Prepositional verbs

We often use verbs and prepositions together. Usually this results in a “prepositional verb”.

Some prepositional verbs are:

• To agree with
Examples:
o I agree with everything they say
o They usually agree with each other

• To get on
Examples:
o She got on the bus
o They get on well together

• To listen to
Examples:
o I like to listen to music
o We listened carefully to the lecture

• To think about
Examples:
o He often thinks about his friends
o She is thinking about moving to Paris

There is no grammatical rule about which preposition goes with which verb to make a prepositional verb. You need a combination of experience and memory to make the correct links.

Here are a few more examples:

• To listen to
• To complain about
• To laugh at
• To worry about
• To suffer from
• To wait for
• To search for

Some verbs can be used with different prepositions. For example:

• To look for – meaning “to search”
• To look at – meaning “to observe”
• To look after – meaning “to take care of”

.

Occasionally a verb and a preposition are used together to make a “phrasal verb” instead of a “prepositional verb”.

It’s perfectly possible to speak and write good fluent English without knowing the difference between prepositional verbs and phrasal verbs, but – just in case you’re really interested – here’s some of the technical grammar.

1. The meaning of a prepositional verb is usually the same as – or very similar to – the meaning of the original verb. So, it’s easy to know the meaning of “to laugh at” or “to listen to” – if you know the meaning of “to laugh” and “to listen”.
   In a phrasal verb, the preposition usually changes the meaning of the original verb. So, “to give up” means to stop or to quit. (“He was trying to give up smoking”). And “to turn down” means to reject. (She turned down the offer of a job).
2. In prepositional verbs, the verb and the preposition can’t be separated by the object. We can say “They laughed at the joke”, but we can’t say “They laughed the joke at”.
   In phrasal verbs, the verb and the preposition can be separated by the object. We can say “She turned down the offer”, but we can also say “She turned the offer down”.
3. Prepositional verbs always have an object: they are transitive verbs. We can say “He was looking at the picture”, but we can’t say “He was looking at”.
   Same phrasal verbs can be intransitive: they don’t have to have objects. We can say “My children are growing up” or “It’s time to get up”.

Grammarians have a lot more to say about phrasal verbs, but this is not the place for all that!