A SEMANTIC-STYLISTIC STUDY OF PHRASAL VERBS IN MARK TWAIN’S SELECTED SHORT STORIES

Abstract

This study exemplifies a semantic-stylistic study of phrasal verbs in two selected short stories written by the American writer Mark Twain: “A Mysterious Visit” (1870) and “Eve’s Diary” (1905). After conducting a semantic analysis of English phrasal verbs in these two short stories, we come up with a stylistic study of the short story writer Mark Twain. The work of this writer is stylistically characterized with his unique semantic use of phrasal verbs explained as follows: (1) Mark Twain uses phrasal verbs and prepositional phrasal verbs less than prepositional verbs, compared with the usage of the other categories of the same group of multiword verbs, and (2) Mark Twain uses literal phrasal verbs more than other idiomatic phrasal verbs. This semantic analysis of phrasal verbs comes up with the following contribution: a stylistic analysis of Mark Twain's usage of phrasal verbs. Mark Twain's tendency to use literal phrasal verbs more than other types of phrasal verbs marks his style of simplicity, a style that can be comprehended when reading his short stories. His use of numerous types of phrasal verbs verifies the theoreticians’ claim of the importance of the use of phrasal verbs.

Keywords

• фразовые глаголы
• многословные глаголы
• заменяемость
• идиоматичность
• phrasal verbs
• multi-word verbs
• replaceability
• axiomaticity