Passive/progressive/reflexive

Most transitive phrasal verbs can be used in the passive, while a few are always or almost always used in the passive, as illustrated by the following examples:

be affiliated to (to be officially connected with a larger organisation or group)

be anchored in (be firmly based on sth)

be arrayed against (ready to fight or oppose sb)

be attuned to (to be familiar with something and able to deal with it in a sensitive way)

be bathed in (filled with something)

get bogged down (to become so involved with one particular part of a process that you cannot make any progress)

be booked up (all the places or seats have already been taken)

be caught up in (to be unexpectedly involved in an unpleasant or annoying situation)

be composed of (to be made of particular parts or things) be covered in (something is all over the surface)

be coupled with (be combined and produce a particular effect) be cursed with (to have a serious problem, disadvantage)

be divorced from (to be completely separated from something else and have no connection with it at all)

be done for (to be likely to be punished, hurt or killed) inf.

be doomed to (to be certain to experience something, such as failure or unhappiness)

be engrossed in (to be doing something with all your attention and energy)

be founded on /be grounded in (to be based on a particular idea, principle)

be gunged up (to be blocked or covered with a dirty sticky substance)

be inundated with (to be given too much of something for you to deal with)

be kitted out (to be given all the clothes and equipment necessary for a particular activity)

be overcome with (to make someone feel a very strong emotion) be peppered with (to have things in many different places all over

the surface)

be pigged off (to feel very annoyed or upset)

be rooted in (the second thing started because of the first thing) be sandwiched between (to be in a small space between two things

that are larger)

be shot through with (to contain a lot of something)

be starved of (to have very little of something that you need or want very much)

be stumped for (to not know what to say)

Some other phrasal verbs are used only in the progressive, such be dying for, be itching for (to want very much to do something immediately), whereas some others occur only as reflexive verbs (resign yourself to,

Overall, we can say that with respect to the syntactic properties of phrasal verbs, we have not many bases for specifying which verbs can co-occur with a particle or which cannot.

9.5 Semantic properties

As a way of introduction to the semantics of phrasal verbs, let us have a closer look at the verb set which is combined with a great variety of particles to form phrasal verbs. Sinclair (1991: 67) makes an apt remark about it: “It is a fairly common, rather dull little word that was comparatively neglected in description and in teaching. What does set mean? It is hardly a sensible question.” When determining its meaning, Sinclair (1991: 68) emphasises the importance of the environment of set since in most of its usage, it contributes to meaning in combination with other words, i.e. for example a particle.

It is really true that phrasal verbs with set are very common. It is particularly rich in making combinations with words like about, against, apart, aside, back, down, forth, in, off, out, to and up. Let us just mention some of them: Set in means that something begins, and seems likely to continue and develop. Set off, in the same way of set out, are usually used to refer to the start of a journey. Set forth, used mainly in literary language, also means starting a journey. The meaning of set about doing something is that you start to do it in an energetic or purposeful way, while the meaning of set up can also be starting something, such as a business or organisation.

However, the meaning of set back is delaying the progress of someone or something whereas the meaning of set down is writing something on a pieceof paper.

The above mentioned example with the verb set clearly shows that the semantics of phrasal verbs might be even more bewildering than their syntax.

I suppose that the reasons why this is generally assumed are as follows:

First, when both the verb and the particle have literal meanings it is usually obvious, but sometimes the particle contributes one special meaning to the meaning of the whole combination, which learners usually fail to recognise.

For example, set aside means keeping or saving something in order to use it later. If something, e.g. a quality sets something or someone apart, it means that it makes someone or something different or special.

Besides, it is often overlooked that particles can have several different meanings as well. For example out in set out means starting a journey, but in die out it refers to the completion of the action.

It also often occurs that different particles contribute the same meaning to the verb, as illustrated by set out, set off, set in, set about, set forth and set up, all of which have the meaning of inception, i.e. they refer to beginning something.

What is more, many phrasal verbs have more than one sense. For example, set up has 10 different meanings: 1. start a business, 2. organise or plan sth, 3. build sth, 4. make equipment ready to use, 5. make sth happen, 6.

make sb feel good, 7. make people blame sb wrongly, 8. give sb money for a business, 9. help people start a relationship and 10. make a noise. However, in many cases one phrasal verb can be the metaphorical extension of the other, for example set up can mean building a structure or putting it in a particular place but it can also mean establishing a business, organisation or institution

Finally, there is no denying that sometimes, especially in fully idiomatic combinations, it is difficult to say what meaning is contributed by the particle to the phrasal verb, for example set sb up for life, which means providing someone with money so that they do not have to work for the rest of their life.

On the basis of all this, no wonder that phrasal verbs are often regarded to be an arbitrary combination of a verb and one or more particles.

Nevertheless, even traditional grammarians, such as Kennedy (1920: 24), Poutsma (1926: 296), Curme (1931: 379), Jowett (1950/51: 156), Potter (1965: 297-8), Live (1965: 436), Bolinger (1971: 96-110), Lipka (1972:

182-184) and Fraser (1976: 6) have discovered some kind of regularities in the semantics of phrasal verbs and these are what the next section will focus on.