Abstract
This study presents a critique of some of the corpus-based studies on phrasal verbs carried out in different types of corpora. Not only is it an attempt to provide the reader with some of the revealing findings these works have to offer but it also tends to critically discuss some of the methodological issues associated with them. It starts off discussing the works done on phrasal verbs in general corpora, then goes on to review the studies dealt with the combinations in learner corpora and ends up with looking into the research focused on the presentation of the phrasal verbs in ELT materials. It is hoped that the methodological issues addressed in the study would be taken into account by the interested researchers in their future research attempts.
Highlights
With recent studies in SLA highlighting the significance of vocabulary and multiword expressions in language learning, the direction of a considerable body of linguistic research began to shift from syntax and phonology to the neglected areas of the lexicon and multi-word expressions. Laufer (1997, p. 147) emphasizes this paradigm shift by stating “After decades of neglect, lexicon is recognized as central to language acquisition process, native or non-native”
The phrasal verb has been variously defined as a verb followed by a morphologically invariable particle functioning as a single grammatical form with an idiomatic meaning (Quirk, Greenbaum, Leech, & Svartvik, 1985), combination of a verb and a particle or a preposition forming a unit of meaning (Cowie & Mackin, 2001), a two-word verb that functions as a single verb (Celce-Murcia and Larsen-Freeman, 1999), or a structure consisting of a verb proper and a morphologically invariable particle that functions as a single lexical and semantic unit (Darwin & Gray, 1999)
In order to determine the frequency counts of the phrasal verbs and their particle elements and to examine the number of word-senses of each unit in the corpus, she built an European Union (EU) English Corpus of approximately 200,000 running words from the texts representing the fields of activities of the EU
Summary
With recent studies in SLA highlighting the significance of vocabulary and multiword expressions in language learning, the direction of a considerable body of linguistic research began to shift from syntax and phonology to the neglected areas of the lexicon and multi-word expressions. Laufer (1997, p. 147) emphasizes this paradigm shift by stating “After decades of neglect, lexicon is recognized as central to language acquisition process, native or non-native”. The phrasal verb has been variously defined as a verb followed by a morphologically invariable particle functioning as a single grammatical form with an idiomatic meaning (Quirk, Greenbaum, Leech, & Svartvik, 1985), combination of a verb and a particle or a preposition forming a unit of meaning (Cowie & Mackin, 2001), a two-word verb that functions as a single verb (Celce-Murcia and Larsen-Freeman, 1999), or a structure consisting of a verb proper and a morphologically invariable particle that functions as a single lexical and semantic unit (Darwin & Gray, 1999) These structures are syntactically categorized as transitive/intransitive The present critical review, homes in on a meta-analysis of the corpus-based studies dealing with these combinations in different general, learner and pedagogic corpora
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