Sunday 12 May 2019

Allerton's ‘Stretched Verb Constructions’ vs Phrasal Verbs


Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 417-9):
As we have shown above, there are three types of phrasal verb: verb plus preposition, verb plus adverb or verb plus both. We can also note combinations verbs with nouns such as
Taking account of …
… to pay more attention to …
… ran great risks …
Such combinations are investigated by Allerton (2002) under the heading of ‘stretched verb constructions’. However, while it can be argued that these are also lexicalised verbs, just as phrasal verbs, ‘stretched verbs’ can still be accommodated in terms the transitivity patterns of the clause. They involve combinations of Process + Range, e.g. take + account of, pay + attention (to), run + risk, reach + conclusion, or Process + abstract circumstance of Place, e.g. put + at risk, come + to an end, arrive + at conclusion. The lexical verb serving as the Event of the verbal group functioning as Process tends to be fairly general, and the lexical content is represented by the noun serving as Thing in the nominal group functioning as Range in the clause, or in the prepositional phrase serving as Place. There tend to be collocational combinations of verb and noun, as illustrated by the examples above; compare also wreak + havoc, tender + resignation, lend + support. This noun is often a nominalisation of a verb, as with attention, conclusion, which reflects the fact that ‘stretched verb constructions’ embody grammatical metaphor. Like other instances of grammatical metaphor, clauses with ‘stretched verb constructions’ can thus be given more than one analysis, as illustrated in Figure 6-23.