The two-word verb is composed of two elements: (1) a verb and (2) a second part that, when combined closely with the verb, generates a verbal concept that the verb alone lacks. The combined meaning of the two parts is richer than the meaning of the verb alone (Meyer, 2014). Similarly, two-word verbs are considered a substantial group of relatively frequent multiword lexical items in the English language that are composed of a verb and a particle (Liu & Meyers, 2018). They are not only structurally distinct from single-word verbs, but also in terms of meaning and usage. Sometimes, the terminologies of two-word verbs, phrasal verbs, or verb plus particle formations are interchangeable (Kovács, 2011). Therefore, these equivalent terms will be used interchangeably throughout this website.
According to Talebinezhad and Farhadian (2014), two-unit terms such as make up, break down, take after, turn off, and so forth are classified as phrasal verbs in the English language vocabulary. Particles are frequently associated with a preposition such as up, off, down, on, or in. Two-word verbs are significant because they are routinely and habitually used in everyday communication by English speakers. Likewise, Celce-Marcia and Larsen-Freeman (1999) claimed that no one could speak or understand English, at least in the casual register, unless they are familiar with phrasal verbs. As a result, developing an ability to recognize, interpret, and actively use phrasal verbs is an inescapable component of ESL/EFL instruction.
