Phrasal and prepositional verbs in specialised

texts: a creative device

Mari Carmen Campoy Cubillo
Universitat Jaume I

Abstract
New phrasal and prepositional verbs are created in the English language to express new
concepts. In this sense, research and innovations carried out in scientific and technical
fields may make use of these verb and particle combinations to phrase new thoughts. In
this article, the use of phrasal and prepositional verbs in specialised texts is discussed. The
final section analyses phrasal and prepositional verbs using the particles ‘up’, ‘down’, ‘off ’,
‘over’, and ‘out’ in a corpus of 80 research articles in the area of Botany.
Key Words: Phrasal verbs, Prepositional verbs, Corpus, Qualitative analysis

Resumen
Los verbos compuestos y preposicionales son uno de los recursos que utiliza la lengua
inglesa para expresar nuevos conceptos. En este sentido, la investigación e innovación
dentro del ámbito científico-técnico puede utilizar dichos verbos para expresar nuevos
pensamientos o conceptos. El presente artículo analiza el uso de verbos con partícula en
textos especializados. En la sección final se estudian las distintas combinaciones
compuestas y preposicionales con las partículas up, down, off, over, y out en un corpus
formado por 80 artículos de investigación que pertenecen al área de la Botánica.
Palabras clave: verbos compuestos y preposicionales, corpus, análisis cualitativo

Introduction
One of the most productive patterns of the English language is that of phrasal and
prepositional verbs. Studies dealing with the processes of word formation (Bauer,
1983; Quirk et al., 1985) usually disregard the study of phrasal verbs as a lexical and
syntactic resource for word formation. Exception is made in the case of nominalised
phrasal verbs and in those combinations which are occassionally formed by means of
a hyphen, that is, creativity in word formation is frequently limited to the concept of
word as one lexical and structural unit.

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Bauer (1983: 206-212) includes examples of word formation such as: see-through
(blouse), overeducate, before-tax (profits), in-crowd or drop-out. Though it is easier to take an
already existing phrasal verb and convert it into a noun or an adjective, the use of
verb and particle in new combinations should be considered as creative as
nominalised forms. Furthermore, for those new nominalisations which are used
when no parallel verb is used (or does not yet exist), the concept is difficult to explain
unless reference is made to a possible (not necesarily existing) phrasal or
prepositional verb. This is frequent with adjectives based on the phrasal verb patterns
such as beered-up (Glowka et al., 2001).

The flexibility of verb plus particle combination to form different word categories
should be seen as an advantage when it comes to creating or expanding new ideas.
The advantage of phrasal verbs for the creation of new concepts lies then in the fact
that phrasal verbs may be nominalised and they may also be used as adjectives in their
participle forms. Thus, once the concept is created, it is easy to talk about it in any
possible word form: to pile up things / piled-up things / a pile-up effect.

Another example is the word shop-in. This is used in journalism by analogy with sit-in,
which does have its verb though it is not as frequently used as its nominal
counterpart. The meaning of shop-in, as explained by Glowka et al. (2001), is a
“protest in which participants crowd in a store or place of business but do not make
purchases”. Another instance, found in computer related language is talk-off, “the
action of being cut off in the middle of leaving a voice-mail message” (Glowka and
Lester, 1997a), that is, by blending “cut off ” and “talk” the new phrasal verb and its
nominalisation is created. Verbal examples may be roll up (Glowka and Lester 1997b)
“to end or complete an intelligence operation as in “Rolling up Iran”.

In the section that follows, the role of phrasal and prepositional verbs in specialised
texts will be discussed. This implies the explanation of how different subsenses and
subtle differences are bound to appear when the verb is significant in a special
context. It also implies exemplification on how context determines, in most cases, the
specialised sense of a phrasal or prepositional verb. The last part of this paper is a
qualitative corpus-based analysis of the ocurrence of such patterns in a corpus of 80
agricultural articles taken from the American Journal of Botany.

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Phrasal and prepositional verbs and their role in specialised texts

Although adverbial and prepositional verbs may seem to be confined to the spoken
language and to be frequently used in informal conversation, this is not always the
case. In fact, some of them are used in formal and written contexts, some are used
in slang, and still others are euphemisms. It is true that these verbs have a higher
frequency of occurrence in informal contexts, but this fact by no means relegates
them only to that level. The following are examples taken from several dictionaries
(Cowie and Mackin, 1993, Cullen and Sargeant, 1996, Lavín and Benedito, 1975)
which illustrate the different levels of formality in which they may be found:

Formal use: mete out, impinge on, dive on something, yield up, call down on
someone,
Literary: something falls on someone (happen to them), send forth/out, yearn for
Euphemistic: pass away, go out (die),
Taboo: piss off, bugger off, fuck up (things, projects)
Informal use: shake down, suss out, beef up
Slang: put the finger on (accuse), bang up, cock up

There is a widely spread idea that spoken and written corpora materials differ
considerably from one another regarding linguistic structures. However, as already
demonstrated in Biber (1988), the differences in linguistic structures are to be found in
different genres more than in the spoken/written dichotomy, that is, it is the genre that
chooses specific structures and not so much its spoken or written versions as opposites.

Phrasal verbs are one of the most creative resources of the English language, since
new combinations are easily created by attaching particles to verbs which were not
previously attached, and in this way they express some new concept. The examples
that follow show how combinations of verb and particle are brought together when
there is a concept or idea that may be patterned onto them:

1) Commentators have referred to it as the Dumbing of America; it has its own verb
now: “to dumb down” to make more stupid. It is no accident that the most popular
film in America at the moment is called Dumb And Dumber. (Greaves 2001;
Times 1995, January)

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This combination may then pass on to other areas, dumb down has started to be used
in educational contexts to talk about the effect of new educational programmes on
the students, and also to talk about how software is designed so that it is easy to use:

2) the FBI is not only asking the industry to dumb down existing software, it wants to
prohibit it from developing new technologies that might interfere with the
government’s ability to intercept various oral and electronic communications
(Greaves 2001; Times 1995, January)
3) Teachers accuse the tests of ‘dumbing down’ learning and producing a generation
of intellectually passive box-tickers. (British National Corpus

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As seen from the examples above, phrasal verbs occur in specialised areas. But it is
the preference for certain particles over others or the productivity of some particles
in one area that is of special interest. Thus, as shown in Alejo (2001), it may be said
that out is a productive particle in economic texts because it is useful, for instance, to
talk about money/workers/goods going in and out of a firm/household. Another example
could be the use of up in chemistry texts where its main usage is to relate it to a
maximum temperature (heat up). The use of on and off related to whether a machine
is working or not may pattern onto different phrasal verbs (switch on / off, turn on / off,
shut off, etc.):

4)
To shut off an engine or other large machine is to stop it working by stopping its power supply.
You switch on televisions and other electrical appliances when you make them begin working by
pressing the switch that lets electricity flow to them.
(Cullen, K. and H. Sargeant, 1996)

The pair up / down is also used for this sense in:

5)
“be up” Working, in order. E.g. “The down escalator is up.”

“go down” To stop functioning; usually said of the system. The message from the console that
every hacker hates to hear from the operator is “System going down in 5 minutes”.
“take down”, “bring down” To deactivate purposely, usually for repair work “I’m taking the system
down to work on that bug in the tape drive.” Occasionally one hears the word “down” by itself used
as a verb in this sense
(Howes, 2001)

Endowing the particle down with the sense of not working, however, is not enough
to explain these verbs. As may be seen in the above examples, the choice of take
versus go also implies a different patterning of syntactic and lexical roles involved in
the action. Thus, in the context of computer use, it is the system that goes down, not
the person while it is the person who takes the initiative to deactivate the machine,
the one who brings it down.

Due to the lack of studies regarding the use of adverbial and prepositional verbs in
specialised texts (exceptions are Pitch, 1987 or Alejo, 2001), it is difficult to determine
which lexical features of these verbs may be prominent in a specialised text. Since the
majority of senses expressed by phrasal verbs have a basic (usually spatial) sense
which may be used with a metaphorical meaning, it would be advisable for the

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teaching of these structures to provide a cognitive explanation for the possible

extended meanings. A clear suggestion is found for instance in Hannan (1998). This
may be applied to phrasal verbs used in specialised texts. The following two examples
taken from the Journal of the European Ceramic Society (1999 (19) 4; 1999 (9) 2) illustrate
this point:

6) The dispersants were diluted down to allow more accurate measurements of the
optimum concentrations
7) In zirconia layer the crack deflects back to its original direction

Example (6) may be explained: “down as less” > “make less strong” > “make
weaker” and “water down: add water to make weaker”. Example (7) may be related
to “go back” where movement is more specific, “deflect”.

Definitions given in specialised dictionaries regarding phrasal verb meanings should

also be given special attention. The use of these lexical items in a specialised context
implies sometimes subtle, sometimes open differences in their use. Likewise, there
are phrasal and prepositional verbs which are only used in a special area of
knowledge. Examples (6) and (7) contrast the definitions in the GardenWeb Glossary of
Botanical Terms with those given in Cowie (1993). The contrast does not imply that
either one dictionary or its definitions are better than the other, but that the use of
different dictionary types should be determined by different user needs:

8) damping off (alt. dampen off)

- Collapse of small seedlings due to fungi attacking stem at soil level.
(GardenWeb)
- (horticulture) rot and die through excessive damp (S: seedling, cutting).
(Cowie, 1993)

9) harden off
- To gradually accustom a plant to more difficult living conditions, e.g., moving
a plant from the greenhouse to the partial shade of a tree before planting it
in a garden. (GardenWeb Glossary of Botanical Terms)
- (horticulture) (make a plant) become strong enough to be planted out of
doors. (Cowie, 1993)

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An ESP student may use either of the above dictionaries to understand a text where
these phrasal verbs appear depending on his/her needs as a dictionary user. If (s)he
needs a definition to understand the basic or general meaning of words in the text,
the information provided in Cowie (1993) may be satisfactory. If (s)he wants to
know, for instance, what kind of things may help a plant to become strong, the
GardenWeb Glossary of Botanical Terms definition will be more useful.

Looking up these verbs in specialised dictionaries may also provide us with specific
subsenses as in the following example:

10) thinning out

1. The removing of all interior branches of a shrub or tree to allow better air
circulation. 2. The removing of excess seedlings to allow stronger growth of
the remaining ones. (GardenWeb Glossary of Botanical Terms)

It is interesting to note how many specialised phrasal verbs (such as damping off and
thinning out above) are given participle form entries in dictionaries (i.e., the main entry
is damping off and not infinitive or base damp off), suggesting that the use of these
verbal nouns is primarily that of describing processes related to specific contexts.

Finally, it should be pointed out that the same phrasal verb may have a different
meaning depending on the context it is used in. In (9) the verb line out is defined in
two different areas, horticulture and sports:

11) line-out, line out

- To set out young rooted plants in the outdoor nursery to grow larger or on
which to work grafts. (GardenWeb Glossary of Botanical Terms)
- (Rugby football) parallel lines of forwards formed at right angles to the touch
line, to receive a ball which has just gone out of play. (Cowie, 1993)

Phrasal and prepositional verbs in a specialised corpus

Corpus analysis is not limited to the study of the most frequent words of a language.
As a text processor, concordancers may give us all the occurrences of a word or
combinations of words we are interested in, however small in number these may be.

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Thus, corpus analysis concerned with research on, for instance, idiomatic
expressions, may provide the researcher with only a few (though valuable) examples.

Some collocations in specialised texts which may not stand high on frequency counts
may be relevant in specialised vocabulary. An example of this can be seen in
collocates for the word leaf/leaves like opposite leaves, or leaves at successive nodes in
agriculture texts which may not be the most frequent in these texts but are
meaningful syntactic and lexical patterns in that discourse. The same happens with
phrasal and prepositional verbs in agriculture texts where spatial senses, for instance,
are essential. Thus, the use of spatial in, out, off, up, or down however frequent or
infrequent cannot be ignored when we need to explain how a plant grows, what has
happened to or with the seeds or other parts of a plant, etc.

In the teaching of ESP or LSP a teacher may decide to use qualitative and/or
quantitative analysis and focus on qualitative analysis in the class when the collocation
is genre specific and therefore useful for a particular group of students (see
explanation of carry-over below). As McEnery and Wilson (1996:62) point out: “in
qualitative research the data are used only as a basis for identifying and describing
aspects of usage in language and to provide ‘real-life’ examples of particular
phenomena”. The analysis presented in this part of the article is mainly qualitative:
the focus is not so much on frequency of occurrence but on how the phrasal verb
system is used to express concepts in a particular domain and how the concepts
expressed by means of phrasal verbs are organised in such a way that new meanings
can be created by analogy to the existing ones. It must be pointed out that the use of
one particle with a specific sense may occur with several verbs. Thus, the separation
sense of off is present in fall off, drop off, cut off. A quantitative analysis of data would
miss this information.

In this section phrasal and prepositional verbs found in a corpus of 80 texts taken
from the American Journal of Botany are discussed. The American Journal of Botany is an
internationally recognized journal containing research papers on all aspects of plant
biology. This journal also includes “rapid communications” and special papers, which
include reviews, critiques and analyses of controversial subjects. The research articles
used as corpus in the present article were published between 1997 and 2000. They
are Botany articles related with the issue of seed dispersal (seed emergence, growth
and survival are second in importance) and reproductive modes.

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For reasons of space, only those verbs with the most frequent particles (down, off, out,
over, and up) will be studied here. Some examples of recurrent nominalised phrasal
verbs are also included. Examples are organised according to the particle. The
frequency of occurrence for the particles analysed here is shown in Table 1. The
most frequent word in the texts (of) represents 3.99% of the corpus. Over, out and up
are among the first one thousand most frequent words. The corpus has a 3.17
type/token ratio with 772,257 tokens (total amount of words) and 24,448 types
(number of diferent words). Most words (such as would, represent, show, grow, size, reason,
problem, etc.) are in the 0.05 / 0.02 % frequency range.

Particle Total frequency Percentage

Over 414 0,05
Out 172 0,02
Up 161 0,02
Off 63 ---
Down 27 ---

Table 1.- Particle frequency and percentage in corpus

Examples with up
Table 2 illustrates the most common collocates in the co-text of up with phrasal verbs
and the word clusters that up triggers off. Word clusters represent repeated phraseology
in the concordance for the searched word. L (left) and R(right) indicate the preference
for the collocate to appear a number of words (1 to 5) to the right or left of up:

Collocates Frequency Word clusters

To (R1) 103 -up to (the)/#
long (R4) 24 -taken up by
cm. (R3) 14 -(a) (median) close
mm. (R3) 16 -up (of)
taken/took (L1) 16
set (L1) 5

Table 2. Collocates and word clusters for up

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Polysemic verbs, and among these phrasal verbs, are determined by the context they
appear in. All delexical verbs (get, give, take, bring, have) not only form phrasal verbs
with most particles, but also have several subsenses for each combination while
meanings are generally context and co-text determined. In Cowie (1993) as many as
28 different senses for take off are listed. A good example for discussion is the pair
soak up/take up. The Oxford dictionary includes under take up the sense of “absorb”
but explains only its “soak up” meaning. Typical subjects proposed are blotting paper,
sponge and flannel. In agriculture, however, although take up may be used both in the
soaking and raising senses, it is preferably used with the meaning of absorb and raise
to other parts of the plant. This is better exemplified in the Chambers Dictionary of
Phrasal Verbs (1996): “to take up a substance is to absorb it specially from the ground
or from a lower place” and provides the example “with this system the tomato plants
will take up essential minerals more readily”. Examples in our corpus confirm the
preference of soak up over take up for the “soaking sense”:

(Ex. 1) the strips were left in the spurs for one minute to soak up all the nectar
(Ex. 2) beetles appear to be taking up nectar from the petal nectaries
(Ex. 3) A general lowering of pH may result in a decrease of the plant’s capability to take up nutrients

Statistically speaking, three verbs are important in the co-text of up in our corpus.
These verbs are positive in the mutual information counts with up: pick (picked MI
5,66), take (took MI 4,98) and keep (MI 4,79). Phrasal verbs with up include examples
where the particle is used to express upward movement (take up); completive sense
(water up); approximation (close-up); compose something by putting things in one
group or category (make up); in preparation, organising (set up); put into an enclosed
or compact possition (roll up); referred to an activity that is gradable (grow up):

(Ex. 4) close-up of a single pollen grain (detailed photography)

(Ex. 5) flowers whose stigmas have dried up
(Ex. 6) apparently water stressed, although they were watered up to twice daily to prevent wilting
(Ex. 7) cultivated plants grow up into neighboring tree crowns
(Ex. 8) Syrphhids made up 3.9% of all visits; of the seven genera that make up subtribe Balsamocitrinae,
only two
(Ex. 9) Pollen grains were picked up
(Ex. 10) after germination, seedlings washed with distilled water were potted up;
(Ex. 11) the lower half of its lip is rolled up tightly and functions as a tube
(Ex. 12) pollination drop on an experimental set-up floated for one minute

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(Ex. 13) Enhance signal by breaking up long branches, which in the Laureates involves...;
(Ex. 14) This breaking-up is different from Saxifragaceae;
(Ex. 15) Some ramets wind up in patches with

Examples with off

Collocates Frequency Word clusters

trade (L1) 25 -(a) trade-off between
number (R2,3,4,5) 6 -off-road vehicle use
size (R2,3,5) 6
use (R3) 5

Table 3. Collocates and word clusters for off

The word cluster “off-road vehicle use” refers to the importance of this vehicle use
as a means of seed dispersal in sentences like: “High levels of habitat loss and
fragmentation due to housing development (...) and off-road vehicle use”.

The most common sense of off in the texts analysed is falling or causing something
to fall and/or be separated from the plant (shake off, fall off, drop off, cut off, abraded off):

(Ex.16) if the flowers fell off at the end of the first day...
(Ex. 17) some anthers have dropped off during processing
(Ex. 18) tetrads may have been present but were abraded off stigmata during handling
(Ex. 19) were cut off with a razor blade;

Also found as noun in “is the chosen cut-off level”, indicating a point of reference
as in “off-median” in: “the last sepal is initiated in adaxial but off-median position”.

The most productive pattern with off is the nominalisation trade-off, which has the
sense of operating an exchange where some sort of balance has to be reached,
sometimes at the expense of something else:

(Ex. 20) we suggest that a trade-off between flower number and flower size is a more general picture
of floral resource alocation

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Many of the uses of off are similar to those of out, the difference being that when out
is used there is always a recipient with an interior from which something comes or is
taken out. Out is also used when the thing that is coming out is very “showy” as in
the example with “flush out”. Off is preferred for surfaces:

(Ex. 21) a treatment in order to shake off the dust on the surface (seed surface)
(Ex. 22) Pollen was shaken out of the keels onto petri dishes
(Ex. 23) the nectar in the spur was pushed out by blowing air
(Ex. 24) After a short while, they crept out and flew away
(Ex. 25) the beatle coming out of the flower
(Ex. 26) the stamens beneath act as a piston forcing out a string of pollen onto the underside
(Ex. 27) these were then excised out and wafered in serial section
(Ex. 28) the plant is flushing out new shoots after a disturbance, but normally...

A contrast should also be made between off and out in the sense of ejecting, releasing,
producing something. In this sense off is used simply to indicate that, for instance, a
part of a plant is developing (buds, branches, etc) and is visible. Out also indicates that
the plant is producing some new part, but usually adds the sense that the plant is
growing. Likewise, the eject sense of out is frequently modified by manner adverbials
(quickly, rapidly, sylleptically, etc.) which does not happen with off:

(Ex. 29) the petal bundles give off sepal lateral traces
(Ex. 30) the nectary primordia continue to bulge out, forming a slightly smiling-mouth shaped structure
(Ex. 31) a shoot can either form a thorn, grow out vegetatively or ...

Grammatical patterns for off and out also differ in the place given for the thing(s) that
is released or produced. With off it appears in object position in the structure
“V+off+N(object)”; with out the grammatical choice is to give it a subject role
“N(subject)+V+out”.

The noun offspring collocates with: abortion of, quality, quantity, parental, maternal,
differences, and number and has a total frequency of 239.

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Examples with out

Collocates Frequency Word clusters

of (R1) 173 - (experiments / study / analyses) (were / was) carried out (in /on / by / using)
the (R2) 91 - out of dormancy
carried (L1) 58 - (cannot)(be) ruled out (the possibility); completely rule out
in (R1) 49 - come out of
were/was (L2) 63 - one out of
experiments (L3) 13 - pointed out that
on (R1) 13
rule/ruled (L1) 20

Table 4.- Collocates and word clusters for out

Apart from the uses explained above, out is also used in other combinations. Completive
sense (dry out, fade out) may be seen in the examples below. In contrast with up the use of
out is preferred when the action is seen as a (long) process leading to a final state. This
is sometimes reflected in the verb choice (fade) or in the use of the adverb (gradually):

(Ex. 32) only the median remains visible before fading out
(Ex. 33) the mucus on the stigmatic rays gradually dried out;

Two verbs are frequent in the texts since they are research related. These are carry out
and bear out. The first is recurrent in all research texts, the second is typical of
experimental sciences. But in our texts, it is not only the scientists who carry out a task
or study, insects are frequently the subjects of this verb:

(Ex. 34) more detailed studies have to be carried out to confirm this interspecific hybridization; It may
stimulate bees to carry out pollen-collecting movements
(Ex. 35) the high seed set seems to bear out effective wind pollination

The words outcross /outcrossing, meaning the introduction of a new genetic variation,
yield a high frequency of occurrence (361) and provide positive mutual information
with the words beneficial (5,68) and perform (4,98).

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Examples with over

Collocates Frequency Word clusters

yr (R2) 45 - over the past #

time (R1) 44 - (was/were) tested over (the)

all (R1) 41 - over the course of

for (L3,4,1,2) 37 - over all sites/plants

period (R1) 29 - over the entire

species (L1) 27 - averaged over all

pollen (L5-1) 23 - over long periods of / over a longer / over a range /the course of the

averaged (L1) 16 - was placed over

dispersal (L2) 14
range (R3) 14
tested (L1) 14

Table 5. Collocates and word clusters for over

A common use of over is in sentences expressing some kind of control or power

where the subject of the phrasal verb with over is the one that controls the situation:

(Ex. 36) the serpentine outcrop is usually taken over by an abundance of perennial grasses; they are rarely
elaborated to take over other roles; allowing staminoides to take over roles not performed by stamens
(Ex. 37) the section name Lobatae has priority over the better known name Erythrobalanus; giving us
increased resolving power over equal weighting

This may also be seen in noun phrases with over specially when there is a context in
which words related to power, fight or discussion form part of the co-text of over:

(Ex. 38) The preference of one member of the pair over the other
(Ex. 39) This is indicative of a master control over final megagametophyte
(Ex. 40) Some controversy over terminology involving the viscidium exists;

Another prepositional use of over is to express extenssion related to a surface or

extension in time. Unlike during, over seems to emphasize that a process is carefully
followed in that period of time. Cohesion between verb and preposition varies from one
example to another:

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(Ex. 41) The pattern did not change appreciably over the 10yr period
(Ex. 42) Transport pollen over a considerable distance; Scattered all over the leaf surface; Populations
distributed over a relatively homogeneous habitat

This use is seen with the verbs test and sample when over introduces the object of
analysis or time. A different sense is conveyed when the preposition for is used, it
implies that the test is searching for specific data:

(Ex. 43) populations of J. osteosperma sampled over a large geographic area

(Ex. 44) nectary secretions were tested for glucose with diabetes test paper
(Ex. 45) the effect of variety was tested over days and the effect of days was tested over individuals

The word effect in the phrase “the effect of X over Y” may also be related to the sense
of over use in a context of power or control. It seems that when the preposition on is
used with this phrase, the writer is talking about an effect that has already been
proved while with over the results of the testing are still unknown:

(Ex. 46) summer temperature during the previous year had the strongest effect on flowering

Mutual information counts for over inform us about the relevance of the assotiation
“carry+over”. Mutual information statistics compare the probability of observing
two words together with the probabilities of observing them independently. Since the
act of “carrying over” is is essential to seed dispersal discourse, the use of the noun
carry-over emerges from a necesity to name a concept derived from that action:

(Ex. 47) the effect of pollen carry-over will presumably decrease in each visit

Examples with down

Collocates Frequency Word clusters

the (R1) 25 - down the style
pollen (L3) 7
to (L2) 6
tubes (L5,4,3,2) 5

Table 6. Collocates and word clusters for down

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Down is not as frequent as the other particles examined here. It is basically used to
indicate downward movement as in:

(Ex. 48) the petal has completely folded down over the keel
(Ex. 49) is layed down into horizontal possition
(Ex. 50) the stamen (...) hangs down over the lip
(Ex. 51) bundles can be easily followed down the flower
(Ex. 52) crawl down between the staminodes and the style

Its second most frequent use is in the combination break down with the meaning of
“decompose” and also “destroy”:

(Ex. 53) become compresed and/or break down at the time of fruit maturity

Concluding Remarks
Concordances, the list of occurrences of a word or words in a context drawn from
the texts in a corpus, provide useful examples of language in use. In language,
particularly in specialised texts, meaning is a product of context. The analysis of the
use of phrasal and prepositional verbs in different specialised corpora may provide,
as suggested in this article, interesting results in the use of verb-particle combinations
which although linked to their use in general language, present particularities in a
particular domain.

The examples in our corpus provide some guidelines for classroom presentation of
the most common uses of particles in seed dispersal articles. Thus, the findings in
this article could be summarised as follows: the particle up is used with a spatial sense
to express position, organisation and upward movement. When referring to an action
it is used to express completion and development. The noun close-up is frequent due
to the fact that photographies are common in this field of research to illustrate
detailed features of parts of a plant.

The particle off has two main uses. One is to express detachment and the other is to
refer to a ballance in nouns such as trade-off. Examples from the corpus show how off
is used in relation to a surface while out is used in ralation to a recipient or interior
part of something. Another overlapping use of off and out is to express the ejection
or production of some part of a plant where off indicates a more neutral ejection and

110 IBÉRICA 4 [2002]: 95-111

 PHRASAL AND PREPOSITIONAL VERBS IN SPECIALISED TEXTS: A CREATIVE DEVICE

out focusses on the growth that is taking place and on the manner in which this
progress is taking place. The other frequent use of out is in the verb carry out,
indicating gradual completion of research tasks.

Over is related to the senses of control or power and extension in time, surface, or
sample population. Finally, down is used to indicate downward movement,
decomposition and destruction.

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