Meaning of Phrasal Verb ‘pick up’ Subtype do/happen: A Natural Semantic Metalanguage Approach

Abstract

The difficulties in knowing and understanding the meaning of a language often
appear in units of language with an idiomatic meaning, such as phrasal verb. A single unit of
phrasal verb usually produces a meaning which is totally different with the meaning of its
constituent. Phrasal verb ‘pick up’ is a unique phrasal verb since it bears various meanings
unlike other phrasal verbs. The implementation of Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) as a
theory in this study leads to a great significance of avoiding misunderstanding on the meanings
of phrasal verb ‘pick up’ by defining the meanings through semantic structures. This study is
intended to find and describe the meanings of phrasal verb ‘pick up’. Mention the object of the
study here result of this study showed that phrasal verb ‘pick up’ is a kind of transitive phrasal
verb which often followed by object. The different objects in phrasal verb ‘pick up’ lead to non-
composition polysemi between DO / HAPPEN. This combination of two polysemies come in
eight meanings.