, and the meaning of a phrasal verb like blow up depends largely on which meaning of up you choose. For example, up can refer to increase (freshen up = increasing freshness); to movement (boil up = move about in a chaotic way); or being out of bed (get up, stay up = getting or staying out of bed).

For example, in the case of blow up, you might understand up as relating either to increase (as a fireball increases, perhaps), or to movement (for chaotic movement of air and debris). (Up in blow up, on the other hand, has nothing whatever to do with staying out of bed.)

It is largely the particle that changes the meaning of a phrasal verb. For example, the word break usually means a sudden stopping, bursting, or loss of function. On the other hand, the website Phrasal Verb Demon lists seven different senses of the word up, nine different senses of out, and ten of down. Break up is a phrasal verb meaning to end a personal relationship (up = completion). Break down means to stop functioning (down = failure), and break out means to happen suddenly (out = appearance).

Phrasals frequently are figurative; there is often an underlying metaphor that can help you make sense of them. In the case of blow up, the metaphor compares the movement of air created by an explosion to the movement of boiling water in a kettle. In addition, blow up is frequently itself used in a figurative sense, as in, «The issue of the councilman’s overspending blew up once the newspapers ran the story.» Here, the sudden public revelation and subsequent discussion of the councilman’s overspending is compared to an explosion.

For more discussion of phrasals and their underlying logic, see www.phrasalverbdemon.com.

Combinations of a verb and a preposition-like adverb have various interesting properties 

DEFINITION OF PHRASAL VERBS

In some grammar descriptions a “phrasal verb” is any closely-combined verb and other small word. Here, however, I am giving it the common alternative meaning of a particular subgroup of such combinations: those where the small word is an adverb resembling a preposition, but never a preposition. Examples are MAKE OUT (= “understand”), TAKE OFF (= “mimic” or “leave the ground flying”), TURN ON (= “put into functioning mode”) and PICK UP (= “lift from the ground”). As these examples show, the meaning of the combination is often not discoverable from the meanings of the individual words.

It is easy to mistake the adverb in a phrasal verb for a preposition, since elsewhere it often is one. For example, on is a preposition in DEPEND ON, despite being an adverb in TURN ON. Verbs like DEPEND ON are called “prepositional” and are the topic of the Guinlist posts 44. Troublesome Prepositional Verbs and 123. Prepositional Verbs Containing a Noun.

Phrasal verbs are described in most grammar books for learners of English, but the details can be sparse at times. My aim here is to provide the more extensive overview that I feel is often lacking, in order to assist a more effective use of phrasal verbs and related expressions. Some of the points are also made elsewhere within this blog, but hopefully there will be benefit in having them all together here.

.

DIFFERENCES BETWEEN PHRASAL & PREPOSITIONAL VERBS

A pronunciation difference between the two verb types is that the adverb within a phrasal verb is stressed (i.e. said strongly – see 125. Stress & Emphasis), whereas the preposition within a prepositional verb is unstressed. A grammatical difference is the kinds of link that are possible with words after the active form, particularly the “object” ( directly-following noun or equivalent – see 8. Object-Dropping Errors). All prepositional verbs need one, but some phrasal verbs lack one:

(a) Permission is required for the plane to take off.

Here, take off has no directly-following noun that can be identified as its object. Prepositional verbs cannot be used without an object in this way. They need one because the preposition within them is by definition a noun-requiring word (see 84. Seven Things to Know about Prepositions).

If an object is present, the main indication of a phrasal verb is a choice about the object’s position. Consider this:

(b) Night workers must switch on the lights.

Here, the object the lights follows on, but it could also go before it (…switch the lights on). Indeed, if the object is a pronoun (e.g. them), this position is compulsory. Placing the adverb part of a phrasal verb after the object is not illogical, since adverbs as a whole often occupy this position (see 120. Six Things to Know about Adverbs). With verb – preposition combinations, by contrast, no choice is possible: if the verb in (b) was depend on, the lights would have to follow on.

Another difference between phrasal and prepositional verbs involves adverb positions. Only prepositional verbs can have an adverb directly after their verb:

(c) Plants DEPEND continually ON water.

Placing an adverb in this position with a phrasal verb like the one in (b) would sound incorrect (*switch fully on the lights). Instead, the adverb must come last (switch the lights on fully/ switch on the lights fully) or between the object and the adverb (switch the lights fully on).

.

OTHER PHRASAL VERB PROPERTIES

The following properties of phrasal verbs are notable:

1. Transitive and Intransitive Usage

“Transitive” verbs have an object while “intransitive” ones do not. Important phrasal verbs in each category include the following:

TRANSITIVE

BREAK OFF (= interrupt), BREAK UP (= separate into smaller pieces), BRING BACK (= return), BRING IN (= introduce), CHECK OUT (= verify; take payment for), CLOSE/SHUT DOWN (= bring to a permanent end), CUT OFF (= block), DO UP, HAND OUT (= distribute directly to people), FILL IN (= complete with requested information), GIVE BACK (= return), GIVE UP (= yield), GO OVER (= review), GO THROUGH (= examine in series; suffer), LOOK OVER (= briefly examine), MAKE OUT (= understand; discern), MAKE UP (=compose a falsehood), PICK UP (= remove from the ground; receive), PUT AWAY (= place out of sight), PUT OFF (= postpone), PUT ON (= apply), SWITCH ON/OFF (= give power to), TAKE AWAY (= carry to another place), TAKE OFF (= mimic; remove), TAKE ON a challenge (= accept), TAKE OVER (= acquire responsibility for), TURN DOWN (= refuse), WRITE DOWN (= record in writing)

INTRANSITIVE

BREAK OUT (= escape; appear as an epidemic), BREAK UP (= end a relationship or formal activity), CARRY OUT, CLOSE/SHUT DOWN (= come to a permanent end), COME BACK (= return), DO WITHOUT, FADE AWAY (= gradually disappear), FALL OFF (diminish), FALL OVER (= trip and cease to stand), GET AWAY (= escape), GIVE IN (= YIELD), GIVE UP (= quit), GO AWAY (= depart), GO OUT (= exit), GO THROUGH (= progress successfully), GROW UP (= become an adult), KEEP ON (= continue), LOOK AWAY (= change the focus of the eyes), MAKE UP (= stop quarrelling), MISS OUT (= fail to get something), PICK UP (= improve), RISE UP (= rebel), SLOW DOWN (= decelerate), TAKE OFF (= fly into the air), TURN OVER (= roll into a new lying position)

.

2. Informality

Many phrasal verbs are unsuitable for formal writing (see 108. Formal and Informal Words). In most cases, English has a more formal alternative borrowed from the ancient language Latin (see 45. Latin Clues to English Spelling). For example, GET AWAY corresponds to ESCAPE, KEEP ON to CONTINUE and TURN DOWN to REFUSE.

Speakers of Latin-related languages are unlikely to think of phrasal verbs instead of their more formal alternatives, but others, if they can think only of a phrasal verb during writing, are advised to seek a one-word synonym in a thesaurus.

.

3. Ability to Change into Nouns

Many phrasal verbs can become a fairly informal noun by combining the two words into one (see 26. One Word or Two?). In writing, they sometimes have a hyphen (a runaway, a breakout, a break-in); in speech, the adverb part loses its stress, leaving a single stressed syllable on the verbal part (see 243. Pronunciation Secrets, #3).

Some nouns made from a phrasal verb, e.g. breakout, always or sometimes have the action meaning of the verb – they are “action” nouns (see 131. Uses of “Action” Nouns). Unusually, they tend to be “countable”, not “uncountable” (see 249. Action Noun Endings). A few can also represent either the result of the action (e.g. payoff: see 14. Action Outcomes) or its location (e.g. pickup: see 19. Activity Locations). An example of a combined phrasal verb that cannot express an action is drawback.

Common nouns derived from phrasal verbs include the following:

breakaway, breakdown, break-in, breakout, breakthrough, check-in, checkout, comeback, come-down, cutback, cut-off, cut-out, drawback, drop-in, drop-off, dropout, follow-up, getaway, get-out, giveaway, handout, hideaway, holdup, makeover, make-up, payback, payoff, pickup, press-up, pushover, putdown, put-in, round-up, run-around, run-in, runaway, selloff, setback, set-down, set-up, shutdown, shutout, slowdown, sit-in, sit-out, stand-by, start-up, takeaway, take-off, takeover, take-up, turnoff, turnover, turn-up

Sometimes, a noun is formed by combining the two words in reverse order, e.g.:

downgrade, downpour, downturn, input, intake, onset, outbreak, outset, overview, throughput, upgrade, upset, upswing, uptake, upturn

It will be observed that PUT IN, BREAK OUT, SET OUT and TURN UP have a derived noun in each list. The meanings, however, are different. For example, a breakout is an escape from jail, while an outbreak is an appearance of a quickly-spreading problem (especially illness).

.

4. Verb and Adverb Typicality

Although English phrasal verbs are quite numerous, the variety of verbs and adverbs used to make them is much smaller. This is because some verbs and adverbs are repeated quite often in different combinations. Typical verbs include BREAK, COME, CUT, GET, GIVE, GO, KEEP, MAKE, MOVE, PULL, PUSH, PUT, SET, TAKE and TURN. Some of the other verbs, however, are quite exotic, e.g. chill out, whip up and steam ahead.

Not every preposition can become an adverb in a phrasal verb: at, for, from, of, near and beside, for example, are very unlikely. The main prepositions seem to be in, out, up, down, on, off, along, through and over (ahead, away and back are never prepositions). Verbs with rarely-converted prepositions include COME TO (= regain consciousness), GET BY (= manage) and GO UNDER (= fail; disappear).

Moreover, some of the preposition-like adverbs have quite typical idiomatic meanings:

ON: continuation, e.g. CARRY ON, FIGHT ON, GO ON, KEEP ON, MOVE ON, PRESS ON

ON: initiation, e.g.. PUT ON, SWITCH ON, SIGN ON, TURN ON

UP: division into pieces, e.g. BREAK UP, CUT UP, DIVIDE UP, SPLIT UP

OFF: termination, e.g. BREAK OFF, CUT OFF, SIGN OFF, SWITCH OFF, TAIL OFF, TURN OFF, PUT OFF, FALL OFF

OUT: continuation to the end, e.g. SELL OUT, RUN OUT, SEE OUT, CHECK OUT, CARRY OUT

Interestingly, most of the preposition-like adverbs found in phrasal verbs are also usable by themselves directly after BE, often with a similar meaning (see 154. Lone Prepositions after BE). In addition, they sometimes act as prefixes in words not derived from phrasal verbs, such as downbeat, onshore and outrun (see 146. Some Important Prefix Types). 

.

5. Combinability with Prepositions

Some multi-word verbs include both an adverb and a preposition, e.g. PUT UP WITH (= “tolerate”). Grammar books usually call them “phrasal-prepositional”. In fact, though, they are more like prepositional verbs than phrasal ones, since they usually lack the special properties of the latter. The preposition is always the last word, and, as usual, it must be partnered by a noun or noun equivalent:

(d) Astronauts put up with numerous inconveniences.

Lists of phrasal-prepositional verbs are easily found in most grammar descriptions (see also 141. Ways of Using MAKE,  176. Ways of Using GO,  213, Special Uses of “Do” 2 and 244. Special Uses of GIVE). Those that might be used in professional environments include BACK OUT OF, CATCH UP WITH, CHECK UP ON, COME UP AGAINST, CUT DOWN ON, BE CUT OFF FROM, DO AWAY WITH, FACE UP TO, GET ON WITH, KEEP UP WITH, LOOK FORWARD TO (see 35. Words Followed by “to -ing”), LOOK UP TO, MOVE ON TO and STAND UP FOR.

In a few cases, the properties of a prepositional verb are combined with those of a phrasal one. Consider this:

(e) Not everyone puts global warming down to greenhouse gases.

This means greenhouse gases are not everyone’s explanation of global warming. It will be seen that two objects are involved: greenhouse gases, partnering the preposition (to), and global warming positioned between the verb and adverb (down) – a feature of phrasal verbs. For information about when to use PUT…DOWN TO, see 150. Verbs with Indirect Speech.

Not many verbs can be used in this way. Others include FIX … UP WITH, HELP … OUT WITH and PUT … IN FOR. All are a subclass of the verbs considered in this blog in 123: Prepositional Verbs Containing a Noun.