That's exactly the way I pronounce "make up for", and I think your analysis of "make up for" is reasonable.
Thanks. The fact that you pronounce like that is a good sign that you have a natural way of speaking.
However, the definition I use of 'particle' is:
(
grammar) an adverb or a preposition that can combine with a verb to make a phrasal verb. (
OALD)
Right. That's no different to my definition, though. This doesn't mean that a phrasal verb can have
two particles (it can't).
Also, in my favorite Macmillan Phrasal Verbs Plus Dictionary, the verb phrase make up for is classified as a 'three-part phrasal verb'.
I think that's misleading. I wouldn't call it a 'three-part phrasal verb' but rather a 'three-part chunk'. The 'chunk' consists of a phrasal verb (stem+particle) and a collocated preposition phrase head (preposition). (By '
collocated', I mean to say that it is very likely that the phrasal verb
make up is
followed by a preposition phrase with
for as the head, within a particular semantic framework (i.e., to give a certain meaning). It's precisely the strength of this collocational bond that makes it a chunk. It's neither useful nor sensible to think of the preposition as an actual part of the verb itself.