---
title: "Verb-particle constructions in Cognitive Linguistics perspective:"
description: "The paper asks how far English phrasal verbs (PV) can be explained by their parts. 19 references."
authors: ["Izabela Jarosz"]
year: 2019
venue: "LingBaW 5"
source: "https://czasopisma.kul.pl/index.php/LingBaW/article/view/5378"
doi: "10.31743/lingbaw.5378"
licence: "CC BY (journal licence per DOAJ; LingBaW)"
licence_url: "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"
summary_licence: "Elamur Cosmic License"
canonical: "https://research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/jarosz-2019-verb-particle-constructions-cognitive-linguistics/"
---
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# Verb-particle constructions in Cognitive Linguistics perspective: Compositionality behind selected English phrasal verbs

**Authors:** Izabela Jarosz · **Year:** 2019 · **Venue:** [LingBaW 5](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/venues/linguistics-beyond-and-within-lingbaw/) ([Linguistics Beyond and Within (LingBaW) 2019](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/venues/linguistics-beyond-and-within-lingbaw/2019/)) · **Licence:** [CC BY (journal licence per DOAJ; LingBaW)](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

**Links:** [Publisher's page](https://doi.org/10.31743/lingbaw.5378) · [PDF](https://czasopisma.kul.pl/index.php/LingBaW/article/download/5378/5224) · [DOI 10.31743/lingbaw.5378](https://doi.org/10.31743/lingbaw.5378) · [OpenAlex](https://openalex.org/W3027044257)

**Citations:** 1 citations (OpenAlex, 2026-10-14)

## Summary
The paper asks how far English phrasal verbs (PV) can be explained by their parts. It works within Cognitive Linguistics and assumes only partial compositionality: a construction's meaning comes from its components, from how they interact (coercion), and from extra content the hearer reconstructs from background knowledge. Jarosz revisits four verb-particle constructions built on *get* and *take* with spatial-orientational particles, all previously analysed by Mahpeykar and Tyler (2014), and refines their method. Every PV sense is analysed as a pairing of a single verb sense with a single particle sense, and each of the two is labelled central (physical) or extended. Any leftover "additional" meaning is then traced to the verb's wider semantic network. Senses are checked against usage examples from COCA and from dictionaries (CD, MDPV). Two patterns emerge. The extra meaning in non-literal PVs comes from other senses of the verb. Whether the whole PV is physical or figurative is decided by the particle. This makes PVs look more systematic than traditional accounts allowed, which matters for teaching and for lexical modelling.

## Key points
- Framework: partial or weakened compositionality (Langacker, Taylor, Goldberg, Tyler and Evans). A composite meaning can contain more than, or differ from, the sum of its parts, and one part can coerce the other.
- The data are four PVs from Mahpeykar and Tyler (2014), using the verbs *get* and *take*. Examples come from COCA, CD and the dictionaries labelled MDPV/MDFV.
- *take out* is split into several senses:
  - remove;
  - withdraw money, which is extended because a bank account is not a literal container;
  - enter a contract such as insurance, adding "accept/agree";
  - destroy or kill, adding "act to achieve results";
  - invite someone out and pay, adding "accompany and be responsible for".
- The author corrects Mahpeykar and Tyler's "having a date" gloss to a broader social invitation in which the inviter usually pays.
- There are four generalisations:
  1. Extended PV senses carry additional meaning drawn from the verb's extended senses.
  2. Central PV senses carry no additional meaning and show no coercion.
  3. A central particle sense always yields a physical PV.
  4. A non-physical PV requires an extended particle sense.

## Interesting ideas
- Model each phrasal-verb sense as a pair (one verb sense + one particle sense) plus an explicit "residue" slot for meaning neither part supplies; this makes non-compositionality visible instead of hiding it in a lexicon entry.
- Divide the labour: the particle decides literal vs figurative, the verb's wider sense network supplies the extra content — a cheap two-signal heuristic for disambiguation.
- Use the landmark's literal-container status as a test for physical vs extended sense (an ATM is a container, a bank account is not).
- Re-check an earlier gloss against corpus and dictionary contexts and narrow or widen it when the examples disagree, as with "date" versus "social invitation".
- Treat "no coercion" in central senses as a signal that the unit is analysable, and bondedness in figurative senses as a signal to keep it as one unit.

## For Mova

How these ideas could serve Mova, our small open language model — its files, stages and tests:

- **I1** (world): Store PV entries in compiled knowledge as sense-pair records with a residue feature (e.g. take out + "pay/responsible"), so the world model can add implied states like who pays.
- **I2** (frames): When building frames for a verb+compound:prt arc, first decide physical vs abstract from the particle and its object (e.g. container vs bank account), then pick the verb-derived role extension.
- **I3** (frames): A WordNet/ontology check on the object noun (physical container or not) can switch take out between a removal frame and a financial-transaction frame, with an explainable reason.
- **I4** (learn): Gloss-vs-corpus audits can serve as a negative-control step for LLM-teacher sense labels, flagging glosses that the attested examples contradict.
- **I5** (back): Generation and translation can decompose central PVs freely (take X out → remove X), but should render bonded figurative senses as wholes (take out = kill).

*Our summary of the paper, in our own words — not its text. The work belongs to its authors; read it at the links above.*

## Institutions

Also on the byline: [Maria Curie-Skłodowska University](https://ror.org/015h0qg34).

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## Cite

Cite as: Izabela Jarosz. 2019. Verb-particle constructions in Cognitive Linguistics perspective: Compositionality behind selected English phrasal verbs. LingBaW 5.

The paper itself, not this page. BibTeX from the library's record of the work.

```bibtex
@inproceedings{jarosz2019verb,
  title = {{Verb-particle constructions in Cognitive Linguistics perspective: Compositionality behind selected English phrasal verbs}},
  author = {Izabela Jarosz},
  booktitle = {LingBaW 5},
  year = {2019},
  doi = {10.31743/lingbaw.5378},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.31743/lingbaw.5378}
}
```

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## References

19 references, 0 of them with a card of ours. ↗ leads to the work, «find» searches for one we have no id for yet.

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2. Celce-Murcia, M., and D. Larsen-Freeman. 1983. The grammar book: an ESL/EFL teacher’s course. USA: Heinle and Heinle Publishers. COCA = Corpus of Contemporary American English. [https://www.english-corpora.org/coca/](https://www.english-corpora.org/coca/) [retrieved 10 th November 2019]. [↗](https://www.english-corpora.org/coca/)
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13. Mahpeykar, N., and A. Tyler. 2014. A principled cognitive linguistics account of English phrasal verbs with up and out. Language and Cognition 7(01): 1–35, (online version). MDPV = Macmillan Dictionary of Phrasal Verbs. (2010). Oxford: Macmillan Publishers. [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Mahpeykar%2C+N%2E%2C+and+A%2E+Tyler%2E+2014%2E+A+principled+cognitive+linguistics+account+of+English+phrasal+verbs+with+up+and+out%2E+Language+and+Cognition+7%2801%29%3A+1%E2%80%9335%2C+%28online+version%29%2E+MDPV+%3D+Macmillan+Dictionar)
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16. Rudzka-Ostyn, B. 2003. Word power: Phrasal verbs and compounds (a cognitive approach). Berlin / New York: Mouton de Gruyter. [↗](https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110197235)
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*Updated 24 October 2026*