For all of your examples except "stand for", you have a verb and an adverbial particle. "stand for" (and "come from") is a verb and a preposition. So all of your examples except for "stand for" are already something different. For example, with "come from", "where did you come from?" is the same as "from where did you come?", but there's no equivalent with e.g. "stand up". And conversely, you can "screw things up", but you can't "come <object> from".

Anyway, simply put, they aren't verbs. They're "phrasal verbs". Or more specifically, most of them are particle phrasal verbs, and two (stand for and come from) are prepositional phrasal verbs. And you can't just pretend they're the same thing as normal verbs.

The Wikipedia page also says particle phrasal verbs (e.g. "stand in") are in the same general category as the separable verbs of other Germanic languages, the implication here being that prepositional phrasal verbs aren't. And in the link you provided, it explicitly says adverbial particles can be separated from the verb. So the point here is that ab·fahren is analogous to particle phrasal verbs in English, and not to prepositional phrasal verbs. So it's like "stand up", but it's not like "come from".

It occurs to me that maybe this more abstract approach I've been taking isn't working. So let me try again, with a concrete example. I'll use "stand for", which you seemed to have taken specific umbrage with. You state that you believe "stand for" is a verbal phrase ("stand") with a prepositional phrase ("for something"). Let's use a concrete sentence:

A rainbow flag stands for LGBT pride.

So, if I'm understanding you correctly, this is how you would analyze this sentence:

(A rainbow flag)subject (stands)verb (for LGBT pride)prepositional

I agree that, with this interpretation, the question form should be:

For what does a rainbow flag stand?

However, I don't agree with that interpretation. Here, the verb is simply "stand", with the prepositional phrase being the beneficiary of the standing. Well, a flag can't stand. And even if it could, I don't see how it could stand in benefit of LGBT pride, considering that it has no intrinsic motive.

I propose the sentence be analyzed as follows:

(A rainbow flag)subject (stands for)verb (LGBT pride)object

In this analysis, "stands for" is a discrete lexical entry, a transitive verb that just happens to be written as two words. A flag can't "stand", but it can "stand for". And since it's now a transitive verb with a direct object, it's perfectly acceptable to ask:

What does a rainbow flag (stand for)?

Because that is how you ask for the direct object of a verb. It's exactly the same construction as:

What does a lion (eat)?

And all this is directly in line with German prefixed verbs -- both separable and inseparable -- where the prefixed verbs are analyzed as distinct verbs from their unprefixed forms. And I doubt you would argue against "understand" being a different verb than "stand", which is an example of an English inseparable verb. So why the strong stance against the same type of analysis for English separated verbs?

You keep trying to say "what if we pretend that preopositional phrasal verbs are just regular verbs, then we can declare that they're the same as Germanic separable verbs". But the whole point is they're not the same thing. That's not how they're categorized.

How do you think they were categorized and named in the first place? They were named by someone studying the language, examining how it works, and making a decision. Well, I'm studying the language, examining how this construct works, and making a decision.

Did you know that there are some people that classify German as an SOV language? It actually makes a lot of sense in analysis; it drastically simplifies the otherwise complex rules around German verb placement. However, it takes the ability to step aside for a moment. To look at the common case (V2) and call it an exception.

Well, reformulating "stand for" as a transitive verb also simplifies the rules. It does even more; it takes a very common construction ("dangling preposition") and not only explains it, but makes it perfectly grammatical.

There's been a huge movement in linguistics away from what has been called "prescriptivism" towards "descriptivism". That is, that the users of a language are the ones who determine what is correct, and the best a linguist can do is take those constructs and describe them. Your approach to my comments so far has been extremely prescriptivist; that this construct has these words and therefore should be formed that way. And you do this in light of the fact that these types of constructions are extremely common and perfectly well understood.

So I ask you, is grammar meant to be a description of the way a language works, or is it meant to be a prescription of the way a language is supposed to work? Because all you've given me is the latter, while I'm attempting to show you the former. And if you believe the latter, then I already know that we will not come to terms because we are at philosophical odds with each other.

> Your approach to my comments so far has been extremely prescriptivist

Not at all correct. We're not talking about the correct way to form sentences. If I was saying "it's incorrect to have a dangling preposition" then I would be prescriptivist. But I'm not. What I am doing is telling you that you cannot simply reclassify one element of grammar as something else in order to pretend that there's no difference. Because there absolutely is a difference between prepositional phrasal verbs and particle phrasal verbs, both in how they're defined and how they're used. "stand up" and "stand for" are grammatically different, and pretending they're the same is simply wrong.

I don't understand why you keep ignoring this, since I've said it several times. And your attempt to paint this as prescriptivism vs descriptivism is a straw man.

That's not what a strawman is. I never said that such a view was wrong; I said that it was a philosophical point over which we would not be able to agree. Note that I was not directing the argument to something I could knock down; I was trying to identify a potentially terminal issue and "agree to disagree".

I was also communicating my view of what was happening. And I'm glad I did, because you are correct and it was a mistaken view. You never implied "dangling prepositions" as a problem; that was something I had in my head which you hadn't said.

In the end, I think we are stuck in a hole that Wikipedia actually summarizes quite nicely, so I'll just quote it here. The topic is the use of the terminology "phrasal verb", emphasis is all original:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phrasal_verb#Some_notes_on_ter...

"The value of this choice and its alternatives (including separable verb for Germanic languages) is debatable. In origin the concept is based on translation linguistics; as many single-word English and Latinate words are translatable by a phrasal verb complex in English, therefore the logic is that the phrasal verb complex must be a complete semantic unit in itself. One should consider in this regard that the actual term phrasal verb suggests that such constructions should form phrases. In most cases however, they clearly do not form phrases. Hence the very term phrasal verb is misleading and a source of confusion, which has motivated some to reject the term outright."

I think I'm sitting squarely in the latter camp described above. My analysis is that these are not phrasal at all, and so I think that's where this debate is actually sitting. (And conveniently, that quote also directly indicates Germanic separable verbs as alternative terminology.)

So, to summarize, I think this is one of those fine times (that seems to happen so often on the Internet) where we saw some sort of disagreement, but were really agreeing on everything but terminology.

It's a straw man because it wasn't actually my argument at all. You declared my argument to be something it wasn't, then said you disagree with the straw argument (which is another way to say you think it's wrong).

That said, the rest of your comment is quite reasonable and I'm content to let this be. I'm not entirely convinced that the only thing we disagree on is terminology, but it's certainly possible, and I don't think we need to waste any more air in figuring that out.

> It's a straw man because it wasn't actually my argument at all.

And I admitted as much.

I'm allowed to disagree with a certain philosophy or approach, while at the same time not discrediting it as an alternative approach nor as a basis for argument. And if I'm not attempting to discredit an argument, but rather saying that I simply don't think we will agree on an issue, then I'm not setting up a strawman.

I think this is all your interpretation of how to analyze these entities. I mean, I could just as easily call German separable verbs "particle phrasal verbs", but they are still analyzed as a single lexical entity. I don't see how you can treat the English examples any differently, given that they are basically idiomatic combinations. And the defining point of an idiomatic expression is that it must be analyzed as a singular entity with its own distinct meaning.

> I mean, I could just as easily call German separable verbs "particle phrasal verbs"

Not really, because particle phrasal verbs exists primarily in English, with apparently a small handful of occurrences in some Romance languages (such as Lombard or Italian).

Your argument is basically "if I call this one thing by another name, I can pretend it's actually something else", but you can't actually do that because that's complete nonsense.

You lead me down a path, then expertly knock down the strawman. Read what you just wrote in comparison to my original statement, and you'll see they have nothing in common. Also, that's a bit rich considering that your argument basically consists of them obviously not being the same thing, because they have different names! Which is a bit like saying that physics and math obviously have nothing to share with each other, because they have different names...

All I ever said is that the English use of these constructions is descended from Germanic, and can be analyzed in a similar way to the parallel constructions in modern German. And all I've ever said is that perhaps we can learn something by seeing how this other construction is analyzed. Much how physics and math heavily informed each other.

> All I ever said is that the English use of these constructions is descended from Germanic, and can be analyzed in a similar way to the parallel constructions in modern German.

You're saying that a prepositional phrasal verb is like a Germanic separable verb. But it's not. A particle phrasal verb is, but not a prepositional phrasal verb. You're deliberately trying to erase the difference in order to pretend that there is no difference.

> You're deliberately trying to erase the difference in order to pretend that there is no difference.

Well, here at least you are correct. However, it's not like I'm doing it willy-nilly. I am purposefully reanalyzing the construct, and coming to the conclusion that by doing so it makes a problem disappear. Oh, and at the same time, it also falls in line with these common constructions throughout at least West Germanic languages, of which English is one. So it makes a lot of sense on multiple levels, so why should it not be a valid analysis?

And so far the only argument you seem to have is that, no someone else beat me to the punch. This construct has already been analyzed and named and so I don't get to do that. Which seems like a pretty silly argument from this side of the table; that kind of stuff happens all the time. In science, in math, in engineering... I'm sure in other fields with which I am less familiar. There's always a process of refinement in studying the world, a constant improvement in methods of thinking and doing. That's how progress happens. Otherwise we'd all still be bashing rocks together, because rocks are used for bashing and that's been decided and I don't get to look at the situation and decide that hey, maybe this bronze stuff is better for bashing.

> And so far the only argument you seem to have is that, no someone else beat me to the punch.

No, the argument is that prepositional phrasal verbs and participle phrasal verbs are used differently and follow different grammatical rules. It's not just a matter of "oh someone declared it to be so", it's a matter of that's how the language actually works.