СЕМАНТИКО-СТИЛИСТИЧЕСКОЕ ИССЛЕДОВАНИЕ ФРАЗОВЫХ ГЛАГОЛОВ В ИЗБРАННЫХ РАССКАЗАХ МАРКА ТВЕНА

1. Introduction

Phrasal verbs (henceforth, PVs) are considered an important characteristic of the English language [6, p. 30]. In the 18th century, many grammarians such as Robert Lowh and Samuel Johnson tried to direct attention to PVs.  PVs came to be one of the favorite topics in the 20th century [ 10, pp. 1-2[. A PV is made up of a sequence of lexical elements plus one or two particles (an adverb or a preposition), which together function as a single verb, for example ‘come on,’ ‘get up’, and ‘look out for’ [3, p.  263].  PVs or multi-word verbs (henceforth MWVs) as they are often referred to, are also defined by Hart [4, p.: V] as “combinations of ordinary verbs like put, take, come and particles like in, out, on, and off”.  A particle plays a crucial role in the definition of PVs. When it is combined with a particular verb, it creates a unique meaning for the PV. This is because the meaning relies on “whether particles are purely idiomatic or whether they rather consist of clusters of related and transparent meanings” [ 9, p. :3].

PVs are regarded as “single units in grammar”, and says that “there are severe collocational restrictions”. For example, it is correct to say ‘look after’ someone but not correct to say “look before” him/her. PVs are idiomatic as they constitute “obviously semantic units”. For instance, ‘give in’ means ‘yield’ [7, p.180]. The PV is, “next to the noun + noun combination, probably the most prolific source of new nouns in English” (1, p. 42). The present study sheds light on Mark Twain’s usage of PVs as a part of spoken and written English. English is characterized by the existence of numerous and various PVs. Mark Twain uses many PVs, such as ‘slide down’, ‘fell off’, ‘go off’, and ‘came over’, in his two short stories “A Mysterious Visit” (MV) (1870) [11] and “Eve’s Diary” (ED) (1905) [12]. It is hypothesized that:

1. Mark Twain uses many kinds of MWVs in his “A Mysterious Visit” (1870) and “Eve’s Diary” (1905) short stories, but the number of  prepositional verbs (Prep. Vs)  is more than that of  PVs and phrasal-prepositional verbs (PPVs).

2. The selected short stories by Mark Twain are characterized by the use of fewer semantic idiomatic PVs and PPVs than the more literal Prep. Vs.

2. Methodology: Some Relevant Models of Semantic Analysis

This section briefly outlines some of the well-known models of semantic analysis upon which this research depends in the analysis of the data:

2.1Quirk et.al (1985): In classifying MWVs, Quirk et.al [8, p. 1150] attempt to distinguish four types under these headings: PVs, prepositional verbs (henceforth  Prep. Vs), phrasal-prepositional verbs (henceforth PPVs) and free combination. A MWV is defined by Quirk et.al (ibid) as “a unit which behaves to some extent either lexically or syntactically as a single verb”. Furthermore, they explain that “the semantic unity of multi-word verbs can often be manifested in replacement by a single-word verb”. For instance, ‘call for’ can be replaced by ‘visit’, ‘call up’ by ‘summon’, ‘leave out’ by ‘omit’. MWVs are classified according to their idiomaticity into three main categories: “highly idiomatic”, “semi-idiomatic” and “free/non-idiomatic” constructions.  PVs are classified  into two types according to their transitivity or intransitivity [5, p. 45].

2.2 Celce-Murcia and Larsen-Freeman (1999):   Celce-Murcia and Larsen-Freeman [2] categorize PVs, semantically speaking, as follows: “literal”, “idiomatic”, “aspectual”, and “completive”.  Kamarudin [2, pp. 45-46] points out that Celce-Murcia and Larsen Freeman’s [2, p.: 32] first category (literal PVs) is similar to Quirk et. al’ s [8] ‘non-idiomatic constructions’, though  not regarded as PVs.

Idiomatic PVs are similar to Quirk et. al.’s  idiomatic categories of PVs. The particle of the “aspectual”  PVs may be: (1) “inceptive”  aspectual PVs, as this points out the  beginning state of an action such as ‘set out’, (2) continuative PVs such as ‘Hurry along now’, (3) “iterative” PVs in which the particle ‘over’  shows the  repetition of  an activity, or (4) “completive”  PVs indicating the ending of an action [2, p. 433].

2.3 Bolinger (1971): Nine tests used to prove whether the combination of a “verb + particle” which constitutes a PV are presented [ 1, pp.6-11]:

2.3.1 Replaceability: This indicates that the “verb + particle” combination can be replaced by  a one-word verb. For example, ‘get around’  means ‘to circumvent’. However, some PVs might not  have one-word equivalents,  as in ‘pay off’, which means ‘to be worthwhile’. Therefore, this test is not always reliable in deciding whether the combination of  a “verb + particle”  is a PV [ 1, p. 6].

2.3.2 Formation of Passives: This  can be passive. For example “They talked about you” becomes “you were talked about” [ 1, p. 8].

2.3.3 Formation of Action Nominals: The formation of action nominals might be derived from transitive PVs, as in “He looked up  the information” [1, p. 9]. However, there are some  doubtful cases, as in “The running up of the hill was a matter of minutes” [1, p.10].

2.3.4 Object Movement:

The particle can be moved either before or after the direct object of transitive PVs, as in “He looked up his friends” [1, p.10].

2.3.5 Pronoun Placement:

To check the pronoun placement in which Bolinger indicates that direct object pronouns usually precede the particle if the combination is transitive: e.g., we may say “You`re putting on him! but not   “You’re putting him on!” [1, p.10].

2.3.6 Adverbial Insertion:

In  PVs, no insertion of adverbs is allowed between the verb and the particle, as in “I’m afraid you’ll find these transfer students gradually   dropping out” [1, p.10].

2.3.7 Stress:

A contrast is made between AvPs in PVs (e.g. ‘look UP’) from pure prepositions (e.g. “LOOK at”) [1, p.10].

2.3.7 Definite Noun Phrases:

           Kamarudin [5, p. 41] says that another test proposed by Bolinger (1971:15) is to check behavior with definite noun phrases. Here, the “proper name or the plus a common noun” that comes after the particle is not considered its object, for instance: “You left out the caption”.

2. 4 Palmer (1965)

      Palmer [ 7, p. 185] agrees with Quirk et.al (1985) in considering items with single linguistic units in the grammar, such as ‘give in’, ‘look after’, ‘make up’, and ‘put up’, giving three reasons behind that saying:

a) Some “collocational restrictions” are found; e.g., we can ‘give up’ but not ‘give down’.
b) They are considered “semantic units”. For example, ‘give in’ means ‘yield’.
c) All except one type, which is intransitive (exemplified by ‘give in’), have a corresponding passive. For example: “His father was looked after”

​3 Discussion of  the Models of Analysis

       None of the models surveyed above are felt to be adequate enough to cover all aspects of analysis in this work, if taken separately. All of them tackle the important semantic features of PVs from different points of view. While Quirk et.al [8] agree with Bolinger [1] and Palmer [7] in considering PVs constructions as single linguistic units in grammar, they give different reasons behind that. Celce-Murcia and Larsen-Freeman [2] provide a more comprehensive account for PVs, concentrating on categorizing them into idiomatic and literal constructions depending on their meaning. Although the models cover grammatical, semantic and syntactic characteristics of PVs, only the first two are made use of simply because syntactic ones are excluded in this study. However, it should be pointed out here that the most  relevant model for this study is that of Quirk et.al [8].

3.1 Data of Analysis

This study focuses on giving a description of PVs through their complex prospective of semantic, syntactic, and morphological features. Two short stories written by the American writer Mark Twain have been chosen for comparison: “A Mysterious Visit” (henceforth MV) (1870) and “Eve’s Diary” (henceforth ED) (1905). Each short story will be shortly introduced from the point of view of its pages. There will be several tables for each short story, summarizing the data gained in the analysis. The tables will be provided with the exact number of PVs in every short story, the number of Prep. Vs and idiomatic/literal PVs, and their repetition throughout the whole short story.

Data selected is based on the following considerations:

A. The two short stories were written by the same American writer.

B. They are roughly comparable in length.

3.2 The Analysis of  Data

The first step in the semantic analysis ofPVs occurrence is to investigate the first hypothesis. The second step will present findings regarding the second hypothesis of the research. Accordingly, the semantic analysis of the data selected depends on the Quirk et.al [ 8] model. After conducting such an analysis, a comparison is made betweenthe aforementioned short stories from the point of view ofPVs, Prep. Vs, and PPVs numbers presented in each short story. Besides, a comparison of the most frequently repeated verbs of each story will follow. Another comparison will be introduced to show the difference between the percentages of the three types of MUWVs presented in each short story.

Table – 1: Comparison on MUWVs numbers between MV and ED

According to Table (1), the short story with the highest number of MUWVs is ED (117). It also contains the highest number of Prep. Vs (66), whereas MV contains (36). In addition to this, the number of PVs in ED (45) is more than in MV (24). The last category, PPVs, obtain the number (6) in ED and (1) in MV.

Table 2 – Comparison of  MUWVs between  MV and ED

As can be seen from Table (2), the Prep. V ‘think of’ is repeated seven times in the two lists. It is repeated five times on pages 5, 16, 17, 20, and 31 in ED, whereas it is repeated twice on page (2) in MV.

Table 3 – Comparison on MUWVs percentages between MV and ED

Table (3) reveals the percentages of MWVs presented in the two short stories. It can obviously be seen that the short story with the highest percentage of PVs is  ED at 38.4 %, whereas MV contains 39.3 %. Prep. Vs compose 59 % of the MUWVs in MV and 56.4 % of those in ED. The last category (PPVs) is used 5.1% in ED and 1.6% in MV.

Table 4 – Number of idiomatic and literal PVs in MV

Table (4) deals with the divisions of literal and idiomatic PVs used in MV. The table is divided according to the story page numbers.

Table 5 – The percentage of idiomatic and literal PVs in MV

Table (5) reveals the number of idiomatic and literal PVs and their percentages. It can be noticed that the category with the highest percentage is literal PVs (59 %), whereas the lowest category is idiomatic PVs (40.9 %).

Table 6 – Number of idiomatic and literal PVs in ED

Table (6) concentrates on the number of idiomatic and literal PVs used in ED.

Table 7 – The percentage of idiomatic and literal PVs in ED

Table (7) clarifies that literal PVs have the highest percentage (57.2 %) while the idiomatic ones have the lowest percentage (42.7 %).

Table 8 – Comparison of MUWVs percentages in MV and ED

According to the above table, it is obvious that the percentage of the first category (idiomatic PVs) in ED (42.7 %) is higher than its percentage inMV (40.9 %), whereas the second category (literal PVs) is higher in MV (59 %) than in ED (57.2%).

4. Results and Conclusions

The results drawn from the analysis of the types of MWVs together with the semantic aspect of them can be stated as follows: In the first short story, MV, which consists of (1770) words, there are (61) different MWVs: (24) PVs, (36) Prep. Vs, and (1) PPV. In the first short story, there is repetition of some MWVs, such as ‘got up’, ‘find out’, ‘make of’, ‘think of’, ‘trade with’, and ‘work up’. The percentages of MWVs occurrence in the first short story can be shown as follows:

                  Prep. Vs       59    %

                  PVs              39.3%

                  PPV              1.6%

In the second short story, ED, which consists of (4157) words, there are (117) different MWVs: (46) PVs, (65) Prep. Vs, and (6) PPVs. In the second short story, there is repetition of some MWVs, such as ‘come along’, ‘get back’, ‘give up’, ‘looked back’, ‘make out’, ‘slide down’, ‘went away’, ‘care for’, ‘heard of’, ‘talk to’, ‘think of’, and ‘went to’. The percentages of MWVs occurrence in the second short story can be shown as follows:

                   Prep. Vs      55.5 %

                   PVs             39.3  %

                   PPVs            5.1  %

So, as shown above, the percentage of Prep. Vs used in the two short stories is more than the percentages of  PVs and  PPVs. Concerning the semantic analysis of MWVs, in the first short story, out of (61) used MWVs, there are (24) PVs and (1) PPV considered idiomatic. The rest (36) Prep. Vs are considered literal. So, the percentage of the idiomatic MWVs in the first short story is 40.9 %, whereas the percentage of the literal MWVs (Prep. Vs) is (59(%. In the second short story, out of (117) used MWVs, there are (46) PVs and (6) PPVs considered as idiomatic. The remaining (65)  Prep. Vs are considered literal. So, the percentage of the idiomatic MWVs in the second short story is 43.5 %, whereas the percentage of literal MWVs (Prep. Vs) is 55.5%. Regarding the hypotheses set for this research, the results of semantic analysis lead to the following conclusions: (1) As for the first hypothesis, namely that “Mark Twain uses many kinds of MWVs in his MV and ED short stories, but the number of Prep. Vs is more than this of PVs and PPVs”, it seems that PVs and PPVs are less than Prep. Vs. Yet, all the used MWV types are marked as a characteristic feature of  Twain’s English language. (2) As for the second hypothesis, namely that “the selected Mark Twain’s short stories are characterized by the use of semantic idiomatic PVs, PPVs whose number is less than the use of the literal Prep. Vs”, it can be shown that this hypothesis is also verified. So, this semantic analysis of phrasal verbs contributes the following stylistic analysis of Mark Twain's usage of phrasal verbs: (1) Mark Twain uses  phrasal verbs and prepositional phrasal verbs  less than prepositional verbs, compared with the usage of the other categories of the same group of multi-word verbs, and (2) Mark Twain uses literal phrasal verbs  more than other  idiomatic phrasal verbs. Therefore, it can be concluded that  Mark  Twain's tendency  to use literal phrasal verbs more than other types of phrasal verbs marks his style of simplicity, a style that can be comprehended when reading his short stories. His use of numerous types of phrasal verbs verifies the theoreticians’  claim of the importance of the use of phrasal verbs.