English Grammar Drills

154 Verb Phrases
11. The witness swore that the defendant had not been at the scene.
12. I couldn’t resist making fun of such a ridiculous idea.
13. Nobody could understand his excited shouting.
14. Finally we recovered what we had initially invested in the company.
15. Please forgive what I said earlier.
Separable and inseparable phrasal (two-word) verbs. Phrasal (two-word) verbs are an idiomatic
combination of verbs and prepositions or adverbs whose meanings are often wildly unpredictable.
Phrasal verbs also pose a major problem for nonnative speakers because they have some very
unusual grammatical characteristics. In this section we will only examine what are called separable
and inseparable phrasal verbs.
A separable phrasal verb is a compound verb consisting of a verb stem and an adverb. (The
terminology for phrasal verbs is unsettled. Many books use the term particle rather than adverb
or preposition. The differences in terminology are not very important since there is no real difference
in the description of how phrasal verbs work.) Here are three examples that all involve the
verb call:
The CEO called off the meetings. (call off cancel or postpone)
The CEO called up the chairman. (call up telephone)
The CEO called back the reporter. (call back return someone’s telephone call)
What is so unusual about the grammar of separable phrasal verbs is that the adverb part of the
verb compound can be moved to a position following the direct object, breaking the verb compound
apart:
The CEO called off the meetings. ⇒ The CEO called the meeting off.
The CEO called up the chair. ⇒ The CEO called the chair up.
The CEO called back the reporter. ⇒ The CEO called the reporter back.
Note that the adverb part of the compound is moved to a position immediately after the direct
object, but before any other adverbs:
The CEO called off the meetings yesterday ⇒ The CEO called the meetings off yesterday.
Sometimes learners make the assumption that the adverb moves to the end of the sentence. This
is not correct:
The CEO called off the meetings yesterday ⇒ X The CEO called the meetings yesterday off.