Where to Put an Object in a Phrasal Verb

Phrasal verbs are units like "run over" and "bring up." Can you put an object right in the middle, as in "run him over" and "bring it up"?

Yup. Though not everyone realizes it.

Here's the full story ...

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This entry was posted on Monday, October 1st, 2012 at 3:15 pm and is filed under this week's podcast. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

One Response to “Where to Put an Object in a Phrasal Verb”

  1. October 13, 2012 at 9:24 am

    Hi June,

    I stumbled on your website today while researching a grammar question for a translation I am doing (the "health care vs. healthcare" debate). I was entirely of the same opinion, thanks!

    Then I clicked around on your podcasts a bit - loved what I heard until I came across the one regarding the position of pronouns in phrasal verbs. In fact, there are separable and inseparable phrasal verbs, so it is not correct to say that "with phrasal verbs, there is no rule to dictate where you must put the object".

    To confuse matters, some phrasal verbs are obligatorily separable and some are optionally separable... As far as I know, there is no clear rule or way to know which phrasal verbs function which way. When I taught English to foreign-language students, I would give them a phrasal verb list categorizing the verbs into the three groups...

    A slight slip-up, but I promise it won't keep me from listening. ;-)

    Regards,
    Christoph
    (a Californian in Austria)