Intransitive Phrasal Verbs Defined

Intransitive phrasal verbs occur often in the English language even though we may not readily notice them. ‘I will get ahead’ is an example of one we encounter frequently. ‘Get ahead’ is actually the complete verb. Because it contains two words, it differs from our understanding of a traditional verb, such as the verbs in ‘The tree grows quickly’ or ‘Jonathan spiked the ball over the net.’ Let’s look more closely at what constitutes a phrasal verb and then learn about the difference between transitive phrasal verbs and intransitive phrasal verbs.

Phrasal verbs are verbs followed by an adverb or a preposition (i.e. ‘come over,’ ‘back down,’ ‘cheer up’). It’s the combination of the traditional verb and the adverb or preposition that creates a different meaning than if we were to examine them separately. ‘She cheers for the team every Saturday’ and ‘His mother cheers up her co-workers every day’ show us the different nuances between the verb of ‘cheers’ and the phrasal verb of ‘cheers up’.

Here are only a few examples of how frequently we see phrasal verbs in the English language:

• He ‘hangs up’ the phone.
• My friend will ‘drop in’ to see me this morning.
• The two friends had a great conversation when they finally ‘made up.’
• He barely ‘gets by’ on his salary.

As you can observe from the chart (see video), there are occasions when a phrasal verb contains more than two words. While not exhaustive, the following list includes other common phrasal verbs:

get around
give up
give over
blow over
calm down
catch up
go off
pull in
turn around
sit down
turn out
watch out
show off

We categorize phrasal verbs further by noting whether they are intransitive or transitive, which means that we examine the sentence structure to see if it includes a direct object. Let’s look at this further.

Intransitive vs. Transitive

The key to understanding the difference between intransitive and transitive phrasal verbs is the ability to pick out the direct object in the sentence. A direct object is the noun that receives the action in a transitive sentence. For instance, ‘Kelly ate the best-tasting burrito of her life’ features a direct object phrase of ‘best-tasting burrito.’ ‘Kelly’ is the subject; ‘ate’ is the verb. We might naturally ask, ‘What did she eat?’ The answer would be ‘best-tasting burrito.’

An intransitive phrasal verb would mean then that we have a phrasal verb with no direct object. Here are some examples:

• He ‘stepped aside’ for the bicyclist.
• The lost book will ‘turn up.’

For contrast, let’s look at some transitive phrasal verbs and note their respective direct objects:

• To impress the judges, the finalist will ‘show off’ her singing abilities. (The direct object here is ‘abilities,’ and the direct object phrase is ‘her singing abilities.’)
• It looks like the profit margins will ‘fall off’ the grid. (The direct object here is ‘grid.’)

An intransitive phrasal verb will always be inseparable, meaning that the words of the phrase will stay next to each other in the sentence. In other words, ‘Sally ‘fell behind’ on her taxes’ will never be ‘Sally ‘fell’ on her taxes ‘behind’.’

Conversely, a transitive phrasal verb can be separable in some cases. ‘We ‘looked up’ the word in the dictionary’ could also be, ‘We ‘looked’ the word ‘up’ in the dictionary.’

Examples

Now that we know the difference between transitive phrasal verbs and intransitive phrasal verbs, let’s test our new expertise:

Transitive or Intransitive: Jackson fell over the backseat of the car.

In this example, ‘fell over’ would be transitive because ‘backseat’ functions as the direct object.

Transitive or Intransitive: Because of her tendency to be late, Janet hung up early.

In this example, ‘hung up’ would be intransitive because there is no noun (no direct object) to receive the action of the sentence. There is only the adverb of ‘early.’

Transitive or Intransitive: We split the unruly children up.

In this example, ‘split up’ is the phrasal verb. It’s also transitive because the direct object is ‘unruly children,’ and we should also note that this is an instance where the phrasal verb is separable because ‘up’ could appear elsewhere in the sentence. It did not have to directly follow ‘split’ for the sentence to make sense.

Lesson Summary

Let’s review. Intransitive phrasal verbs are verb phrases with at least two words. These phrasal verbs are always inseparable and will never accompany a direct object. This is not to be confused with transitive phrasal verbs which can be separated in some cases. Common intransitive phrasal verbs include:

get around
give up
give over
blow over
calm down
catch up
go off
pull in
turn around
sit down
turn out
watch out
show off