THE COMMON TWO – WORD VERBS DENOTING MATERIAL AND MENTAL PROCESSES IN ENGLISH AND THEIR VIETNAMESE EQUIVALENTS AT CUA LO 2 HIGH SCHOOL

1

NGHE AN MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING
CUA LO 2 HIGH SCHOOL
--------

TEACHING EXPERIENCE
“THE COMMON TWO – WORD VERBS DENOTING MATERIAL AND
MENTAL PROCESSES IN ENGLISH AND THEIR VIETNAMESE
EQUIVALENTS AT CUA LO 2 HIGH SCHOOL.”
(CÁC ĐỘNG TỪ HAI THÀNH TỐ PHỔ BIẾN QUY CHIẾU TIẾN TRÌNH
VẬT CHẤT VÀ TINH THẦN TRONG TIẾNG ANH VÀ
NGHĨA TIẾNG VIỆT TƯƠNG ĐƯƠNG Ở TRƯỜNG THPT CỬA LÒ 2)

Teacher

:

Bui Thi To Hoa

Group

:

English

Telephone

:

039.260.2126

Time

:

8/2020 – 12/2020

Cua Lo, 2020


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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 it if I focus on senses that are used.more often than the other? 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 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).


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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;
1. to study English processes, focusing on material and mental processes;
2. to investigate some common English two-word verbs denoting material
and mental processes and find their Vietnamese equivalents;
3. To suggest some recommendations for teaching and learning two- word
verbs.
3.

Research questions

What are the characteristics of English two- word verbs and the
differences between two kinds of English two word verbs: PVs and PreVs?
1.

What are Vietnamese equivalents to common English two- word verbs
denoting material and mental processes?
2.

What are recommendations to the teachers and pupils of Cua Lo 2 High
School for teaching and learning two- word verbs?
3.

4.

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. ‘Phrasalprepositional 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, I am 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, make, come, take, give), five are mental verbs (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, I only focus on four outstanding representatives of material verbs: COME,


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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 twoword verbs with idiomatic and semi-idiomatic meanings used in material and
mental processes are concentrated on.
5.

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.
6.

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 twoword combinations of seven 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 at
Cua Lo 2 school.


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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 and his partner. (1972) clarify that multi-word verbs consist of PVs,
PreVs, and phrasal- prepositional verbs. Biber et al. (1999: 403) add other multiword 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, I 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
1.1.1.1

of PVs and PreVs

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.
Biber 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) sees 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
1It 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.

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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 “verbparticle 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 lexicalgrammar 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” (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 exists parallel with PV.
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


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particles to adverbs2. 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, 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 function5, 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:

2While 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).
3Many 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).
4A 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.
5Adverbial particles function as adverbs and modify the preceding verb.


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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)
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 pronoun6.
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 verb7.
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 separated8.
6If 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.
7Celce-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
8The obligatory separation is presumed to avoid the ambiguity with the inseparable phrasal verbs, which have

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E.g. put through = test:
We put the machines through a series of tests.
From 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 join 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

prepositional meaning and the result is a PV whose meaning is fully
compositional. (e.g. sit down).
Aspectual PVs10: certain particles can add consistent aspectual meaning to
the verb without changing the origin meaning of that verb. Thus, the meaning of
the same form but different meaning (Celce-Murcia et al., 1999).
9Mc 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)).
10Some 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.


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the whole is neither literal nor idiomatic. For 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]

■

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.
11The 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.


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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:
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
after its object.

move

Position

Particle of transitive PVs can
move
either before or after the
direct object 14

Preposition cannot
after its object.

move

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.

12The 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)
13This test, however, is restricted with pronoun, gerund and unhelpful with intransitive PVs as there is no
complementary noun phrase to facilitate movement.
14This test, however, is restricted with pronoun, gerund and unhelpful with intransitive PVs as there is no
complementary noun phrase to facilitate movement.


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Pronoun-object
replacement
1.2.

Particle cannot be placed
before a relative pronoun.

Preposition can

Particle
pronoun

Preposition
pronoun

must

go

after

must

precede

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.
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


13
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 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’15
Now we have a general picture of six processes in English systemicfunctional 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).
15This 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)


14

‘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
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) He gave a teapot to his aunt.
Actor

(2)

Beneficiary (recipient)

She made a cup of tea for him.
Actor

(3)

Goal

Goal

Beneficiary
(client)

We 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.


15
Actor

Process: active

(2) The tourist was caught
Goal

Goal

by the lion.

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.
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


16
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 metathings (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- loathehate- dislikelike- love). In general, all subtypes follow the principle of
indetermination in that different types of sensing can shade into each other.
Therefore, “I see ” not only means ‘7 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’


17
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 tense16.
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.

16Both 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).


18


19
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
-

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.


20
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
MacMillan Phrasal Oxford Phrasal
Dictionary of
verbs Plus
verbs Dictionary
Phrasal verbs
Come

32 — 99

32 —152

32 — 146

Give

9 — 25

10 — 27

10 — 31

Go

31—112

28 — 162

31 — 209

Make

9 — 25

13 — 26

8 — 21

Hear

4 —7

4—6

4—7

See

12 — 18

11 — 20

8 — 15

Thin
k

8 — 14

8 — 10

9 — 17

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 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.


21

Table 3: Frequent two-word verbs in studies of Gardner & Davies (2007), Liu (2003), Waibel (2002),
and Biber (1999)

Dilin Liu
Professional

Media

Come about Come
come across about
come by
come on
come up

Miscase

Waibel

Davies

LOCNESS

BNC

Come
across

Come
about

Come
about

come
across

come by

come
across

come
back

come by

come on

come on

come off

come
along

come
along

come
around

come
round

come by

come on

come up

come up

Biber
PVs

PreVs

Come on
come
over
come
along

come forth come in
come in
come off

come
down

come out

come off

Give up

Give up

come up

come out

give away

give
away

come
together

come up

Go on

come
over

go
through

Give up

come
through

Give up

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

Go on
go
through

go with

go ahead

go for

go over

go after

go for
go off
go with
go along
go with

go over

give away
give in
Go on
go through
go back

Give to
Give up
Go for

Give in

Go
ahead

give out

go off

give back
Go on

go out

go
through

go down

go back

go by

go out

go off

go over

go
through


22
go along

go down

go ahead

go up

go forward go off
Make up

go around

go in

go ahead

go round

Make up

go up

go along

make out

go in

Make for
Make up make
from

Make up

Think of

make out

think
about

Think out

Make up
make out

Hear of

From the table, the first thing to see is that two-word verbs realizing mental
processes are not as common as material ones. There is even no two-word verb
with ‘See ’ in the list of these authors (the other two are recorded with small
proportion). Second, there is coincidence in the lists of two-word verbs despite the
differences in criteria of selecting them. For instance, up to 4-5 out of 6 lists have
come up, come about, come on, give up, go on, make up, go through, go off, etc).
The biggest difference may lie in the number of two-word verbs that the authors
consider frequent. Waibel suggests number 14 for common two-word verbs with
‘Go’, while Liu gives 9 and Biber says 4. Thence, I decide not to count on any
single list of frequent PVs, but search all of two-word verbs relating to concerned
verbs in dictionaries on hand. Though, comparing with the numbers in table 2, I
understand that these authors really got achievement in reducing the workload
from learners’ mind.
Last, Vietnamese equivalents are taken from English- Vietnamese
dictionaries about PVs and idioms. Meanings of PVs or PreVs that are not
available in these dictionaries will be translated. All examples are also from
different sources of dictionaries.
2.4.

The selection and extraction of two-word verbs

Many linguists regarded only idiomatic verb-particle combinations as
‘proper’ PVs17. Dixon (1991) excluded literal meaning from his definition about
PVs. Longman dictionary of contemporary English (2006: 974) even emphasizes
“If a verb still keeps its ordinary meaning, even though it is followed by several
different prepositions, it is not a phrasal verb”. However, McArthur (cited
17 Combinations where each element retains its distinctive meaning are seen as ‘free combinations ’ (Quirk et al.,

1985; Biber et al., 1999)


23
Stephens, 2008) assesses this is the “holistic or semantic view”, which focuses
mainly on the meaning of the verb combination. In his treatment of PVs, he states
that PVs cover both the literal and figurative/idiomatic uses. Waibel (2007: 63)
also argues that “a clear-cut differentiation between what is literal and what is
idiomatic or figurative is in many cases unfeasible (...) in part due to the
polysemous meanings PVs which often fade into one another”. Admitting both
literal and figurative meaning as the property of PVs and PreVs though, this study
attends to idiomatic/ semi-idiomatic meaning of PVs and PreVs; because it is
proved to cause biggest challenge to ESL/EFL learners 18 (see Liao & Fukuya,
2004; David, 2002). In addition, meanings appearing in all sources or in one
source are both taken into account, but those which do not belong to material and
mental processes was removed.
So, this chapter has described method of doing this research, in terms of
tools used to collect data, way to analyze data, and criteria of selecting data. The
next chapter will display the results of the study specifically.

18The commonly accepted reason is that the figurative uses are deeply rooted in cultural traditions which are also
tightly linked with what is believed about the physical world itself. In most cases, this ‘rather opaque meaning’
cause problems for learners (David, 2002: 131). There are also studies proving that second language learners
struggle more with figurative PVs than literal PVs (Liao & Fukuya, 2004).


24


25

CHAPTER 3: ENGLISH TWO-WORD VERBS DENOTING MATERIAL
AND MENTAL
PROCESSES AND VIETNAMSESE EQUIVALENTS
This is the analytical, data-based part of the present study, the quantitative
analyses of linguistic data. The aim of this chapter is to present and discuss
quantitative results from the data. Before analyzing the data quantitatively, the
pertinent problem relating to two-word verbs quantification requires classification.
The fact that most of two-word verbs are polysemous raises the question
whether a two- word verb should be quantified as a whole or according to its
different semantic meanings. Instead of counting all instances of ‘come along’, for
example, this PV could be broken down into its different semantic constituents
and quantified as ‘happen, appear’, and ‘improve’, etc. Several researchers say the
quantification by semantic criteria is not feasible and that there are too many cases
in which the meaning of a two-word verb deviates from one of the various
dictionary meanings and where a clear-cut semantic differentiation is not possible.
They quantify PVs as independent of inherent semantic differences, so that they
can set up the list of frequently used two-word verbs. In the present study, twoword verbs are quantified according to their semantic criteria.
The semantic analysis of some common English two- word verbs will be
reported in this chapter. As stated in previous sections, the study concentrates on
PVs and PreVs of ‘Come, Give, Go, Make’ and ‘Hear, See, Think’. They are
among the 12 most common lexical verbs that all occur over 1000 times per
million words in the LSWE Corpus (Biber et al., 1999), and listed in categories of
20 lexical verbs combines with eight adverbial particles to account for more than
one half of the 518, 923 PV occurrences identified in the megacorpus (Gardner &
David, 2007). The first four are lexical verbs belonging to material processes. The
remains are lexical verbs realizing mental processes. However, two-word verbs of
a lexical verb, e.g. ‘Come’, can still denoting both processes, e.g. ‘Come around’:
'đến chơi’ (material process), and ‘đổi ý’ (mental process). Therefore, it would be
so complicated to arrange two-word verbs of all chosen verbs and their meanings
in one process at a time. Instead, two-word verbs of seven selected verbs are

displayed in seven separate tables, and put into separate columns named material
processes and mental processes which run parallel19. This makes it easier to see
and compare material processes and mental processes at the same time.
3.1 COME
The single-word verb 'Come’ can go with 32 particles/ prepositions and
create 32 PVs and PreVs with hundreds meanings. Among them, 26 (15 PVs and
11 PreVs) have meanings that denote material and/ or mental processes. Three
19The entire list of some common two-word verbs deriving from ‘Come ’, ‘Give ’, ‘Go ’, ‘Make ’,
‘Hear ’, ‘See ’, and ‘Think’ can be found in Appendixes.