The Idiomatic Domains of English Particle Verbs

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

This paper investigates the patterns of particle verb idioms in English. Particle verbs are characterized by the two word orders they permit: V-Part(icle)-NP (e.g., write down X) and V-NP-Part (e.g., write X down). Particle verb idioms requiring a fixed NP form three subclasses (Fraser 1970, Machonis 1985, Cappelle 2005). The first group only appears in the order where V and Part are immediately adjacent-for example, blow off steam ‘to talk or act in a way to relieve stress’, but not *blow steam off. The second group requires V and Part to be split-let one’s hair down ‘to relax and enjoy oneself’, but not *let down one’s hair. The last group allows either order-roll up one’s sleeves/roll one’s sleeves up ‘to get ready to do something difficult and intense’. I propose a symmetric analysis for particle verbs in English. The two word orders of particle verbs are represented by two distinct syntactic structures. Specifically, the verbal root functions as a modifier of result in the V-Part-NP structure and as a modifier of causation in the V-NP-Part structure. The analysis correctly predicts the above three-way distinction that particle verb idioms exhibit and captures the subtle semantic contrast between the two surface word orders (Bolinger 1977). Two additional consequences for the structure of particle verbs-(i) the presence of particle verbs with a fixed order and (ii) the restrictions on particle shift exhibited by ditransitives-are discussed.