Phrasal verb

Distinguishing phrasal verb types

When a particle verb is transitive, it may be difficult to distinguish the particle from a preposition. A simple diagnostic that works in many cases is to consider whether it is possible to shift the preposition/particle to after the noun. An English preposition can never follow its noun, and so if we can change verb - P - noun to verb - noun - P, P cannot be a preposition and must be a particle. But even with a particle verb, shifting the particle is not always possible, for example, if it is followed by a pronoun instead of a noun, or if there is a fixed collocation. A second diagnostic is to think about where the instinctive division would be if we had to take a breath in the middle of the phrase. A particle would naturally be grouped with the preceding verb and a preposition with the following noun phrase. In the following examples, which show both of these approaches, an asterisk indicates an impossible form.