phrasal verb

[lucy black]

Hi everyone!

Is "live on" a phrasal verb as in "he lives on carrots"?

We can maybe say "he lives on carrots and on turnips", and you can't use most phrasal verbs like that, repeating the preposition.

But "lives on Green Street" is obviously a different meaning of live on, and much less like a phrasal verb.

[Stephen Jones]

Correct me if I am wrong but a we talk about a prepositional or a phrasal verb when the meaning of the combination is semantically different from that of its parts.

This means there is no hard and fast distinction, and the example you give is a gray area.

[revel]

Hey all.

I agree with Stephen's definition, though I am not sure how gray "live on carrots" really is. In "lives on Green Street" we could say that his home is on Green street and that is where he carries out his personal life. While "live on carrots" seems to mean that he eats carrots almost exclusively and thus sustains his life with that substance. To occupy a house is to live in it (generalizing there). To live on a certain food is to eat that food almost exclusively and thus sustain life. So "live" has indeed changed its meaning. Hmmm, yes, it is indeed gray, maybe just light gray. Anyone else?

peace,
revel.