Abstract:
Phrasal verbs are recognized to constitute
a vast section of the English vocabulary. Recent theoretical
developments have revealed that there are various nominations of phrasal verbs in modern linguistics such as “two-word
verbs”, “discontinuous verbs”, “multi-word verbs”, “verbal
collocations” etc.
Researchers have always seen a phrasal verb as a combination of a verb with a preposition or an adverb, or simultaneously with both of these parts of speech; it appears as one
member of the sentence and, thus, forms a coherent semantic
construction. The uniqueness of English phrasal verbs lies in
the fact that despite the lexical and semantic changes that these
formations underwent in the process of language development,
they retained a separately formed character or “phrasal”.
A close attention to the phrasal verbs of both linguists
and methodologists is caused by their high communicative
value providing unlimited opportunities to express virtually
any concept. Phrasal verbs are an almost innumerable group
of verbs, which in combination with various prepositions or
adverbs are able to acquire a variety of new meanings.
Phrasal verbs have a number of specific features: semantic
relations between the constituent parts of phrasal verbs, polysemy, variety, idiomaticity. Obviously, popularity of phrasal verbs (their usage in oral as well as in written speech) is
explained by their semantic conciseness and great informativeness. Functioning of phrasal verbs in English is directly
related to the mobility of these language combinations, their
ability to acquire new and transform existing lexical meanings
for spreading them to new concepts and phenomena.
It should be stated that a distinctive feature of phrasal
verbs is a different degree of cohesion and a different nature
of the influence of adjacent elements on the meaning of a phrasal verb. This fact makes them an interesting subject for analysis
within various scientific approaches: in terms of phraseology,
taxonomic (semantic) and cognitive vectors
