Transitive phrasal verbs with the particle "out": A lexicon-grammar analysis

Résumé En

Using a lexicon-grammar approach developed by Maurice Gross (1992), this project involved systematically mapping the structural properties of over 550 transitive phrasal verbs with the particle "out", "PV out". The data is analyzed in terms of two main tables or matrices. The first table illustrates the morpho-syntactic properties of purely simple "PV out" expressions, like "freak out the kid" ↔ "freak the kid out". The second table illustrates the morpho-syntactic combinations of complex "PV out" expressions, as in "take the boxer out of the fight". The research shows that "PV out" expressions may involve up to 25 syntactic features, including N 2 promotion, as in "The girl spilled the water out of the glass" → "The girl spilled the glass out", complex-neutral constructions, like "The water spilled out of the glass", and reversed constructions, like "The company farmed the oil out of the land" →"The company farmed the land out of oil". The research shows that these syntactic combinations are highly lexical in that a unique combination of features applies to individual phrasal verbs.