Two-word verbs

In the September issue of Spotlight, language expert Robert Parr begins the first part of his explanation of two-word verbs.

"Two-word verbs, sometimes called phrasal verbs, consist of two parts. The first part is the actual verb. The second part is a particle (a preposition or an adverb)."

It's easy to understand the meaning of two-word verbs when each word has its normal meaning, like phone back, burn down or write back. Other two-word verbs have to be learned because the meaning is not so clear.

"I'm looking after Karen's dog."
Look after means "be responsible for something or somebody".

"The police said they were looking into the matter."
Look into means "investigate".

Separable or inseparable?

Robert goes on to explain that many two-word verbs are inseparable. For example, in the sentence "I'm looking after Karen's dog", look cannot be separated from into. You can't say "I'm looking Karen's dog after."

When you look up a phrasal verb in the dictionary, you will find what you are looking for under the headword, under the sub-heading PHR V.

In the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary, a double arrow (↔) between the object (sth (something) or sb (somebody)) and the particle (into, after, up, etc.) shows that the object can come either before or after the particle — that is, that the two-word verb is separable:

Look sth ↔ up
"Can you look up 'inseparable' in the dictionary, please?" — after the particle (up)
"She said we should look something up in the dictionary." — before the particle (up)

Now find out how well you know two-word verbs in our exercise on the next page.

Dagmar Taylor