Phrasal verbs: one word out of two

A phrasal verb is not tied to one task type, and that is what it costs: it decides a gap in the open gap-fill, an option set in the cloze, a whole half in Lücken-Satzteile and a bank entry in the Wortkasten. In editing it turns up the other way round: a plain verb carries a particle it does not take, and that particle is the surplus word.

So there is no list of a hundred verbs here. There are items shaped like the exam tasks, and the rule arrives at the point where you trip over it.

The gap that sent you here

You most likely came here from the cloze, from an item of this shape. Four options, one gap.

out means nothing here on its own. It is glued to make, and together they give a verb that is not present in either half. The small word beside a verb is called a particle: inside such a pair it often loses its own meaning and forms a new verb together with the verb. Looking it up separately does not help, and that is exactly how a phrasal verb catches anyone who reads word by word.

The rule and a table

Two separate things have to be kept in mind. First the meaning: the pair has its own. Second the form, that is, where the object goes, the object being the thing the action is aimed at. Meaning is worked out from the sentence; form is not worked out at all, it is fixed by the type of the verb, and for a verb with an object there are three main types.

A preposition is a small word that introduces a noun and belongs to it: at the sign, to the station. A particle belongs to the verb. Everything else about its behaviour follows from that: a particle may travel behind the object, a preposition never may.

Prepositions: there the small word is chosen by the word on its left, and the verb keeps its meaning

The table has been read. Test it right away on a task where exactly one word is written in and there are no prompts.

Both times the meaning of the pair came out of the sentence. In the Wortkasten the pair comes whole, already in the right form, and the question is only which one the sentence means. Two entries in the bank fit nowhere.

Next the sentence stops helping: in the following item all four options talk about the same thing, and only the order of the words differs.

Where the object goes

From Lücken-Satzteile: a whole half of a sentence goes into the gap, and when that half holds a phrasal verb, the options often differ only in where the object stands.

Exactly one of the three types has that freedom of order. In the next half each wrong option misreads the type: one keeps a pronoun outside a separable verb, two split pairs that do not split.

The three types differ only in what may be inserted inside them, and in the exam that costs points wherever word order is tested. But there is one place where the same distinction decides not the order but whether the word belongs there at all.

Particle or preposition

Editing asks you to cross out a surplus word, and the price of a mistake here is direct: you can cross out half a verb.

Crossing out is not the only place where the distinction is worth a point. In the open gap-fill one word is written in, and it is sometimes the one and sometimes the other, in adjacent lines at that.

The neighbouring article takes the other half of this question: which preposition the word on the left demands, responsible for, depend on. There the verb means the same as it does without the preposition, and the small word only introduces the object. Here it is the reverse: the particle rebuilds the verb, which is why it can neither be dropped nor swapped for something of similar sense.

A particle where none belongs

That holds only for a pair that exists. Editing also sets the opposite trap: a plain verb such as explain or visit is given a particle it does not take, and the line looks like a phrasal verb. The test is not whether the meaning changes but whether the pair exists at all. set up, carry out, phone up exist, even where the particle adds little, and they stay. explain out does not, so out is the surplus word.

The third line is the one that costs points in the other direction: a particle that adds little is still part of a real verb. Now the same check among four lines of which only one is faulty.

When a particle looks surplus, ask whether you have met that exact pair before. If you have, leave it; if the verb only ever takes its object directly, cross the particle out.

What to take away

One more thing, for the writing part: a phrasal verb is often the more colloquial half of a pair (put off against postpone, take on against recruit). For a blog comment that counts in its favour, for formal writing rather against it.

Open gap-fill: where the particle is written in and there are no prompts Cloze: where four options differ only in which pair exists Wortkasten: where the bank holds the whole pair Editing: where the surplus word may be a particle on a plain verb Prepositions: the other half of the question, which preposition the word on the left demands