The English transitive phrasal verb such as pick up ‘to collect’ has often been defined as a verb (V), irrespective of its continuous-discontinuous alternation between pick up the parcel and pick the parcel up. This paper argues that there are at least two types of the transitive phrasal verb regarding its syntactic alternation. One for the continuous pattern is a compound verb that is prefabricated in the lexicon, such as [V V P]. The other for the discontinuous pattern is a complex predicate, such as {V P}, whose entire category is not yet specified in the same component, as indicated by the curly braces. The compound verb is then plugged into phrasal syntax and directly forms a binary verb phrase (VP) with a direct object noun phrase (NP), such as [ VP [V V P] NP]. Likewise, the complex predicate, or the lexical verb and particle together, combines with the NP in a binary manner, though yielding a ternary VP, such as [VP V NP P]. This analysis builds on the assumptions and formalisms of a hierarchical lexicon and a lexical-constructional approach.
목차
Abstract 1. Introduction 2. The Complex Predicate Hypothesis 2.1 The Compound Verb Analysis 2.2. Justifications and Limitations 3. The VP Analysis 3.1. As Allostructions 3.2. As a Underspecified Construction 4. A Proposal 4.1. A Hierarchy of V-P Constructions 4.2. A Lexical-Constructional Analysis 4.3. Theoretical Advantages 5. Concluding Remarks References