What is multi-words verbs?

There are very many multi-word verbs (sometimes called phrasal verbs)
in English and it’s very difficult to learn them all. It can sometimes be
quite easy to guess the meaning (He picked up the pencil) but other
multi-word verbs are less easy to guess (I picked up Italian quite easily
when I lived there) and you should look them up in a good dictionary.
When you record new multi-word verbs in your notebook it can be
helpful to record what type they are.

Multi-word verbs are made up of a verb and a particle or, sometimes,

two particles.
 Separable

He cut the tree down.

He cut down the tree.
 With separable verbs the verb and particle can be apart or together – the
meaning doesn’t change.

Look at another example:

Can you turn the radio down please?

Can you turn down the radio please?
 However, when we use a pronoun – usually ‘it’ in place of the subject – it
must come between the verb and the particle in separable multi-word verbs.

Can you turn it down please?

Can you turn down it please? is NOT possible.
 Non-separable

 Who looks after the baby when you’re at work?

 In non-separable verbs the verb and particle cannot be separated.

 Who looks the baby after is NOT possible.

 When there is a pronoun the verb and particle remain together.

 Who looks after her when you’re at work?

 With two particles

 Who came up with that idea?

 I don’t know how you put up with it.
 There are a few verbs with two particles and they act like inseparable multi-word verbs.

 Intransitive

 What time do you get up?

 The plane took off and rose into the sky.
 Intransitive verbs do not have an object. Multi-word verbs can also be intransitive.
Multi-word verbs are a large and important class of English verbs in
which a single verb-word works in close association with one or more
other words. Most often there is just one other word, a ‘particle,’ in
addition to the verb-word. This particle can be either a preposition or
an adverb. Sometimes, however, the associated word is not a particle
but rather an adjective, a noun, or another verb.
Types of Multi-Words Verbs
 phrasal verbs:

 for example: break up • take off • throw out • put through • turn away • check in • find out

 prepositional verbs:

 for example: look at • approve of • call on • protect from • get rid of • take care of • lose touch with

 phrasal-prepositional verbs:

 for example: look forward to • put up with • look in on • get away with • look down on • do away with

 other multi-word verbs:

 for example: cut short • plead guilty • let go • lie low • break even • make do • get going
The key to understanding the nature of multi-word verbs is to see that they all
share the characteristic of unity. To say that a multi-word verb is unified is to say
that the two or more words it contains make up a single thing—a unit. And
because they are units, these verbs should be taught and learned as units. The
nature of the unity, however, varies sharply between the two most important types
—phrasal verbs and prepositional verbs. The unity of the phrasal verbs is primarily
semantic. For example when the phrasal verb “take off“ is used in a sentence like
“Jill took off her sweater” the verb-word “take” loses the meaning it has when
used alone and now works together with the particle “off” to create a new
meaning. In the case of most prepositional verbs, by contrast, the verb-word and
the particle form a syntactic not a semantic unit: the particle/preposition is
required in order for an object to be attached to the verb. For example, when the
prepositional verb “approve of” is used in a sentence like “Sam did not approve of
Jill’s behavior” the verb-word “approve” has the same meaning as it does when it
is used without a preposition in the sentence “Sam did not approve.”

It may seem contradictory to speak of multi-word ‘verbs’ since the term “verb” is
normally used to refer to a type of word (i.e. a member of the verb-word class).
There is, however, a well-established extended use of the term “word” according to
which it can be used to refer to a group of two or more words which operates as a
single semantic or syntactic unit. In that extended sense a multi-word verb can be
regarded as a “word” and therefore as a “verb.”
What is Phrasal Verbs?
Phrasal Verbs present problems for many learners. One initial problem is
that writers on the subject disagree as to exactly what a phrasal verb is:
others use different names for different types. For example, some
differentiate between phrasal verbs and prepositional verbs and present
both as sub-classes of multi-word verbs; some consider prepositional
verbs to be a sub-class of phrasal verbs; and some use different
terminology altogether. However, whatever the name, the concept of
what we may neutrally call multi-word verbs is useful. It helps you see
that there is a real difference in the meaning of the underlined words in:
1. He looked up the stairwell in the old house.

2. He looked up ‘stairwell’ in the dictionary

 In #1, look is a verb with a meaning similar to turn one's eyes in a particular
direction, and up is a preposition conveying the idea of to or in a higher position
somewhere. Each word can be used naturally with these meanings in thousands of
other sentences, as for example:

1a. If you look carefully, you can just see the old house.

2a. She pushed the pram up the hill.

In #2, however, the words look and up together make up a unit with a meaning
similar to seek information about; this meaning cannot easily be inferred from the
core meaning of the two parts. A further difference between the sentences is that it is
possible to re-position up in #2 but not in #1:
2b. He looked the word up in the dictionary.

1b. *He looked the stairwell up in the old house.

It is useful, therefore, to consider the two parts of the ‘unit’ of look up
(=seek information about) as a single multi-word verb (called by some
writers a phrasal verb). The name is not important, though
understanding how the verb groups are used is. It is also important for
you not to worry if examples such as look for are given different names
by different writers, For example, a phrasal verb, a prepositional verb
or a verb followed by a preposition. Look for still means something like
seek or try to find, whatever we call it, and #3 is always unacceptable:
3. *I have told Luke to look the missing file for.

In the following sections we examine the ways in which multi-word

verbs are used. We shall see that the verbs fall into distinct types. For
the sake of easy reference, each type has been given a name but, as
noted above, the name is not important; what we are examining is how
each type is used.