Abstract

The aim of this paper is to describe phrasal verbs in eighteenth and nineteenth century English on the basis of the ample data I have collected from my reading. Special attention has been paid to the variety of genre, such as in essays, fiction, or in letters and drama. The following particles: away, back, down, forth, off, out and up have been examined in collocation with verbs, and their semantic properties have been discussed in detail in relation to Late Modern English.