The Diachronic Study of the Origin and the Development of Phrasal Verbs

2017 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 15K02625
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: English linguistics
• Research Institution: National Institute of Technology, Toyota College
• Principal Investigator: KAMIYA Masaaki 豊田工業高等専門学校, 一般学科, 教授 (40194980)
• Co-Investigator(Renkei-kenkyūsha): TAKAHASHI Kaoru 東京理科大学, 工学部教養, 教授 (90216705)
• Project Period (FY): 2015-04-01 – 2018-03-31
• Keywords: 句動詞 / 接頭辞付動詞 / 古英語 / 中英語 / PPCME 2 / YCOE

Outline of Final Research Achievements

Phrasal verbs are combinations of verb + adverb, verb (+ adverb) + preposition. The origin and development of phrasal verbs (verb + adverbial particle) are related to two processes: (i) the development of prefixed verbs in Old English into phrasal verbs in Middle English; the adverbial particle or separable prefix is moved after its verb, so a new phrasal verb is formed. (ii) the development of French verbs into basic English verbs + adverbial particles. We extract all the prefixed verbs with up- and out-, using the YCOE Corpus and to make a database of the prefixed verbs with up- and out- for the research on the origin and development of phrasal verbs. The number of the prefixed verbs with up- and out- is 20 and 36 in YCOE respectively. Next we discuss how the prefixed verbs in Old English are developed into phrasal verbs in Middle English and make a correspondence table of prefixed verbs in Old English and their existing prefixed verbs in Present-day English and their phrasal verbs.

Free Research Field

英語学