Eat up the apple or Eat the apple up? Is there any difference in the messages each of these alternative forms sends? If there isn’t, why bother to keep both? On the other hand, is there any semantic similarity between eat the apple up and break the glass to pieces? This study takes a fresh look at a still controversial issue of phrasal verbs and their alternate word order applying sign-oriented theory and methodology. Unlike other analyses, it asserts that there is a semantic distinction between the two word order variants phrasal verbs may appear in. In order to test this distinction, the author analyzes a large corpus of data and also uses translation into a language having a clear morphological distinction between resultative/non-resultative forms (Russian). As follows from the analysis, English has morphological and syntactic tools to express resultative meaning, which allows suggesting a new lexico-grammatical category – resultativeness.

Table of contents

List of tables List of figures Abstract Introduction 1–4 1. The sign-oriented approach 5–20 2. Phrasal constructions and resultative meaning 21–45 3. Resultativeness 47–65 4. Microlevel analysis 67–98 5. Macrolevel Analysis 99–124 Conclusion 125–127 Notes 129–131 References 133–142 Index 143–150