the common two-word verbs denoting material and mental processes in english and their vietnamese equivalents = các tác động từ hai thành tố phổ biến quy chiếu tiến trình vật chất và tinh thần trong tiếng anh

1


VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST- GRADUATE STUDIES




BÙI THỊ DIỆU QUYÊN




THE COMMON TWO-WORD VERBS DENOTING MATERIAL AND
MENTAL PROCESSES IN ENGLISH AND THEIR VIETNAMESE
EQUIVALENTS

(CÁC ĐỘNG TỪ HAI THÀNH TỐ PHỔ BIẾN QUI CHIẾU TIẾN TRÌNH
VẬT CHẤT VÀ TINH THẦN TRONG TIẾNG ANH VÀ NGHĨA TIẾNG
VIỆT TƯƠNG ĐƯƠNG)





M.A. Minor Programme Thesis

Field: English Linguistics
Code: 60 22 15








HA NOI – 2010
2



VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST- GRADUATE STUDIES




BÙI THỊ DIỆU QUYÊN




THE COMMON TWO-WORD VERBS DENOTING MATERIAL AND

MENTAL PROCESSES IN ENGLISH AND THEIR VIETNAMESE
EQUIVALENTS

(CÁC ĐỘNG TỪ HAI THÀNH TỐ PHỔ BIẾN QUI CHIẾU TIẾN TRÌNH
VẬT CHẤT VÀ TINH THẦN TRONG TIẾNG ANH VÀ NGHĨA TIẾNG
VIỆT TƯƠNG ĐƯƠNG)

M.A. Minor Programme Thesis






Field: English Lingguistics
Code: 60 22 15
Supervisor: Nguyễn Thị Bích Ngọc, M.A.











HA NOI – 2010
6

TABLES OF CONTENTS

PART A: INTRODUCTION 1
1. Rationale of the study 9
2. Aims of the study 10
3. Scope of the study 10
4. Method of the study 11
5. Design of the study 11
PART B: DEVELOPMENT 12
CHAPTER 1: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 12
1.1. Two word verbs 12
1.1.1 Definition of PVs and PreVs 12
1.1.2 Syntactic and semantic characteristics of PVs and PreVs 16
2.1.2.2 Syntactic and semantic characteristics of PreVs 18
1.2. Process types 20
1.2.1 Overview of process types 20
1.2.2 Material processes 22
1.2.3 Mental processes 24
1.2.4 Material vs. mental processes 25
CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY 26
2.1 Data collection instrument 26
2.2. Corpus choice 26
2.3. Data Analyses 27
2.4. The selection and extraction of two-word verbs 29
CHAPTER 3: ENGLISH TWO-WORD VERBS DENOTING MATERIAL AND
MENTAL PROCESSES AND VIETNAMSESE EQUIVALENTS 31
3. 1. COME 32
3. 2. GIVE 35

3. 3. GO 36
3. 4. MAKE 38
3. 5. HEAR 39
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3. 6. SEE 39
3. 7. THINK 40
PART C: CONCLUSION 41
1. Conclusions 41
2. Suggestions for teaching and learning two-word verbs 42
3. Suggests for further studies 42
REFERENCES 43
APPENDIX 1 I
APPENDIX 2 II
APPENDIX 3 III
APPENDIX 4 IV
APPENDIX 5 V
APPENDIX 6 VI
APPENDIX 7 VII

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Abbreviations

B.E British English
A.E American English
PV Phrasal verb
PreV Prepositional verb
S Obligatory separable phrasal verbs
inS Inseparable phrasal verbs
Trans Transitive
Intrans Intransitive
NP Noun phrase
V Verb
LSWE Longman Spoken and Written English
LOCNESS Louvain Corpus of Native English Essays
BNC British National Corpus



List of tables

Table 1: PVs and PreVs dissimilarities 11
Table 2: Number of two-word verbs and meanings in three sources of dictionary 17
Table 3: Table 3: Frequent two-word verbs in studies of Gardner & Davies (2007), Liu
(2003), Waibel (2002), and Biber (1999) 18











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PART A: INTRODUCTION

"There is another kind of composition more frequent
in our language than perhaps in any other, from
which arises to foreigners the greatest difficulty."

Samuel Johnson
Preface, Dictionary of the English Language, 1755
1. Rationale of the study
The two-word verbs, including phrasal verbs (PVs) and prepositional verbs
(PreVs), are an interesting linguistic phenomenon in the English language. Many English

teachers have realized the importance of this multiword knowledge in helping their
learners use English more fluently and naturally. Paradoxically, these structures are never
easy for non-native learners to acquire, mostly because the semantic, grammatical and
stylistic peculiarities that they possess.
The meanings of a two-word verb are not always likely guessed from its
individuals. Many non-native speakers of English must, therefore, memorize them to be
able to understand and use them in the right context. However, thousands of two-word
verbs and many more times of their meanings make the massive learning unfruitful.
Consequently, pages are spent to find out which PVs to teach and in what sequences. For
example, Dilin Liu (2003) suggests 302 items to be most frequently used idioms, with 104
of them are PVs. Gardner and Davies (2007) propose a smaller number - 100 frequent PVs,
which the authors claim to be a manageable number to deal with. The problem is two-word
verbs are very polysemous, and corresponding with 100 frequent PVs proposed by Gardner
and Davies, (2007), it is not 100 but up to 559 potential meanings (5.6 meanings per PV
on average) learners have to deal with. From this view, the number 100 is getting less
manageable.
What ifIf we focus on senses that are used more often than the others? So, the load
of learning English two-word verbs would be reduced. This is also what this current study
is aiming at. Biber et al. (1999) suggest that we classify multiword verbs according to their
10


core meaning called semantic domains: activity verbs, communication verbs, mental verbs,
causative verbs, verbs of simple occurrence, verbs of existence or relationship, and
aspectual verbs. Halliday (1985,; 2004) approaches the matter with different term but the
same nature. Instead of ‗semantic domains; Halliday has term ‗processes‘ (See section
1.2.1 for types of processes); and what Biber (1999) names ‗activity verb‘ is labeled
‗material process‘. This study uses Halliday‘s terms for their clarity and systematic nature;
and attends to material and mental processes since they are considered most common by
both Halliday (1985,; 2004) and Biber (1999).

2. Aims of the study
The primary aims of this paper are:
1. to study English two-word verbs, specifically distinguish two kinds of two-
word verbs: PVs and PreVs;
2. to study English processes, focusing on material and mental processes;
3. to investigate some common English two-word verbs denoting material and
mental processes and find their Vietnamese equivalents;
4. to suggest some recommendations for teaching and learning two-word
verbs.
3. Scope of the study
As far as structural aspects of two-word verbs are concerned, the current study
includes both PV (transitive and intransitive) and PreVs. ‗Phrasal-prepositional verbs‘
would be beyond the scope of this paper.
Two-word verbs are rich in both number and meanings. For example, in Oxford
Phrasal verbs Dictionary, 6000 common British and American PVs are recorded; the verb
‗go‘ solely has 31 two-word verbs with 209 different meanings. So, we are not ambitious
to cover all of them. Although some verbs have no single correct classification or have
multiple meanings belonging to different semantic domains, Biber (1999) affirms that
activity verbs and mental verbs are of most common. Among the 12 most common lexical
verbs that all occur over 1000 times per million words in the LSWE Corpus (Biber et al.,
1999: 373), six are activity verbs (get, go, mzake, come, take, give), five are mental verbs
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(know, think, see, want, mean). Also by means of corpus, Biber proposes lists of the most
common lexical verbs in each semantic domain, including all verbs that occur over 300
times per million words in at least one register (cf. Biber et al , 1999: 367-369). In domain
of activity material verbs, we see the notable common of “make, go, give, come, put”, and
“take‖; while ―see, think, know, want, feel, like‖ are distinguished representatives of
mental verbs.

Therefore, having claimed to be the study of the common two-word verbs denoting
material and mental processes in English though, in the frame of a small paper, we only
focus on four outstanding representatives of material verbs: COME, GIVE, GO, MAKE
(all are in the top 10 most prolific PVs of British National Corpus), and three of mental
ones: HEAR, SEE, THINK. Moreover, only two-word verbs with idiomatic and semi-
idiomatic meanings used in material and mental processes are concentrated on.
4. Method of the study
The study aims to find out, in the limitation of seven lexical verbs, ―how many‖
and ‖how often‖ two-word verbs belong to material and mental processes are there are,
comparing with the other four processes. Thus, quantitative research methods, which give
much focus on the collection and analysis of numerical data and statistics, appear to be
appropriate.
5. Design of the study
This study is designed in three parts: Introduction, Development, and Conclusion.
The Introduction gives an overview of the study. The Development consists of three
chapters: Chapter 1- - Theoretical Background, provides the fundamental concepts used in
the paper; Chapter 2 - Methodology, describes thoroughly the methodology acquired in the
study; Chapter 3 presents lists of two-word combinationcombinations of 8seven common
verbs belonging to material and mental processes with their particles/ prepositions and
their Vietnamese equivalents. Finally, the Conclusion offers the review of the study with
its implication and application concerning teaching and learning English two-word verbs in
general.

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PART B: DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER 1: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

This chapter represents the issues of two-word verbs and Processes of Material and

Mental in details. Section 1.1 examines some aspects of PVs and PreVs such as their
definitions and their semantic and syntactic aspects. Particles- - the vital component of
PVs, are also defined and classified. Section 1.2 looks into the matter of process types with
the focus is on Material and Mental processes, their definition and characteristics.
1.1. Two word verbs
Quirk et al. (1972) clarify that multi-word verbs consist of PVs, PreVs, and phrasal-
prepositional verbs. Biber et al. (1999: 403) add other multi-word verb constructions like V
+ noun phrase (+ preposition); V + prepositional phrase or V + V to complete the
classification of four major kinds of multi-word combinations that comprise ―relatively
idiomatic units and function like single verbs‖.
In this study, we focus on multi-word verbs which comprise two elements. Though
Taka (1960, cited Waibel 2007) and Meyer (1975, cited Waibel 2007) use term “two-word
verb‖ to mean PV, and Celce-Murcia et al. (1999) note that PVs are sometimes called two-
word verbs, both PVs and PreVs are taken into consideration when we refer to two-word verbs.
1.1.1 Definition of PVs and PreVs
1.1.1.1 PVs
There is a disputation as to how PVs are defined. Following here are some ways of
defining PVs:
Dixon, R.M.W (1991: 274)) says: ―Phrasal verb is a combination of verb plus
preposition that has a meaning not inferable from the individual meanings of verb and
preposition(s)‖
1
.

1
It is noted that the author mentions to prepositions, but particles. There is possibility that the so-call PreVs
by most of linguists is defined by Dixon as PVs, or he uses the name PVs to refer to both.

13

Biber et al., et al. (1999: 403)) assert: ―PVs are multi-word units consisting of a
verb followed by an adverbial particle‖ which all have spatial or locative meanings and
―commonly used with extended meanings‖.
Halliday (1985: 207; 2004: 351) seesees PVs as ―lexical verbs which consist of
more than just the verb word itself‖, which can be verb + adverb, verb + preposition, and
verb + adverb + preposition. David (2002) seems to meet Halliday when this author insists
the existence of two definitions of PVs, the broad sense and the narrow sense. The broad
sense includes both PreVs and PVs, spatial or figurative, transitive or intransitive while the
narrow sense excludes PreVs. This study prefers looking at PV from its narrow sense.
Before turning to PreVs, it is necessary to clarify that the term ‗phrasal verb‟ is not
favored by all linguistics. Said as Waibel (2007: 15), ―the very name for this type of verb is
controversial‖. For example, Fraser (1947) calls it ―verb-particle combination‖, Zandvoort
(1962) talks about it as ―verb-adverb combination‖, Live (1965) ―discontinuous verb‖,
Lipka (1992) labels them ―verb-particle construction‖, Francis (1958) ―separable verb‖,
etc. However, Mc Arthur (1989: 38, cited Waibel, 2007: 15) notes that ―the term ‗phrasal
verb‘ appears (…) to be the winning term‖, and Rot (1988: 183, cited David, 2002: 112)
remarks that the term PV is the most appropriate for verb-particle combinations because ―it
expresses the linguistic essence of this lexical-grammar collocation, and it has its
terminological parallels in the location ‗phrasal prepositions‟ ‖. And the term familiar with
both teachers and students is also used in this study.
1.1.1.2 PreVs
About PreVs, the matter of term and definition is less controversial than that of PVs.
Scholars seem to be satisfied with the term ‗PreV‘, which refers to the kind of verb that
―consists of a verb followed by a preposition‖ (Biber et al., 1999: 403) and that ―forms a
semantic and syntactic unit‖ (G. Leech, 1992: 264). The problem, if it has, is whether or
not to see PreV as a subtype of PV or an independent kind of verb from PV. This study
would like to look at PreV as an independent item that existexists parallel with PV.

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1.1.1.3 Particles
1.1.1.3.1 Definition and classification
The term ‗particle‘ refers to a word that has a grammatical function but does not fit
into the main parts of speech like noun, verb, or adverb, etc. (Longman Dictionary of
Applied Linguistics, 1985). The exact status of the particle is still being debated; scholars
are being divided on whether it is an adverb, preposition, postpositional prefix, special part
of speech, etc. Encyclopedia Wikipedia (2010) provides seven types of word serving as
particle: ‗Articles‘ (the), ‗Infinitival‘ (to), ‗Preposition‘ (in, on), ‗Adverbial particles‘ (off,
down), ‗Interjections‗(oh, wow), ‗Sentence connectors‘ (so, well), Tags (…, did they?) and
‗Conjunctions‘ (and, or, nor). However, dictionaries like Longman Dictionary of
Contemporary English (2006) or MacMillan Phrasal Verbs Plus (2005) just consider
adverbs and prepositions to be particle; and some scholars (e.g. Celce-Murcia, 1999,;
Quirk et al , 1985) even narrow term particles to adverbs
2
. In this study, particles are also
seen in its adverbial nature and some differences between particles and prepositions will be
noted in section 1.1.1.3.3.
1.1.1.3.2 Characteristics of particles
Particles are typically found in PVs where most of them are place adjucts or can
function as such (Quirk & Greenbaum, 1973). Particles form cohesive units with verbs and
normally cannot be separated from the verb by another adverb. Moreover, they play an
important role in complementation by completing the meaning of the head-phrase, and
creating a dominant conceptual meaning for PVs.
Particles have pragmatic meaning and obviously have impact on the meaning of the
verb they follows even if the meanings of the verb are not necessary destroyed or lost.
Briton (1988: 4, cited David, 2002: 127) claims that the addition of a particle to a verb
produces the following three meanings: perfective meaning (drink up, calm down, wait out,

2
While Celce-Murcia (1999) explains the author‘s selection is to show the close association of particle with
the verb, and to distinguish it from preposition as well as other adverbs, other scholars who consider solely
adverbs to be particles argue, ―particles are commonly treated either as adverbs or else assigned to a special
class‖ because of their distinct behaviour, especially their variable position and the lack of an object of their
own (Langacker, 1987: 243, cited David, 2002: 125).
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die off, put over), ingressive meaning (doze off, go away, set out), or continuative/iterative
meaning (drive on, hammer away). (See aspectual PVs, section 1.1.2.1)
1.1.1.3.3 Particles vs. prepositions
Particles look like prepositions and actually have some common features with
prepositions. Both of them are invariable in form, i.e. they do not change their form in
accordance with words they accompany. Particles can sometimes be considered a special
type of prepositions
3
, but they are still distinctive terms. Certain syntactic features separate
them from each other. A great deal of differences is about their position, the sentence
constituents they are linked to
4
, and their function
5
, etc. Moreover, particles usually affect
the meanings of their proceeding verbs while prepositions usually do not and even
independent of them. (See section 1.1.2.3.1).
To separate adverbial particles from prepositions, objects might be helpful. As
Swan (1980: 95, cited David, 2002: 115) points out, prepositions must have objects while
adverbs particle need not. Celce-Murcia (1999: 429) proposes syntactic tests (adopted from

O‘Dowd, 1994: 19) to set apart particles and prepositions. Accordingly,
Only prepositions allow:
 Adverb insertion (e.g. We turned quickly off the road, but not we turned
quickly off the light)
 Phrase fronting (e.g. Up the hill John ran, not Up the bill John ran)
 Wh-fronting (e.g. About what does he write?, not Up what does he write?)
Only particles in separable PVs allow:
 Passivization (e.g. The light was turned off, not The road was turned out)
 Verb substitution (e.g. The light was extinguished (= turned off))
 NP insertion (e.g. We turned the light off, not We turned the road off )


3
Many words can be used both as adverbs and prepositions except back and away (they are only adverb),
while other words like from and during can only be treated as prepositions (David, 2002: 115- 116).
4
A preposition denotes a semantic relationship between two entities as to place, time, instrument or cause etc
(Quirk et al , 1972) while a particle is part of the verb.
5
Adverbial particles function as adverbs and modify the preceding verb.
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1.1.2 Syntactic and semantic characteristics of PVs and PreVs
2.1.2.1 Syntactic and semantic characteristics of PVs
Regarding syntactical aspects of PVs, PVs‘ subcategories and PVs‘ separation need
to be dealt with. In MacMillan Phrasal Verb Plus by Rundell and Fox (2005), PVs are
divided into three types: transitive, intransitive, and those which is both transitive and
intransitive. But it seems to be simpler to set PVs into intransitive and transitive like the
way Quirk and Greenbaum (1973), Biber et al. (1999), or Celce-Murcia et al (1999) do;

noting that some combinations can have ―dual function‖ (Celce-Murcia et al., 1999: 427),
i.e., they can be either transitive or intransitive, with or without a difference of meaning
(Quirk & Greenbaum, 1973). Most of the challenge is assumed to fall into transitive PVs
because of its peculiar syntactic characteristic, its separability. As Celce-Murcia (1999)
puts it, in spite of being part of the PV, particle does not have to be adjacent with it. Listed
here are three subcategories of separation:
 The largest, most productive category is optional separable PV, where
particle can stand either before of after direct object except when the direct
object is a pronoun
6
.
E.g. put on = wear: Anne put on her coat and went out.
or Anne put her coat on and went out.
 The smaller category is inseparable phrasal verb. In this kind, the particle
is forced to follow right after the verb
7
.
E.g. I came on (= encounter) this beautiful vase in the attic.
 Sometimes, the separation is obligatory and we will name this obligatory
separable PV. In this kind, the particles are always separated
8
.
E.g. put through = test: We put the machines through a series of tests.

6
If the direct object is not a pronoun or if it is a long and complicate noun phrase, it would prefer the position
after the particle or as (Celce-Murcia, 1999: 435) put it, ―the conventional position for new, discourse salient
information‖. The insertion of complex noun phrase between verb and the particle is believed to interrupt the
cognitive unity of the verb and particle and make it difficult to understand.
7

Celce-Murcia (1999) said this phenomenon is because what we are calling a particle is actually a
preposition and thus would naturally go before its object
8
The obligatory separation is presumed to avoid the ambiguity with the inseparable phrasal verbs, which
have the same form but different meaning (Celce-Murcia et al., 1999).
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From semantical semantic view, we see three important aspects: the polysemy,
productivity, and idiomaticity.
Like single-word verbs, PVs are polysemous in that one form of PVs can have
various meaning, and simultaneously, one meaning can also be expressed by more than
one form. Additionally, English continually generates new PVs
9
as well as new meanings
of existed PVs. Celce-Murcia (1999: 431) describes PV as ―a highly productive lexical
category in English‖ (431),‖, while Bolinger (1974: xi, cited Celce-Murcia, 1999)
comments the phenomenon as ―an outpouring of lexical creativeness that surpasses
anything else in our language‖. Explaining the popularity of PVs in English, Bolinger
(1971: xii, cited Stephens, 2008) said,
"They are words. The everyday inventor is not required to reach for elements
such as roots and affixes that have no reality for him. It takes only a rough
familiarity with other uses of head and off to make them available for head off,
virtually self-suggesting when the occasion for them comes up, which is not
true of learned formations like intercept" (xii).".
Yet it seems impossible to know exactly which verb will joint with which particle
to form a new PV. There usually needs a semantic coordination between verbs and
particles. In other words, verbs limit their choice of adverbial particle by their semantic
content. Nevertheless, it does not mean PVs cannot be systematized. Supported by the idea
that the semantic of PVs is not as ―arbitrary‖ as it is often held to be (Smclair, Moon et al ,

1939, cited David, 2002), Celce-Murcia (1999) claims the existence of some systemeticity
in how meaning is represented in PVs; and to understand that systematicity, we familiarize
ourselves with three semantic categories of PVs: literal, aspectual, and idiomatic (See
Quirk et al , 1972, Celce-Murcia et al , 1999)

 Literal PVs: comprise a verb and a directional preposition, function
syntactically like verb-particle constructions, except that particle keeps its

9
Mc Arthur and Atkins (1974: 6, cited David, 2002: 128) claim 6 types of verbs that can be phrasalized,
including: a/ verbs of movement (go, come); b/ verbs of invitation and ordering (invite, let); c/ the so-called
‗empty verb‘, verbs of indefinite meaning (get, make); d/ verbs formed with or without the suffix –en, from
simple monosyllabic adjectives (brighten); e/ verbs formed unchanged from simple, usually monosyllabic
nouns with such paraphrase patterns as chalk up = mark up with chalk; f/ a random scattering of two-syllable
verbs of Latin origin, with which some kind of direction or emphasis is required (measure (up), level (off)).
Fo rmatted: Indent: First line: 0.49", Space
Before: 6 pt, After: 6 pt
Fo rmatted: Indent: First line: 0.49"
Fo rmatted: Indent: Left: 0.78", Space After:
1 line, Line spacing: Exactly 19 pt
18


prepositional meaning and the result is a PV whose meaning is fully
compositional. (e.g. sit down).
 Aspectual PVs
10
: certain particles can add consistent aspectual meaning to
the verb without changing the origin meaning of that verb. Thus, the
meaning of the whole is neither literal nor idiomatic. AsFor Celce-Murcia

(1999: 432- 433), four main types of aspectual PVs are distinguished:
- Inceptive PVs (signal a beginning state): take off, set out, start up
- Continuative: (show that the action continues) Activity verbs + on/
along (come along, keep on), away (sleep away), around (mess around),
through ( think through)
- Iterative PVs (activity verbs + over show repetition ): think over
- Completive PVs (show complete action with up, out, off and down):
wear out, mix up, cut off, check over, etc
 Idiomatic PVs: are those that we cannot infer their meaning from their
components
11
. For instance, in the sentence I hope you will get over your
operation quickly, the literal meaning of ‗get over‟, in sense of ‗to climb
over st to get to the other side‟ no longer applies to explain the subject‘s
enduring an operation.
2.1.2.2 Syntactic and semantic characteristics of PreVs
Syntactically, PreVs always has its preposition followed by a nominal object (Biber
et al. 1999). They, however, do not coincide with inseparable transitive PVs because the
object still follows the preposition when it is a pronoun. Moreover, the verb can have its
own object which usually precedes the preposition. Two structural patterns for PreVs are:
 V + preposition + NP
E.g. I‘ve never ever thought about [it]


10
Some authors suggest grouping PVs based on the particle instead of the verb element as we usually do. We
think it is applicable for aspectual PVs only. Moreover, aspectual particles do not go with every verb. Certain
aspectual particles co-occur with certain verbs. That is why we have fade out but do not accept fade up.
11
The meaning of this kind is believed to have relation with underlying logic of the language and cultural

traditions. Langacker (1991, cited David, 2002) defend that the vast majority PVs rely at least in part on the
literal or aspectual meaning of the particle and thus they can help to figure out figurative meaning.
Fo rmatted: Indent: Left: 0.68", Hanging:
0.29", Bulleted + Level: 1 + Aligned at: 0.25"
+ Tab after: 0.5" + Indent at: 0.5", Tab
stops: Not at 0.5"
Fo rmatted: Indent: Left: 1.5", Bulleted +
Level: 3 + Aligned at: 1.25" + Tab after: 1.5"
+ Indent at: 1.5", Tab stops: 1.75", List tab +
Not at 1.5"
Fo rmatted: Indent: Left: 1.75"
19


 V + NP + preposition + NP
E.g. He blames all faults on me
Linguists, such as Quirk & Greenbaum (1973), Biber et al. (1999), tend to agree
that there are two ways to approach PreVs: the first one is that PreVs can be treated as a
single lexical verb followed by a prepositional phrase functioning as an adverbial.
Arguments supporting this view are based on the fact that we can insert another adverbial
between the verb and the preposition. In the second approach, both the verb and the
preposition are seen as a single unit followed by a noun phrase which acts as the object of
V+ preposition. Supporters of this idea count on the fact that the combination verb plus
preposition functions as a single semantic unit that has idiomatic meaning and, therefore, is
replaceable by a simple transitive verb.
Semantically, PreVs are also polysemous, idiomatic and productive.
1.1.2.3 Comparison of PVs and PreVs
1.1.2.3.1 Similarities
As already pointed out, PVs and PreVs are both varied in their idiomaticity. Their
meanings range from literal to idiomatic. Therefore, the two can be substituted by a single-

word verb (e.g. PreV „looked after‟ in She looked after her son can be replaced by single
word ‗tended‘).
1.1.2.3.2 Dissimilarities
According to Quirk et al. (1972), the differences between PVs and PreVs are
regarding to stress, adverb insertion and particle/ preposition position. Lamont (2005)
agrees they are syntactic tests
12
to clear away our confusion about PVs or PreVs, and
emphasize knowledge of such tests is ―indispensable‖ for anyone studying phrasal verbs.
These are generalized in the following table:



12
The rationale for many of these tests is the fact that a preposition makes a natural unit with the NP object
that follows it, whereas a particle makes a natural unit with the verb that precedes it (Celce-Murcia et al.,
1999: 430)
20


Table 1: PVs and PreVs dissimilarities
Syntactic tests
PVs
PreVs
Spoken stress
Stress is on the particles
The stress is on the verb, not
on the preposition
Adverb insertion/
intervention

Adverb cannot enter between verb-
particle combinations. It must be placed
before the verb or at the end
PreVs allow insertion of
adverb into verb-preposition
combination
Particle/ preposition
movement
Particle of transitive PVs can move
either before or after the direct object
13

Preposition cannot move
after its object.
Position
Particle can stand before or after the NP
following the verb (except when the
noun phrase following the verb is a
personal pronoun).
Preposition must precede
the noun phrase.

Particle cannot be placed before a
relative pronoun.
Preposition can
Particle cannot precede a relative
pronoun or the interrogative word at the
beginning of a Wh-question.
Preposition can
Pronoun-object

replacement
Particle must go after pronoun
Preposition must precede
pronoun
1.2. Process types
1.2.1 Overview of process types
As Martin et al. (1997: 102) says, ―Process type is the resource for sorting out
human experiences of all kinds into a small number of types. These differ both with respect
to the Process itself and the number and kind of participants involved.‖
In the view of Halliday (1985; 2004) and systemic-functional linguists such as
Bloor, T. & Bloor, M. (1995), Martin et al. (1997), there are 6 types of process in English:
Material, Mental, Relational, Behavioural, Existential, and Verbal.

13
This test, however, is restricted with pronoun, gerund and unhelpful with intransitive PVs as there is no
complementary noun phrase to facilitate movement.
21


Material processes denote doings and happenings. They represent our ‗outer
experiences‘: those we pick up from the life when we do or observe other people do things,
or see things happen.
Mental processes involve conscious processing. They express our ‗inner
experience‘, or our consciousness of the world around us. Members of metal processes
include perception, cognition and affection.
Relational processes are processes of being which denote our logical link between
the new to the old experiences. They have two different modes: attribution and
identification.
Behavioural processes construe (mental and verbal) behaviour. Like the active
version of verbal and mental processes, they represent the acting out of processes of

consciousness (like laughing), and physiological states (like sleeping). They have
similarities to both material and mental processes. Like mental processes, one of their
participants must be human consciousness (in mental we call it ‗Senser‘ while in
behavioural, it is known as ‗Behaver‘). They resemble material processes in: (i) they prefer
present-in-present tense, and (ii) they cannot occur with a reported clause in a projecting
clause complex
Existential processes are concerned with existence - things recognized to be, to
exist, or to happen. They appear like the relational processes in that they construe a
participant which involves a process of being. But what separates them is that existential
processes have only one participant.
Verbal processes, which stand between mental and relational processes, cover
saying of different modes (asking, commanding, offering, stating) and semiotic processes
that are not necessary verbal (showing, indicating). They symbolize relationships
constructed in human consciousness and enacted in the form of language like saying and
meaning. ‗Sayer‘ can be human or human-like speaker or any other symbolic source.
Among the six processes, material, mental and relational are primary; behavioural,
existential, and verbal are said to be secondary processes which lie on the border of the
three major ones. However, Halliday (2004: 171) said: ―there is no priority or domination
of one kind of process over another‖. For this reason, he used a circle but not a line to
22


demonstrate the relation among types of process in English (see Halliday, 2004: 172, fig
5.2). In that figure, process types are represented as a semiotic space with different regions
representing different types. The regions have core areas and these represent prototypical
members of the process types, but the regions are continuous, shading into one another.
That is why Halliday (2004: 172) asserts: ―the process types are fuzzy categories‖, which
base on ‗the principle of systemic indeterminacy‘
14
.

Now we have a general picture of six processes in English systemic- functional
grammar. As mentioned above, material and mental processes are among basic processes
and account the largest proportion in 6 processes. They are also subject investigated in this
paper and will be looked closely in the next sections.
1.2.2 Material processes
Material processes cover doings and happenings. Prototypically, these are concrete
changes in the material world that can be perceived. But such concrete material processes
have also come to serve as a model for construing our experience of change in abstract
phenomena. For instance, the verb „fall‟ realizing material processes can construe motion
in space as in Lizzie fell down and hurt her knee or motion in an abstract, space of
measurement as in London share process fell sharply yesterday.
Typical verbs realizing material processes are: happen, create, make, set up, give,
get, etc. (See Halliday, 2004: 187- 189, table 5(5))
Material processes have participants of ‗Actor‘, ‗Goal‘, ‗Range‘, and ‗Beneficiary‘,
―the functions assumed by the participants in any clause are determined by the type of
process that involved‖, noted Halliday (2004: 1997).
 ‗Actor‘ is the ‗Who‘ doing the action.
 ‗Goal‘ is the ‗What‘ brought to existence by the doing (build the house) or
impacted by the doing (fix the car).
 ‗Range‘ or ‗Scope‘ is a participant specifying the scope of happening and is
the only one being out of the influence of the performance of the process. It

14
This principle has influence over six processes. It says that ―the world of our experience is highly
indeterminate‖ and the grammar describe it in the system of process types in the same way. Thus, one and the
same text may offer alternative models of what would appear to be the same domain of experience ,
construing, for example, the domain of emotion both as a process in a mental clause, and as a participant in a
relational one.‖ (Halliday, 2004)
23

typically occurs in ‗transitive‘ processes where there is solely one participant
(Actor).
 ‗Beneficiary‘ is the ‗Whom‘ getting benefit from the doing. It has two
subtypes: the ‗Recipient‘- marked by preposition to and signs the transfer of
existing goods; and the ‗Client‘- marked by preposition for, indicates a
provision of service.
E.g. (1) She gave a teapot to his aunt.
Actor Goal Beneficiary (recipient)
(2) She made a cup of tea for me.
Actor Goal Beneficiary (client)
(3) They crossed the hall
Actor Range
Material processes are distinguished into transitive and intransitive processes
(Halliday, 1985; 2004). Usually, if there is only one participant in a clause, the process is
said to represent happening and is named intransitive material clause. If the process
extends to another participant, say, the ‗Goal‘, the process represents a doing and is known
as transitive material clause. For example, ‗Oil is coming down in price‘ is intransitive
material processes with intransitive PV ‗come down‘; ‗Mary put on her coat‘ is transitive
clause with the phrasal verb ‗put on‟ serving as transitive process. Furthermore, if there is
‗Goal‘, the represent may have 2 forms: operative (active) and receptive (passive).
E.g. (1) The lion caught the tourist.
Actor Process: active Goal
(2) The tourist was caught by the lion.
Goal Process: passive Actor
About the subtypes of doings and happening, Halliday (2004) clarifies
transformative and creative. In the former, the goal does exist before the process begins
and is transformed in the course of the unfolding. This subtype is often indicated by the
particle of a PV (use up, turn down), or has separate element representing the outcome as
in She painted the house red, where red serves as attribute specifying the resultant state of

the goal. Creative subtype, on the other hand, has the outcome brought into existence by
the doing.
24


E.g. (1) She painted a portrait of the artist. (is ‗creative‘ since the outcome is
the creation of the portrait)
(2) She painted the house red. (is ‗transformative‘ since the outcome is the
transformation of the colour of the house)

All types of processes change form though time and so do material processes.
However, process types are varied in ways of unfolding. Material processes prefer
‗present-in-present‘ (or present continuous) (e.g. is going) to simple present (e.g. does).
1.2.3 Mental processes
Mental processes construe sensing and concerned with the world inside our mind.
‖Think, know, hear, look, see, feel, like” are typical verbs which can be served as mental
processes.
Mental processes involve participants of ‗Senser‘ and ‗Phenomenon‘. Senser is the
one that senses, feels, thinks, wants or perceives which is always human or human-like. It
is said to be born with consciousness, hence, it is often substituted by pronoun he/ she
rather than it. Besides, creatures like pets or domestic animals and entities can be
personified to be human or treated as conscious.
‗Phenomenon‘ is the participant being sensed. Unlike ‗Senser‘, ‗Phenomenon‘
covers a wide range of units. It can be things (any kind of entity created by consciousness
such as a conscious being, and object, a substance, an institution, or an abstraction), macro-
things (acts) like getting up early, and meta-things (facts) like the information that people
can travel to outer space.
Mental processes differentiate mental processes of perception, cognition, and
emotion with their distinctive features. A perceptive verb is often accompanied by a modal
verb (e.g. can feel, can see). Verbs like ‗remember‟, „remind‟ or ‗think‟ often indicate

cognitive mental processes and are able to begin another clause or a set of clause as the
content of them (I think that, I remember that…). Meanwhile, property owned by mental
clause construing emotions is that the verb serving as process are gradable in lexical and
grammar (detest- loathe- hate- dislike- like- love). In general, all subtypes follow the
principle of indetermination in that different types of sensing can shade into each other.
25


Therefore, “I see” not only means ‗I perceive visually‟ but also is interpreted as ‗I
understand‟.
When the clause refers to present time, the tense of the verb realizing mental
process is the simple present rather than the ‗present-in-present‘. (E.g. I see the stars, not I
am seeing the stars)
1.2.4 Material vs. mental processes
Halliday et al. (2004: 201- 207) suggests three criteria to distinguish material
processes from mental processes, including: the participants, the tense of process or verb
serving as process, and the substitute of verb.
 Participants: the two typical participants of material are ‗Actor‘ and ‗Goal‘
whereas the two distinctive participant roles for mental are ‗Senser‘ and
‗Phenomenon‘. Moreover, if ‗Senser‘ is highly constrained, there is no
limitation for what can act as ‗Phenomenon‘ of mental processes. Meanwhile,
all participants in material processes must be a ‗thing‘ (person, object,
substance, abstraction)
 Tense: material processes are present-in-present unmarked while mental
processes tend to use simple present tense
15
.
 Substitution: material processes can be substitute by verb do, whereas mental
processes do not allow this.

This chapter has already supplied the key concepts acquired in the study: two-word
verbs and process types, in respect of how they are defined, their characteristics and how to
separate them from one another. The next chapter represents the details of how the
research is implemented.



15
Both tenses are still used with these two processes, but in those cases, they will carry special interpretation.
The simple tense with a material process is general or habitual; while the present-in-present tense with a
mental process is rather highly condition kind of inceptive aspect (See Halliday, 1985; 2004).
26


CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY

This chapter covers issues regarding to data collection instrument, corpus chosen,
data analyses, as well as two-word verbs‘ selection and extraction.
2.1 Data collection instrument
The study used three sources of dictionaries on PVs to collect data of English two-
word verbs: (1) Chambers of Dictionary of Phrasal Verb
(2) Oxford Phrasal Verbs Dictionary for Learners of English
(3) MacMillan Phrasal Verbs Plus
These dictionaries contain thousands of (B.E and A.E) PVs with clear explanations,
corpus-based examples, make them easy to use and to be stimulus for natural-sounding
English. The third source even claims to have original extra features that help to make it an
ideal reference to help learners lose their fear of PVs and start using them with confidence.
The study also employed WordNet 3.0 (Miller, 2003) to recognize distinctive
senses of the same word forms. Type ‗make out, for instance, WordNet results 10 different
senses (to recognize, issue, comprehend, manage, complete, try to establish, etc), from

which we choose the appropriate ones.
2.2. Corpus choice
The following are lists of frequent PVs (2 A.E corpus-based and 2 B.E corpus-
based) put forth by different authors. They are sources that were accessible at the time of
conducting this research.
 Liu (2003) analyzed three spoken A.E corpora to establish the author‘ lists of the
most frequently used idioms. Only idioms and semi-literal or non-literal PVs are chosen.
Selected items must have at least 2 occurrences in all three corpora combined (i.e., 2
tokens per million words)
- Professional (Corpus of Spoken Professional American English (Barlow, 2000))
consists of speeches at professional meetings and white house press conferences
27


- Miscase (Michigan corpus of Academic Spoken English (Simpson, Briggs
Ovens, & Swales, 2002)) comprises academic speech events (lectures, colloquia)
- Media (Spoken American media English (Liu, 2002)) involves speakers with
diverse social and educational background.
 Waibel uses LOCNESS, which consists of essays by American university students
from Marquette University, Indiana University at Indianapolis.
 Gardner & Davies analyses BNC, which contains about 4000 samples (both
spoken and written) from the widest possible range of linguistic productions.
 Biber analyses LSWE Corpus and includes all PVs and PreVs that occur over 40
times/ millions word in at least 1 register.
2.3. Data Analyses
First, all two-word verbs and their potential meanings were counted. The grammar
pattern in Oxford Phrasal verbs Dictionary is used to decide whether a two-word verb is
PV or PreV. With sources of dictionaries, together with the help of Wordnet 3.0, the raw
number of two-word combinations with seven selected verbs is set out as followed:
Table 2: Number of two-word verbs and meanings in three sources of dictionary

Verbs
Chambers Dictionary
of Phrasal verbs
MacMillan Phrasal
verbs Plus
Oxford Phrasal verbs
Dictionary
Come
32 — 99
32 —152
(24/8) (126/26)
32 — 146
(19/18) (122/24)
Give
9 — 25
10 — 27
(8/2) (25/2)
10 — 31
(7/4) (28/4)
Go
31—112
28 — 162
(23/5) (141/21)
31 — 209
(22/17) (146/63)
Make
9 — 25
13 — 26
(9/4) (20/6)
8 — 21

(5/4) (16/5)
Hear
4 —7
4 — 6
(2/2) (4/2)
4 — 7
(1/3) (1/6)
See
12 — 18
11 — 20
(7/4) (16/4)
8 — 15
(4/5) (10/5)
Think
8 — 14
8 — 10
(6/2) (6/4)
9 — 17
(6/3) (6/11)
Note: 32 —152: 32 combinations and 152 meanings. In which,
(24/8) (126/26) 24 PVs (with 126 meanings) and 8 PreVs (with 26 meanings)
The three sources differ somewhat in the numbers of two-word verbs and their
meanings as we can see in table 3. Some figures are approximate. Total is not the sum of
28


PVs and PreVs. If a two-word verb can be both PV and PreV (come off, go off, etc), it is
counted one form. For example, 31 two-word verbs with Come are recorded, but it is not
the sum of 22 PVs and 17 PreVs. Furthermore, if there is more than one form for a
meaning due to the difference between A.E and B.E, e.g. come around/ come about or

come round, it is also counted one form.
Second, the long lists of frequently used idioms and PVs are filtered to PVs and
PreVs concerned in the following table.
Table 3: Frequent two-word verbs in studies of Gardner & Davies (2007), Liu (2003),
Waibel (2002), and Biber (1999)
Dilin Liu
Waibel
Gardner &
Davies
Biber
Professional
Media
Miscase
LOCNESS
BNC
PVs
PreVs
Come about
come across
come by
come on
come up







Give up

give away

Go on
go through
go with
go over
go for
go after








Make up


Come about
come across
come by
come on
come up

Give up


Go on
go through
go ahead
go over
go for
go off
go with
go along
go with





Make up
make out

Come across
come by
come up
come on
come off

Give up
give away
Go on
go through
go with
go over
go for
go after

Come about
come across
come along
come around
come by
come forth
come in
come off
come out
come up
come together

Give up
give away
give in
Go on
go through
go back
go out

go down
go by
go off
go along
go ahead
go forward
go around
go ahead
go up
go in
Make up
make out
Think out


Come about
come back
come along
come round
come on
come in
come down
come off
come out
come up
come over
come through
Give in
give out
give back

Go on
go through
go back
go out
go over
go down
go up
go off
go in
go round
go along



Make up
make out

Come on
come over
come
along








Give up

Go ahead
go off












Make up

Give to


Go for
go through












Make for
make from
Think of
think about
Hear of