Superlative verbs

This book focuses on a special kind of English verb-particle constructions (e. g. finish up, start off, broaden out, cool down, trigger off), which has been labelled „redundant“ because, in many contexts, the particles appear superfluous or void of meaning. Though „redundant“ phrasal verbs are relatively infrequent and highly marked, they are not as marginal as the frequency data suggest since such constructions systematically occur with many English verbs. On the basis of extensive corpus research, and by viewing the phenomenon from three different theoretical perspectives, this book uncovers semantic and pragmatic functions of the particles.