Get phrasal verbs in term of syntactic and semantic features with reference to vietnamese equivalents

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING
HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY

NGUYEN THI LE THUY

‘GET’ PHRASAL VERBS IN TERM OF SYNTACTIC AND SEMANTIC
FEATURES WITH REFERENCE TO VIETNAMESE EQUIVALENTS
(NHỮNG ĐẶC ĐIỂM CÚ PHÁP VÀ NGỮ NGHĨA CỦA CỤM THÀNH NGỮ
‘GET’ VÀ NHỮNG TƯƠNG ĐƯƠNG TRONG TIẾNG VIỆT)
M.A. THESIS



Hanoi, 2013

NGUYỄN THỊ LỆ THỦY FIELD: ENGLISH LANGUAGE 2011- 2013

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING
HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY



NGUYEN THI LE THUY

‘GET’ PHRASAL VERBS IN TERM OF SYNTACTIC AND SEMANTIC
FEATURES WITH REFERENCES TO VIETNAMESE EQUIVALENTS
(NHỮNG ĐẶC ĐIỂM VỀ CÚ PHÁP VÀ NGỮ NGHĨA CỦA CỤM THÀNH
NGỮ ‘GET’ VÀ NHỮNG TƯƠNG ĐƯƠNG TRONG TIẾNG VIỆT)
M.A. THESIS
Field: English Language
Code: 60220201
Supervisor: Ly Lan, Ph.D.
Hanoi, 2013

i

DECLARATION

I hereby declare that no part of the enclosed Master Thesis has been
copied or reproduced by me from any other’s work without acknowledgement
and that the thesis is originally written by me under strict guidance of my
supervisor. Any help that I have received in my research work and the
preparation of the thesis itself has been acknowledged. In addition, I certify that
all information sources and literature used are indicated in the thesis’s
references.

Hanoi, December 15
th
2013


Nguyen Thi Le Thuy


APPROVED BY


________________________________________________
(Supervisor’s signature and full name)


ii

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
For the completion of this work, I have been fortunate to receive
invaluable contributions from many people. I would like to express my deeply
thanks to my supervisor, Ly Lan Ph.D, who step by step guides me during my
writing thesis. Without her assistance, excellent suggestions, expert advice and
detailed critical comments, the work could not have been completed. I own her a
debt of gratitude that cannot be measured.
In addition, I am greatly indebted to all my lectures at the Faculty of
Graduate Studies at Hanoi Open University for their useful lectures, supports,
encouragement and for inspiring me the love for English foreign language
teaching and doing scientific research.
Besides, the study could not have been prepared without the support and
provision of useful materials from all my colleagues and friends. Therefore, their

kindness will never be forgotten.
I would also give my deepest gratitude to my family for their constant
support and encouragement during the time I was attending the course and while
the work was in progress.
Finally, although great efforts have been made to complete the thesis I am
aware that this study is far from perfect. Hence, constructive comments are
welcome for more perfection of the thesis.



iii

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
Adv. Adverb
Dpt. Department
E.g. For example
i.e. That is
N. Noun
N°. Number
O. Object
Part. Particle
Pro. Pronoun
Prep. Preposition
p. Page
Qty. Quantity
Ref. Reflexive
Smb. Somebody

iv

Smt. Something
Ss. Students
UNETI University of Economics and Technical Industries
V Verb
* An asterisk signifies that what follows it is incorrect
^ Caret indicates omissions
[ ] Reference Number
[ : ] Reference Number and page are separated by ‘:’
For example: [ 15: 27] the reference number is 15
and the page in the reference is 27
( : ) Illustration examples reference resources (reference
number : page number)






v

LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES
Table 2.1: Information of the participants
Table 2.2: The learners’ acquisition levels on the syntactic features
Table 2.3: The learners’ acquisition levels on the semantic features
Table 3.1: Syntactic mistakes committed by the participants
Table 3.2: Semantic mistakes committed by the participants
Figure 2.1: The total of non-passed and passed participants

vi

TABLE OF CONTENTS
DECLARATION i
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS iii
LIST OF TABLES, FIGURES, GRAPHS v
TABLE OF CONTENTS vi
PART I: INTRODUCTION
1
1. Rationale of the study 1
2. Aims and objectives of the study 3
3. Research questions 3
4. Scope of the study 3
5. Methods of the study 4
6. Design of the study 5
PART II: DEVELOPMENT
6
Chapter 1: Theoretical background
6
1.1. Literature review 6

vii

1.1.1. The Ancestors of Phrasal verbs in Old English 6
1.1.2. Phrasal Verbs in Middle English 7
1.1.3. Phrasal Verbs in Early Modern English 8
1.1.4. Phrasal Verbs in Present-day English 9
1.2. Theoretical background 10
1.2.1. Overview of English Phrasal Verbs 10
1.2.2. Definition of English Phrasal Verbs 11
1.2.3. Classifications of English Phrasal Verbs 13
1.2.3.1. Intransitive Phrasal Verbs 16
1.2.3.2. Transitive Phrasal Verbs 19
Chapter 2: Methodology
23
2.1. Research design 23
2.2. Research participants 24
2.3. Research procedures 25
2.4. Data collection instrument 26
2.4.1. Selective material 26

viii

2.4.2. The survey questionnaires 27
2.5. Data analysis method 31
Chapter 3: Findings and Discussions
35
3.1. Syntactic features of 'Get' phrasal verbs 35
3.1.1. Intransitive features 36
3.1.2. Transitive features 37
3.1.2.1. ‘Get’ phrasal verbs can be separated by their object 39

3.1.2.2. ‘Get’ phrasal verbs cannot be separated by their object 40
3.2. Semantics features of 'Get' phrasal verbs 42
3.2.1. Non-idiomatic and literal meanings of ‘get’ phrasal verbs 42
3.2.2. Idiomatic meanings of ‘get’ phrasal verbs 43
3.2.3. Metaphoric meaning of ‘get’ phrasal verbs 47
3.3. 'Get' phrasal verbs and their Vietnamese equivalent 48
3.4. Some discussion on results of survey conducted at UNETI 51
Chapter 4: Possible implications for mastering 'get' phrasal verbs
55
4.1. From teachers’ perspective 55

ix

4.2. From learners’ perspective 61
Part III: CONCLUSION
64
1. Recapitulation 64
2. Limitations of the study 65
3. Suggestions for a further study 66
APPENDICE 67
REFERENCES 76

1

INTRODUCTION
1. Rationale of the study
There are thousands of languages amended and used in the world,
each of them has differences and uniqueness; among which English can be
seen as one of the International languages to serve people’s daily-life
communication. In fact, English has been recommended to be a compulsory
subject in training curriculum of every school and university in Vietnam.
Plenty of Vietnamese children may get accustomed to spoken English as
soon as they begin learning how to write and read in their mother tongue. This
means that people have recognized the importance and necessity of English as
well as the advantages that English may bring about. However, learning English
is always a big challenge for Vietnamese native-speaker learners. One of the
challenging things of acquiring English is phrasal verbs, which seem to be too
hard for them to master, hence inevitable errors in using the phrasal verbs in
communication: both spoken and written English.
In theory, phrasal verbs are generally considered to be idiomatic
combinations of a verb and an adverbial particle. The exact status of the latter is
still being debated, scholars being divided on whether it is an adverb,
prepositional adverb, postpositional prefix, special part of speech, etc. Phrasal
verbs are quite frequently found in the English language. They carries with
widely varying meanings which are not always clear and often have little to do
with the verb attached itself to the adverbial particle.

2

Generally, the main function of phrasal verbs is conceptual categorization
of reality in the speaker's mind. They denote not only actions or states as

"ordinary" verbs do, but also specify their spatial, temporal or other
characteristics. The ability to describe actions or states more precisely, vividly
and emotionally is determined by the adverbial particle components of phrasal
verbs. By combining with these elements, verbs of broader meaning are
subjected to a regular and systematic multiplication of their semantic functions.
While the English verb has no consistent structural representation of aspect,
adverbial particles either impart an additional meaning to the base verb (e.g. the
durative verb sit merges with the particle down into the terminative phrasal
verb sit down) or introduce a lexical modification to its fundamental semantics. It
is due their special characteristics, learners always have to face untold
difficulties to master phrasal verbs. Among English phrasal verbs, ‘get’ is one of
the commonest words and is used in varied ways.
Since phrasal verbs are difficult to be understood from the context
(unlike simple words), they are likely to be used incorrectly. The reasons lie
behind the Vietnamese native-speaker learners’ inefficient usage is nothing, but
the unawareness of the meaning of phrasal verbs in the English source language
and their insufficient practice needed for using this special kind of verbs.
It is common knowledge that an adequate translation requires good sense
of nuances in the semantics of both the source-language and target-language
texts. In my process of English teaching, ‘get’ phrasal verbs have made me pay a
great interest to, because they possess a number of syntactic and semantic
features as well as other stylistic peculiarities.

3

In order to find a better way to acquire the ‘get’ phrasal verbs, especially
in doing translation from English into Vietnamese and vice versa, the topic
relating to ‘get’ phrasal verbs with reference to Vietnamese equivalent has been
chosen for my graduation paper.
2. Aims and objectives of the study

The thesis is aimed at analyzing the syntactic and semantic features of
‘get’ phrasal verbs and raising Vietnamese learners’ awareness of these verbs, so
that they could be able to use them exactly and successful in their real world
communication in English.
There are two main objectives of this study. The first objective is pointing
out some syntactic and semantics features of ‘get’ phrasal verbs with reference to
Vietnamese equivalent; and the second one is proposing some implications for
mastering ‘get’ phrasal verbs in an effective way.
3. Research question
In conducting the study, following question should be answered: (i) What
are the syntactic and semantic features of ‘get’ phrasal verbs? (ii) What are the
difficulties faced by learners at University of Economic - Technical Industries in
understanding the above features of ‘get’ phrasal verb? (iii) What are the
implications for mastering ‘get’ phrasal verbs?
4. Scope of the study

4

It is due to the framework of a Master thesis, this study focuses mainly on
‘get’ phrasal verbs with reference to Vietnamese equivalents as a very
specifically characteristic trait of the English language.
5. Methods of the study
In order to deal with the subject effectively, a flexible combination of
methods is employed. First, the descriptive method is utilized to give a deep and
detailed description of the ‘get’ phrasal verbs and their Vietnamese equivalent.
Then examples for illustrating the description will be taken from the grammar
and reference books written by contemporary influential linguists in English as
well as from translated publications available in Vietnam.
Survey questionnaire in form of a written test is used as one of data
collection methods to evaluate participants’ ability in understanding ‘get’

phrasal verb in terms of syntactic and semantic feature. Then, the statistic
method is applied to present quantitative descriptions in a manageable form to
simplify large amounts of data in a sensible way.
In addition, comparison method is used to analyze the ‘get’ phrasal verbs
with reference to Vietnamese equivalent, hence pointing out the distinctive
features of ‘get’ phrasal verbs which cause difficulties for Vietnamese learners
and suggesting some implications for teaching these verbs to learners at
University of Economics and Technical Industries.



5

6. Design of the study
A part from the Introduction and Conclusion, the thesis will be divided
into 4 chapters:
- Chapter 1 presents the theoretical background issues relating to English
phrasal verbs.
- Chapter 2 gives the methodology which has been applied to conduct the
research of ‘get’ phrasal verbs with reference to Vietnamese equivalents.
- Chapter 3 describes the findings of the syntactic and semantic features of
‘get’ phrasal verbs, as well as some discussion on the results of survey conducted
at University of Economics and Technical Industries (UNETI).
- Chapter 4 proposes some implications for mastering ‘get’ phrasal verbs,
especially for the target of learners at University of Economics and Technical
Industries (UNETI).

6

CHAPTER 1
THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
1.1. Literature review
Over the past years, phrasal verbs have been much studied, thus a
chronological survey helps in covering all the research conducted so far on the
matter.
The chronological survey meant to highlight the studies that have been
written since the 16
th
century to the 20
th
century, constitute a premise for the next
section on a summary of the history of English phrasal verbs.
1.1.1. The Ancestors of Phrasal Verbs in Old English
Millward, C.M. [24] pointed out that the range and importance of verb
particle-constructions in the spoken language of the early stages of development
is hard to be dealt with. Still, Baugh Albert C. [5], Traugott [38], and Elizabeth
C. [38] have shown that the Old English ancestors of modern phrasal verbs were
generally inseparable prefix verbs, although some separable forms did exist.
Millward states that the inseparable prefix verb was a form in which the

particle was attached to the beginning of the verb. These Old English prefixed
verbs are comparable to current phrasal forms. For example, in present day
English, there is the mono-transitive verb to burn and then the phrasal mono-
transitive to burn up. Old English had baerman (to burn) and forbaerman (to
burn up). The prefix for remained affixed to the verb and could not move as
modern particle can [24].

7

Such Old English compound verbs were also highly idiomatic, in that the
meaning of the compound form did not necessarily reflect the meaning of the
root.
Denison [10] provides beraedan as an example because it meant to
dispossess, while its root verb raedan meant to advice.
Akimoto [3] suggests that Old English prefixes often remained before the
verb because the Old English had strong object-before-verb tendencies, whereas
present day English is largely a VO (verb + object) language, which has made it
possible for particles to travel to post verbal positions.
Some Old English verbs did function as modern phrasal verbs do.
Referring to the post-verbal particles in this period was still often very
directional, in close relationship with a prepositional meaning.
Therefore, applications of the particle up in Old English conveyed a sense
of direction upward, as in to grow up (ward), rather than the completive sense, as
in to break up (completely), that would become more common in Middle English
and beyond.
1.1.2. Phrasal Verbs in Middle English
This section will deal with those forms of phrasal verbs that occur in
Middle English. Thus, the formation of prefixes verbs in Old English was no
longer productive in Middle English, and the loss of productivity was already
evident in Old English, in which certain authors added a post-verbal particle to

prefixed verbs, possibly because the prefix was losing meaning [10:47].

8

The rapid borrowings of French verbs into Middle English likely showed
the development of phrasal verbs because of competition in semantic fields of
the Old English prefixed verbs. [5:340] and [12: 386]. For example, the French
borrowing destroy could accommodate the meaning of the Old English
forbrecan (break up) [34:140]
French forms also likely hindered phrasal verbs because of lexical register.
French was the language of status in England after Norman Conquest, and
phrasal verbs were considered informal [37:123], [12:398].
Nonetheless, phrasal verbs regained strong productivity by the 15
th
century
Middle English underwent a shift in syntax from many instances of SOV to SVO
as it lost many synthetic inflections from Old English, becoming a much more
analytic, or word-order based language. The new VO word order, as Akimoto
claims, likely enabled adverbial particles [12:386].
In other words, Old English forbrecan became to break up. By late Middle
English, phrasal verbs could be divided into three categories such as Old English
style inseparable particle + verb, phrasal verbs including verbs + separable
particle and nominal compounds derived from the first two [12:386].
1.1.3. Phrasal Verbs in Early Modern English
The incidence of phrasal verbs exploded in Early Modern English.
Shakespeare himself applied the form widely through the plays. Hiltuten
explains that the phrasal verbs were used extensively in Early Modern English
dramatic texts because of their variable shades of meaning and productive
capacity “to be expanded to form new idioms” [17].

9

Akimoto also notes that “phrasal verbs occur more frequently in letters
and dramas than in essays or academic writing” in the 18
th
and 19
th
centuries.
This confirms that phrasal verbs occupied a lower social position in Early
Modern English than, perhaps, single Latinate verbs that could fill their semantic
fields, which gives rise, incidentally, to a syntactic test for phrasal verbs.
Phrasal verbs in Early Modern English could be formed with a noun +
particle, such as ‘to louse up’ [24:319]. It was also in this period that pronominal
objects were firmly established before particles (for example: She put it on. But
not * She put on it) as a standard practice, while nominal objects retained
movement before and after the particle (for example: She put the dress on or She
put on the dress).
1.1.4. Phrasal Verbs in present-day English
In present-day English, phrasal verbs are identifiable by particle
movement (when transitive), stressed particles, incapacity for adverb
intervention in the verb phrase, by translation and passivization. A phrasal verb
in present-day English is a verb that takes a complementary particle which is an
adverb resembling a preposition, necessary to complete sentence (for example:
He fixed up the car).
Therefore, the earliest study that has been written about phrasal verbs
dates from the 16
th
century, when William Bullokar wrote The Brief Grammar
for English in 1586 [8]. Following the works of William Bullokar, two other
studies have been done one was A Treatise of the English Particles written by

Walker Leeds in 1665 [21], and the other was The English Grammar written by

10

Michael Mattaire in 1721 [23]. Further on, Henry Sweet entitled his study on
phrasal verbs A New English Grammar in 1892 [36].
1.2. Theoretical background
1.2.1. An Overview of English Phrasal Verbs
According to Stephens “a phrasal verb is made up of a verb and one or
two or three particles which together function as a single verb. The particle may
be an adverb, a preposition, or a word that can act as either an adverb or a
preposition [35].
Mortimer [26] states that "The English language has hundreds of two-part
verbs such as bring up, carry on and put up. These are easy enough to understand
when the meaning of the whole two-part verb is equal to the meaning of the sum
of its two parts". However, he concedes: "But in many cases, knowing the
meaning of the parts does not help us to know the meaning of the whole". Thus,
to add the meaning of bring to the meaning of up will not help us to understand
the meaning of bring up in the expression He brought up a point. Nor will it help
us to understand bring up in the expression She brought up a family.
Whether used literally or figuratively, phrasal verbs are acquired early by
native speakers, but usually late by foreign learners because their grammar is
difficult and their meaning cannot in many cases be deduced from the meanings
of the separate words. There can be no doubt that phrasal verbs have received a
considerable amount of attention in recent years.


11

1.2.2. Definition of English phrasal verbs.

A phrasal verb is a type of verb in English that operates more like a phrase
than a word.
The expression phrasal verb refers, in English Grammar, to a combination
of a verb and a prepositional or adverbial particle, in which the combination
often takes on a meaning which is apparently not the simple sum of its parts, for
example turn up means ‘appear’.
Longman Dictionary of phrasal verbs defines phrasal verb as “idiomatic
combination of a verb and adverb, or a verb and preposition (or verb with both
adverb and preposition)” [44].
A grammarian such as Eduard, Vlad (1998) [11:93] describes phrasal verb
as “combination of a lexical verb and adverbial particle”. Verbs as ‘give up’, ‘fall
out’ and ‘take in’ are considered by him to be multi-words verbs that are
equivalent to one lexical item.
Heaton considers that “phrasal verbs are compound verbs that results from
combining a verb with an adverb or a preposition, the resulting compound verb
being idiomatic” [16:103].
Tom McArthur in the Oxford Companion to the English Language (1992)
notes that these verbs are also referred to by many other names such verb phrase,
discontinuous verbs, compound verb, verb-adverb combination, and verb-
particle construction. Crystal in the Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English
Language calls this linguistic phenomenon a “Multi-word verb” that is best

12

described as a lexeme, a unit of meaning that may be greater than a single word
[4].
A phrasal verb is defined by Broukal and Woods [7:189] as “the
combination of a verb + an adverb particle and sometimes the particle may be
followed by a preposition”. They go on to say that “most of the particles look
like prepositions but act as adverbs, and usually change the meaning of the verb

they are connected”. The same definition is given by Kollin [20:12] when she
states that “phrasal verbs are common structures in English. They consist of a
verb combined with a preposition like word, known as particle”. She goes on to
say that “phrasal verbs include both two-and three-word strings”. Examples of
such phrasal verbs are ‘give up’, ‘look after’, ‘hand in’ which include two strings
while ‘put up with’, ‘give in to’ and ‘put up for’ include three strings.
Phrasal verbs are considered by Graver [14:261] as “semi-compounds”
whereas Palmer [28:180] regards them as “single units in the grammar”. He
gives reasons for naming them like that by saying that “there are several
collocational restrictions. We can give up but not give down. We can look after
someone but not look before him”. He adds that phrasal verbs are “obviously
semantic units” because ‘give in’ equals ‘yield’, ‘look after’ may be replaced by
the literary ‘tend’, ‘put up’ has the meaning of ‘invent’, and ‘put up with’ means
‘tolerate’.
What has been stated by Palmer [28] concerning the treatment of phrasal
verbs as single units is quite true and has a solid basis simply because we have to
place certain prepositions or adverbs after certain verbs in order to convey
meanings or concepts.

13

All these definitions lead to another aspect proposed for discussion, which
is the classification of phrasal verbs in English language.
1.2.3. Classifications of English phrasal verbs
Before discussing the classification of English phrasal verbs, it would be
necessary to mention the classification of the English verbs with a view to
pointing out the position of phrasal verbs in English Grammar and what status
they have.
According to Levitchi, the verb is considered to be the heart of a sentence.
It “is a part of speech denoting actions: to work, to go, to sing; process in the

form of actions: to stand, to lie; the appearance of a characteristic: to bud, the
modification of a characteristic: to harden; an attitude: to be glad” [22:83].
English verbs can be classified in terms of composition, derivation, basic
form and content. In accordance with composition, verbs are simple, compound,
complex and verb phrases. The term ‘compound verb’ is often used in place of
‘complex’, a type of complex phrase. But this usage is not accepted in
linguistics, because ‘compound’ and ‘complex’ are not synonymous.
Complex verbs are a variety of verbal compounds made up of a principal
verb and an adverbial particle (up, in, out) which usually modifies and
sometimes only determines the meaning of the former. For example ‘to bring
about’ means ‘to determine, to cause’, ‘to bring up’ means ‘to educate’, ‘to fall
out’ means ‘to argue’. As it has been demonstrated in the first part of this
chapter, since Renaissance Period, complex verbs have gone a long way
developing steadily and giving rise to ever newer forms as a rule, on the basic of