The term “particle” has been given several definitions throughout the history of linguistic analyses. However, the defining criteria have always been selected in accordance with the actual aims and needs of the theory under investigation. That is why, English particles are usually seen as “elements of uninflecting word classes” (Neagu, 2007: 122), including prepositions, articles and conjunctions. Although the latter two are atomic units of the language for which the term “particle” could be naturally applied, they do not combine with verbs to form complex predicates, hence they are excluded from the group of particles that constitute the current focus of this thesis. The definition chosen by the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary (Wehmeier, 2005: 1104) serves the purpose of this thesis better, since it restricts the possible interpretations obtaining for particles and treats them as “adverbs or prepositions” combining with verbs to form a phrasal verb. The only problem with these approaches is that they are not universal enough, since they cannot capture cross-linguistic variations... (Introduction)