Sentence analysis of phrasal verbs

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Hela

#145100 Thu, 06 Oct 05 09:41 AM

Dear teachers,

Would you please help me to solve this problem?

Example 1: I have been looking for you everywhere.

"Parsing" = sentence analysis (correct use ?)

Form + Function :
I = Noun Phrase = subject
have been looking = Verb Phrase = transitive verb
for you = Prepositional Phrase you = object of the prep. "for"
everywhere = Adverb Phrase = adverbial of place

OR

have been looking for = Verb Phrase = transitive verb
you = Noun Phrase = direct object

Example 2: The building opposite our school is being pulled down.

Form + Function:
The building ... shcool = NP = subject
is being pulled down = VP = intransitive verb

OR

is being pulled = Verb Phrase = intransitive verb
down = Adverb Phrase = adverbial of place ??

Do you consider "look for" and "pulled down" as prepositional verbs or as phrasal verbs? i.e. are "for" and "down" part of the verb or do they start a new sentence element?

Thank you for your help.
Hela

Hela

Joined on Mon, Nov 15 2004

Tunisia

Regular Member (831)

Verbs, Nouns, Adverbs, Noun Phrases, Prepositional Verbs, Phrasal Verbs, Direct Objects

paco2004

#145560 Fri, 07 Oct 05 02:12 PM

Hello Hela

As for the last question, I prefer to take the whole of "look for" as a verb for the convenience of its use. On the other hand I take "pull down" as <a verb + an adverb> because we can say "we pulled it down" when the object is a pronoun. Anyway the opinions about how to parse those multi-word verbal phrases seem to vary among grammarians. To me, grammar is just a tool in learning languages and my choice comes not from which way is correct but from which way is convenient for me to learn and use phrases.

paco

paco2004