Particle Placement of Idiomatic Verb-Particle Constructions in English

Akiko HONDA
Shigakkan University

This paper aims to explore particle placement of idiomatic verb-particle constructions(henceforth, VPCs, for expository convenience) in English from the viewpoint of cognitive
semantics.

Idiomatic VPCs can be classified into three types in terms of the position ofthe particle.

Some instances of idiomatic VPCs of the three types are presented asfollows:(1) Type A … ring the curtain down, make one’s mind up, blow the cobwebs away, etc.
Type B… dance one’s legs off, cry one’s eyes out, work one’s head off, etc.
Type C… lay down one’s arms, take up the challenges, let off steam, etc.
The particle in Type A can be placed on either side of the postverbal NP, the particle in
Type B has to follow the postverbal NP, and the particle in Type C has to precede thepostverbal NP.
The semantic property of the particle plays an important role in the particle placement of
the idiomatic VPCs.

Tenny (1994: 148) points out that the class of verb particles have thesemantic property of imposing delimitedness on the event described by a verb phrase orsentence, as well as the syntactic property of appearing on either side of the noun phrase
object (e.g. eat up an apple in an hour/ *for an hour, eat an apple up in an hour/ *for anhour (Tenny (1994: 149))).

This applies to the following idiomatic data.

tests is what we call the for/in test:

One of thea non-delimited eventuality can occur with afor-phrase, whereas a delimited eventuality can occur with an in-phrase.

Type A iscompatible with only the in-adverbial, as in (2):(2) a. ring the curtain down in an hour/ *for an hourb. ring down the curtain in an hour/ *for an hour
In contrast, the compatibility of the durative adverb with Type B and Type C shows that
there is no choice of the position of the particles, as in (3):

(3) a.

dance one’s legs off for an hour/ *in an hourb.

lay down one’s arms for an hour/ *in an hour

Why is it that the particle is anchored in position in these two types?
With respect to the position of the particles, idiomatic VPCs can be represented in thetwo syntactic structures:[NP V NP P] / [NP V P NP] (P: particle).

As discussed in mypaper (2004) on the relationship between resultative phrase movement and particle
movement, in terms of markedness and focalization, the syntactic form [NP V NP P] isregarded as an unmarked form; on the other hand, the form [NP V P NP] is regarded asmarked.

One of the characteristics of the marked form is that it focuses on the action (e.g.

He’s getting out a paper. (publishing), We’d better get this paper out. (issued) (Bolinger(1971: 82))).

Taking into the consideration that the particle inherently encodes the resultstate (cf. Visser (1963)), the delimited reading in the idiomatic VPCs is taken to besemantically unmarked.

This meaning, in general, is encoded by the unmarked form.

The important point to note is that it is also encoded by the corresponding marked form,
and in this case the action rather than the result state is focused upon.
Type A can be represented by either an unmarked or a marked form, since this type of
idiomatic VPCs is semantically unmarked. On the other hand, Type B denotes a marked
meaning in the sense that it describes a non-delimited eventuality and focuses on the action
by using the unmarked form.
how sentence.

In fact, this type can be asked by using the interrogative

Therefore, the corresponding marked form is blocked.

Type C focuses on

the action, and therefore, the marked form is primarily selected.

REFERENCES
Bolinger, Dwight (1971) The Phrasal Verb in English, Harvard University Press,Cambridge MA.
Tenny, Carol (1994) Aspectual Roles and the Syntax-Semantics Interface, Kluwer
Academic Publishers, Dordrecht.
Visser, Frederik Theodoor (1963) An Historical Syntax of the English Language, part I, E. J.
Brill, Leiden.