I'm here again! How bad I felt but I really need some advise

[Helped Wanted]

Regarding the placing of preposition, which one would be more appropriate? Thanks again! T_T


The police gave back the money to...

or

...gave the money back

Similarly...

Take out all of your money

or Take all of your money out ( as in take them out)

Similarly again..

Leave out the word or leave the word out but we say leave it out


Geeee...very confused! Please help, my dearest teachers!

[RonBee]

Gave the money back is more idiomatic. In the second one, I would say Take all of your money out. In the third one, I would say leave the word out .

I hope that takes care of your confusion. :wink:

[Helped Wanted]

Thanks again! ^o^

[RonBee]

The phrase is sometimes used without a (stated) object, thus:

• They gave back the money.

:)

[CitySpeak]

Regarding the placing of preposition, which one would be more appropriate? Thanks again! T_T


The police gave back the money to...

or

...gave the money back

Similarly...

Take out all of your money

or Take all of your money out ( as in take them out)

Similarly again..

Leave out the word or leave the word out but we say leave it out


Geeee...very confused! Please help, my dearest teachers!

The police gave back the money to...

or

...gave the money back

We can say, "The police gave back the money."

We can also say, "The police gave the money back"

give back - This is a separable phrasal verb. If a noun is the object of a separable phrasal verb, the object can come after or before the preposition. If a pronoun is the object of a separable phrasal verb, then the object must come before the preposition.

You can say, "The police gave it back."

But we cannot say "The police gave back it."
___________________________________

Similarly again..

Leave out the word or leave the word out but we say leave it out

The same applies here.

leave out - separable phrasal verb

We can say, "Leave out the word."

We can also say "Leave the word out."

If we use a pronoun instead of a noun, we can say, "Leave it out.". But we cannot say, "Leave out it."

[CitySpeak]

The phrase is sometimes used without a (stated) object, thus:

• They gave back the money.

:)

In that sentence, "money" is the object. What do you mean by "stated object"?

[CitySpeak]

Similarly...

Take out all of your money

or Take all of your money out ( as in take them out)


We can say, "Take out money."

We can also say, "Take money out."

take out - separable phrasal verb

When a phrasal verb is separable, the object can come before or after the preposition if the object is a noun. If the object is a pronoun, the object must come before the preposition. In other words, when the object of a separable phrasal verb is a pronoun, a separable phrasal verb has to remain separable. A separable phrasal verb does not have to remain separable if its object is a noun.

[RonBee]

The phrase is sometimes used without a (stated) object, thus:

• They gave back the money.

:)

In that sentence, "money" is the object. What do you mean by "stated object"?

In the sentence, "They gave back the money" we leave out the prepositional phrase indicating who they gave the money to. That is the unstated object I was referring to.

:(

[CitySpeak]

The phrase is sometimes used without a (stated) object, thus:

• They gave back the money.

:)

In that sentence, "money" is the object. What do you mean by "stated object"?

In the sentence, "They gave back the money" we leave out the prepositional phrase indicating who they gave the money to. That is the unstated object I was referring to.

:(

Whoever they give the money back to would then be the indirect object.

They gave the money back to Tom.

money - recieves the action of giving - direct object

Tom - receives the money - indirect object

I would leave the this phrasal verb separable if there is an indirect object.

"They gave back the money to Tom." - This sounds rather odd, awkward and unusual. I wouldn't say it. It would not occur to most people whose first language is English to say it that way in my view. It might be a grammatical possiblity, but it sounds strange to me.

"They gave the money back to Tom." - That sounds like a more naturally spoken sentence. Here, the phrasal verb remains separable.

Interesting. Is it such that separable phrasal verbs are best left separable when they have an object?

[Tdol]

'Is it such that separable phrasal verbs are best left separable when they have an object?'

I don't think it's necessarily the case.