A Lexical-constructional Analysis of English Prepositional Verbs

This article investigates verb-plus-preposition (V-P) combinations in English which have traditionally been called prepositional verbs such as decide on in Sam decided on the suit. It is argued that the preposition of a V-P combination forms a predicate with the verb. The resulting complex predicate is basically a semantic and grammatical unit that is internally complex. It is also suggested that those units can be divided into two types; one is a frozen type, and the other a productive type. The article proposes an analysis of these two types as a concrete construction and a template, respectively. They are listed or constructed in the lexicon, and their parts are separately represented in phrasal syntax by PS rules. The ideas of lexical conceptual structure and representational modularity are adopted to formalise the proposed analysis. The paper also addresses theoretical advantages and implications.