Sorry Jim, the term "unreal phrasal verb" doesn't exist I've just made it up. What I wanted to do is to make the difference between verbs with an idiomatic meaning (= phrasal verbs) and verbs with a straightforward meaning (name ??) I know

I think maybe one of the other forum members would be better at this terminology. For example, I am not familiar with "unreal phrasal verbs". I would not call the b) sentences prepositional verbs. I would call "to talk someone into

Good morning Jim, So should I call the verbs in sentences (b) "ordinary / plain verbs" or "prepositional verbs" (with a literal sense) as opposed to "phrasal verbs" (= with an idiomatic sense) ? If the prepositional verbs in your list are

Your b) examples are just plain sentences with ordinary verbs. If a verb is not a phrasal verb and not a prepositional verb, then it's "a verb", just like the thousands of them we see in sentences every day! ... we can ... not between a

Dear teachers, I've just realized that just as a phrasal verb can be a combination of a verb + preposition OR adverb, a ...... verb (which is not a phrasal verb) can also be followed by a preposition OR adverb. So I shouldn't call it a

coming of age is different. This thread was mostly concerned with the prepositional verb come of , where of goes with come . In come of age , the verb is just come . The of doesn't go with come . The of goes with age . of age means old enough ,

How to generalize? In the intransitive case there's no choice about placement of the object because there is no object. In the transitive case there are three correct ways to structure the words. pick up the pencil; pick the pencil up;

all the way home is an adverbial phrase indicating during/along the entire trip/path/way to their home . It is a curious mix of adverb of place (path, actually) and adverb of time (period, actually). Individually, all is an adverb of degree (how

They set a riot off seems acceptable, even though our preference seems to be for They set off a riot . (Note the article.) Here it is the selectional criteria that may be interfering. Substitute bomb for riot , and both They set off a bomb and

They set a riot off seems acceptable, even though our preference seems to be for They set off a riot . (Note the article.) Here it is the selectional criteria that may be interfering. Substitute bomb for riot , and both They set off a bomb and