Categories
Language

Diinlang 2.0 Phrasal Verbs

The other day I had a reason to reread a section of my novel. In it was the sentence:

“She brushed her hands together to clear some of the dirt from the rock off, and then began to walk towards Ianas.”

Nothing technically wrong with this, but it would read better as “… to clear off some of the dirt from the rock, and …”

In English it is acceptable to split phrasal verbs. Phrasal verbs are formed from a verb combined with a preposition/directive/adverb/particle or combination of these.

In Diinlang the preposition/directive/adverb/particle(s) should be joined together, for example, by a hyphen. Thus “She handed it in” would have the order: “She handed-in it” and “They brought that up twice” becomes “They brought-up that twice”. Note that the verb comes first and the preposition last. This will be easier to learn and clearer. 
The interpretation rules of Attempto Controlled English require that the phrasal particle of a phrasal verb (e.g. look up, drop out, shut down) and the direct preposition of a prepositional verb (e.g. look at, apply for) are hyphenated to the verb. This will become a standard practice for Diinlang.