[FONT="]To me the semantic continuum of phrasal verbs means the progression from what we might call non-phrasal verb constructions to full-blown phrasal verbs:[/FONT]
[FONT="]1. As I came in to the room, Mary
looked up.[/FONT]
[FONT="]2. As a child, I always
looked up to my older sister.[/FONT]
[FONT="]3a. I’ll look you up when I am next in town.[/FONT]
[FONT="]3b. I had to look up ‘continuum’ in my dictionary.[/FONT]
[FONT="]In #1, the words ‘look’ and ‘up’ retain their literal meanings. I doubt if anybody would consider the underlined words to be an example of a phrasal verb.[/FONT]
[FONT="]In #2, the words have taken on a metaphorical meaning. The ‘Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary (2000) considers ‘look up to’ (= admire/respect) to be a phrasal verb.[/FONT]
[FONT="]In #3a and b, we have moved some way from the literal meanings of ‘look’ and ‘up’. These are what I have called ‘full-blown’ phrasal verbs.[/FONT]
[FONT="]This continuum is similar to that of Celce-Murcia and Larsen-Freeman (1999): Literal, Aspectual and Idiomatic Phrasal Verbs[/FONT]
[FONT="]Some writers class such constructions as ‘look at’ (= turn your eyes towards) and go in(to) (= enter) as phrasal verbs. If you agree with such a classification, then you would presumably have a new category 2; and 3a and b would become 4a and b. [/FONT]
[FONT="]Some writers, e.g. Carter and McCarthy (2006), class as prepositional verbs those which “consist of a verb and a preposition which are closely linked with each other’. Their examples include such verbs as ‘deal’ with, which Sinclair (1990) considers to be a phrasal verb. These would presumably come immediately after my #1.[/FONT]
[FONT="]Another personal view is that of Phil White: "The whole issue of multi-word verbs is, however, fraught, and there seems to me to be a continuum between phrasals, prepositional verbs and verb + preposition combinations, with the borderlines subject to blurring."[/FONT]
[FONT="]References[/FONT]
[FONT="]Carter, Ronald & McCarty, Michael (2006)
Cambridge Grammar of English, Cambridge: CUP[/FONT]
[FONT="]Celce-Murcia, Marianne and Larsen- Freeman, Diane (1999)
The Grammar Book, Second Edition, Boston, Mass: Heinle & Heinle.[/FONT]
[FONT="]Sinclair, John [Editor-in-Chief] (1990)
Collins Cobuild English Grammar, London: HarperCollins[/FONT]
[FONT="]Wehmeier, Sally [Editor] (2000);
Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary: Oxford: OUP[/FONT]
[FONT="]White, Phil: Posting on:
wordwizard.com - View topic - Separating prepositions from verbs[/FONT]
[FONT="]See also:[/FONT]
[FONT="]References to a continuum of opaqueness in:
http://acl.ldc.upenn.edu/W/W03/W03-1810.pdf[/FONT]
[FONT="]The gradability of idiomaticity in:
Verbal idioms in focus - towards the continuum of idiomatic expressions. (Linguistics). - Studia Anglica Posnaniensia: international review of English Studies | HighBeam Research - FREE trial[/FONT]