Grammatical Summary

PRESENT PRODUCTIVITY OF PHRASAL VERBS

To get an overview of the productivity of this type of combination, view the table below by Francis (1958) containing eight verbs and three short adverbs. The combining of each verb with each short adverb will yield a total of 24 new phrasal verbs. For example, the verb make yields make out, make up, and make over.

make
take
put
throw	out
hold	up
give	over
get
play

Components of Phrasal Verbs

The number of verbs that can form phrasal verbs in English is limitless. But the number of short adverbs and prepositions that can accommodate this structure is much smaller. They include more or less the words in the two columns below, most of which serve as both adverbs and prepositions:

Short Adverbs	Prepositions
about	about
across	across
around	around
down	down
by	by
in	in
off	off
on	on
out	out
over	over
through	through
to	to
aside	at
away	for
back	from
together	of
	into