First, I have to say Phrasal Verbs make our speaking sound colorful and natural. They are strictly seen as informal items, but we should have a second thought about this issue; we can see them in authorative and formal documents too. It's important to mention that phrasal verbs are made up by a verb plus a particle (adverb or preposition) and create an idiomatic meaning, in many cases, totally different from the single verb (eg: get + up).
Let's read an explanation of Phrasal Verbs excerpted from Longman Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics, by Jack C. Richards and Richard Schmidt. 3rd Edition, 2002.
Phrasal verb
a verbal construction consisting of a verb plus an ADVERB PARTICLE. A distinction may be made between phrasal verbs, prepositional verbs, and phrasal-prepositional verbs, according to the different grammatical patterns in which they occur. For example:
Particle Turn OFF the Verb may I’ll APPLY for the
may be light. be stressed job.
stressed
Particle can Turn the light off. Particle *I’ll apply the job
occur after cannot for.
the object occur after
the object
short Turn it off Pronouns I’ll apply for it.
pronouns (*Turn off it) occur after (*I’ll apply it for)
occur the verb+
between particle
the verb
and the
particle
A phrasal-prepositional verb consists of a verb, an adverb particle, and a PREPOSITION:
We must cut down on expenses.
They put their failure down to bad advice.
The meaning of some of these verbal constructions can be guessed from the meanings of their parts (e.g. cut down on). But the meaning of others is idiomatic (e.g. put down to).
Nowadays the term “phrasal verb” is often used to include phrasal verbs, prepositional verbs, and phrasal-prepositional verbs.
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