| Phrasal Verbs are easily distinguished from prepositional verbs. |
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I'm not all that convinced it's so cut 'n dried. Meaning plays a vital role.
She looked
over the fence. (adverb; she looked where?)
?The fence was looked over.
She looked
over the fence. (direct object)
The fence was looked over. (given the once over, inspected)
Moreover, for the majority of non-native speakers, the acceptability of a passivized sentence is difficult to determine:
She dropped
by the house. (adverb; reflexive: she dropped herself by the house)
?The house was dropped by.
She dropped
off the keys. (direct object)
The keys were dropped off.
And then there's insertion, and movement to contend with:
She dropped me off the keys. (colloquial; IO "me" / to me) [this is a good test, actually]
She dropped the keys off for me. (dropped off -> keys off) [this test is suspect, though]
If there's an all encompassing test out there that works, I'd love to hear about.