This is a phenomenon in English that I've seen a lot of, where verbs involving obligatory prepositions are apparently interpreted as fixed, inseparable lexemes. The most obvious evidence of this I see is their behavior in lists. Take this sentence for example:
"make sure to feed, walk, and pick up after it."
It sounds a little strange to me personally but I see this all the time. Clearly this is not 'make sure to [feed], [walk], and [pick up] after it' because feed after and walk after are not valid constructions. Instead it must be 'make sure to [feed], [walk], and [pick up after] it'; with 'pick up after' as its own separate thing. Is there much written about this? Is it really so unusual?
The behavior of phrasal verbs in English
Re: The behavior of phrasal verbs in English
As a native speaker it doesn't sound odd to me at all, though I suppose I've never stopped to think about it. There are a number of verbs that work together as a fixed unit with prepositions: look after, care for/about (which mean very different things), pick up after, etc. French has these as well, though my French is too rusty to think of an example off the top of my head.
"But if of ships I now should sing, what ship would come to me,
What ship would bear me ever back across so wide a Sea?”
What ship would bear me ever back across so wide a Sea?”
Re: The behavior of phrasal verbs in English
It's interesting to see what happens to some of these compound verbs when they are gerundivised. I haven't seen *"pick upping" but I do see/hear "picking upping" in addition to standard "picking up", e.g. "Community trash picking upping about to commence."
Re: The behavior of phrasal verbs in English
The conclusion that [pick up after] is a constituent is certainly tempting. There's a lot of weirdness going on though, which I've been trying to work through.
First, some evidence against the analysis pick [up [after [the dog]]]: we can't conjoin this with with other instances of "pick" or "pick up":
*I picked up the cat and after the dog.
*I picked the red dress and up after the dog.
However, this isn't as conclusive as it could be, because I think there's a constraint against conjoining idiomatic and non-idiomatic uses of the same verb. (This isn't entirely surprising: there are often quirky restrictions on using idiomatic constructions.)
?I read him the Riot Act and Dr. Seuss.
*We're up the creek without a paddle and to our eyebrows in trouble.
*You can count me out and to twelve.
?Look out for wolves and down the valley.
*What are you carrying on about and in your arms?
Other phrasal verbs work like "pick up after":
I admire and look up to my brother.
I care for and worry about my sister.
But then, we should make sure that actual [V PP] phrases don't work like phrasal verbs. These work the same way and I'm not sure we'd want to analyze [give to] or [aim for] as a constituent:
I support and give to charity.
I sighted and aimed for the target.
Plus, [V O] and [V PP] expressions seems to be hard to conjoin:
*I give money and to the needy.
*I ran the Iditarod and to Anchorage.
Offhand I still haven't come up with a good proof that [pick up after] is or isn't a constituent.
In conclusion, English syntax is a land of contrasts.
First, some evidence against the analysis pick [up [after [the dog]]]: we can't conjoin this with with other instances of "pick" or "pick up":
*I picked up the cat and after the dog.
*I picked the red dress and up after the dog.
However, this isn't as conclusive as it could be, because I think there's a constraint against conjoining idiomatic and non-idiomatic uses of the same verb. (This isn't entirely surprising: there are often quirky restrictions on using idiomatic constructions.)
?I read him the Riot Act and Dr. Seuss.
*We're up the creek without a paddle and to our eyebrows in trouble.
*You can count me out and to twelve.
?Look out for wolves and down the valley.
*What are you carrying on about and in your arms?
Other phrasal verbs work like "pick up after":
I admire and look up to my brother.
I care for and worry about my sister.
But then, we should make sure that actual [V PP] phrases don't work like phrasal verbs. These work the same way and I'm not sure we'd want to analyze [give to] or [aim for] as a constituent:
I support and give to charity.
I sighted and aimed for the target.
Plus, [V O] and [V PP] expressions seems to be hard to conjoin:
*I give money and to the needy.
*I ran the Iditarod and to Anchorage.
Offhand I still haven't come up with a good proof that [pick up after] is or isn't a constituent.
In conclusion, English syntax is a land of contrasts.
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Salmoneus
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Re: The behavior of phrasal verbs in English
I don't think your examples show what you want them to show.
Your 'idiomatic' examples just confirm that phrasal verbs act as a unit - calling them 'idiomatic uses' rather than 'phrasal verbs' doesn't seem to accomplish anything. [Eg ?'you can count me out and to twelve' isn't (mostly) wrong because 'count me out' is an idiom (note likewise ?'you can count sheep and to twelve'), but because the first verb is 'count' and the second is 'count to' [which are two wholly different activities!]]
Your examples with prepositions don't work because you picked phrasal verbs (like 'aim for') again. Pick a genuine verb+preposition instead, like 'walk to'. I don't think you can find a parallel with 'walk to' - if the first verb there doesn't have its own preposition, it's either governed by the second:
'I ran and walked to Calgary'
Or else the semantics are serial:
'I sighed and walked to Calgary'
Note also that it's often possible - though semantically unlikely - to contrast the phrasal verb with the V+P construction. To take your example, contrast 'aim for' (phrasal verb meaning aiming at or toward a thing) with 'aim' + 'for' (preposition relating to purpose, benefactives, teleology, etc).
"I aimed for Amy" = "I tried to hit Amy"
vs
"I aimed for Amy" = "I aimed for Amy's sake, or at Amy's behest, or in order to aquire Amy"
"I saw and aimed for Amy" = "I saw Amy and tried to hit her"
*"I saw and aimed for Amy" = "I saw Amy and aimed at her behest"
I'm also surprised by one of your *s:
"I ran the Iditarod and to Anchorage" - to me, 'run to' is just verb + preposition, not a phrasal verb, so this is fine.
Your 'idiomatic' examples just confirm that phrasal verbs act as a unit - calling them 'idiomatic uses' rather than 'phrasal verbs' doesn't seem to accomplish anything. [Eg ?'you can count me out and to twelve' isn't (mostly) wrong because 'count me out' is an idiom (note likewise ?'you can count sheep and to twelve'), but because the first verb is 'count' and the second is 'count to' [which are two wholly different activities!]]
Your examples with prepositions don't work because you picked phrasal verbs (like 'aim for') again. Pick a genuine verb+preposition instead, like 'walk to'. I don't think you can find a parallel with 'walk to' - if the first verb there doesn't have its own preposition, it's either governed by the second:
'I ran and walked to Calgary'
Or else the semantics are serial:
'I sighed and walked to Calgary'
Note also that it's often possible - though semantically unlikely - to contrast the phrasal verb with the V+P construction. To take your example, contrast 'aim for' (phrasal verb meaning aiming at or toward a thing) with 'aim' + 'for' (preposition relating to purpose, benefactives, teleology, etc).
"I aimed for Amy" = "I tried to hit Amy"
vs
"I aimed for Amy" = "I aimed for Amy's sake, or at Amy's behest, or in order to aquire Amy"
"I saw and aimed for Amy" = "I saw Amy and tried to hit her"
*"I saw and aimed for Amy" = "I saw Amy and aimed at her behest"
I'm also surprised by one of your *s:
"I ran the Iditarod and to Anchorage" - to me, 'run to' is just verb + preposition, not a phrasal verb, so this is fine.
Blog: [url]http://vacuouswastrel.wordpress.com/[/url]
But the river tripped on her by and by, lapping
as though her heart was brook: Why, why, why! Weh, O weh
I'se so silly to be flowing but I no canna stay!
But the river tripped on her by and by, lapping
as though her heart was brook: Why, why, why! Weh, O weh
I'se so silly to be flowing but I no canna stay!
Re: The behavior of phrasal verbs in English
They weren't all phrasal verbs. These are weird too:Salmoneus wrote:Your 'idiomatic' examples just confirm that phrasal verbs act as a unit - calling them 'idiomatic uses' rather than 'phrasal verbs' doesn't seem to accomplish anything.
?Break a leg and your contract!
?They shot the breeze and the pheasant.
?The contractor cut corners and this hole in the curtain.
?Let's try to kill two birds with one stone and that cockroach.
(These are all perfectly OK if you repeat the verb instead, so it's not just a semantic mismatch.)
These are interesting, but how are you distinguishing phrasal verbs from V + PP? It's not obvious to me that "aim for" is a phrasal verb. It seems parallel to a number of verbs with a target or aspiration: "look for, search for, leap for, run for, crawl for, fly for, go for, leave for, race for, ride for, hunt for."Note also that it's often possible - though semantically unlikely - to contrast the phrasal verb with the V+P construction. To take your example, contrast 'aim for' (phrasal verb meaning aiming at or toward a thing) with 'aim' + 'for' (preposition relating to purpose, benefactives, teleology, etc).
"I aimed for Amy" = "I tried to hit Amy"
vs
"I aimed for Amy" = "I aimed for Amy's sake, or at Amy's behest, or in order to aquire Amy"
"I saw and aimed for Amy" = "I saw Amy and tried to hit her"
*"I saw and aimed for Amy" = "I saw Amy and aimed at her behest"
Re: The behavior of phrasal verbs in English
Related: http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/language ... 01702.html
Maybe we could use this as a test of some sort. Like, maybe you can say "the dog after which I was picking up" or "the target for which I was aiming". Or maybe you can't.
Incidentally, when I teach English, I usually teach four kinds of phrasal verbs: intransitive, inseparable, separable and double preposition, for example, look out, look at (it), put (it) down, put up with (it). From a linguistic perspective this makes use of different distinctions than syntacticians are interested in, but from a language learner's perspective it's useful.
Maybe we could use this as a test of some sort. Like, maybe you can say "the dog after which I was picking up" or "the target for which I was aiming". Or maybe you can't.
Incidentally, when I teach English, I usually teach four kinds of phrasal verbs: intransitive, inseparable, separable and double preposition, for example, look out, look at (it), put (it) down, put up with (it). From a linguistic perspective this makes use of different distinctions than syntacticians are interested in, but from a language learner's perspective it's useful.
Re: The behavior of phrasal verbs in English
As for "is this unusual," while it's not an exact match, my understanding is that something similar to this can happen in SOV languages, where postpositions are reinterpreted as directional prefixes on the verb. Though I have no examples.
Re: The behavior of phrasal verbs in English
A Persian example:vokzhen wrote:As for "is this unusual," while it's not an exact match, my understanding is that something similar to this can happen in SOV languages, where postpositions are reinterpreted as directional prefixes on the verb. Though I have no examples.
sar dar-âvordan (< sar-dar âvordan)
head into-bring:INF
"to get, figure out" (< "to bring into the head")