I'm having some difficulty parsing this sentence:
"The old beggar ran after the rich man."
Is the verb "ran" (intransitive) with no object, or is it "ran after" (transitive) with the object "man"?
Are there any rules to figure out what is a phrasal verb and what isn't?
Best Answer
After
is a preposition which makes "...after the rich man" a prepositional phrase. The sentence has only one verb, which isran
.Since
ran
is an intransitive verb, the answer to your question is thatran
is intransitive.Don't think of it as "ran after" because it's more like
the old beggar ran
...after the rich man.
You could change that prepositional phrase with any other and it may make more sense.Also
run
does not require a direct object in this sentence. The old beggar isn't doing the running to anybody but himself. While he may be chasing someone, that's another point entirely. The actual verbrun
is being done by the beggar, and to nobody.