Literary phrasal verbs — the formal-literary register

The phrasal verbs in this lesson differ structurally and functionally from the previous three lessons. Most are technically prepositional verbs rather than true phrasal verbs — they pair a verb with a fixed preposition (abide by, allude to, refrain from, succumb to) where the preposition introduces an object rather than modifying the verb’s meaning. The distinction matters: prepositional verbs are always inseparable, the preposition is non-detachable, and stress in speech falls on the verb, not the preposition. But native speakers and dictionaries lump them with phrasal verbs, and at C2 you need them productively in formal essay, literary criticism, ceremonial register, legal writing, and the kind of sentence that opens an Atlantic profile.

These verbs do a specific job: they carry Latinate weight without going full Latinate. A native writer choosing between adhere to and abide by, between mention indirectly and allude to, between give up and dispense with, is calibrating register. Allude to is more formal than mention but less stiff than make reference to. Hark back to is more literary than recall but less academic than evoke. Resort to sits between use and be reduced to using. These are the PVs that make essay prose sing without sounding like a legal brief.

For Russian-speakers, the cluster is treacherous: many of the verbs have transparent Latinate cognates in Russian (conform → конформировать, succumb → подчиниться, allude → намекать), but the English form requires the fixed preposition that Russian doesn’t have. Forgetting the preposition (conform the rules, succumb pressure) or substituting the wrong one (adhere with the policy instead of to) is the most common slip. This lesson drills the preposition as the load-bearing element.

Adherence and observance — abide by, conform to, adhere to, attend to

The cluster of following rules, principles, and commitments.

• abide by (inseparable) — comply with; accept and follow (rules, decisions, terms).
  • We agreed to abide by the arbitrator’s ruling.
  • Every signatory must abide by the treaty.
  • He refused to abide by the verdict.
  • Members agree to abide by the code of conduct.
  • Register: formal/legal. Slightly archaic in feel; common in contracts and ceremonial speech.
• conform to (inseparable) — meet (a standard, expectation, rule).
  • The new building conforms to all city codes.
  • Her behavior conforms to a pattern we’ve seen before.
  • The design doesn’t conform to brand guidelines.
  • The data conforms to the predicted distribution.
  • Register: formal/scholarly/technical.
• adhere to (inseparable) — stick to (a rule, principle, schedule); hold to (a belief).
  • The team adhered to the protocol throughout the trial.
  • He adheres to a strict daily routine.
  • We must adhere to the deadline.
  • Adherents to the doctrine number in the tens of thousands.
  • Register: formal. Common in academic, legal, business writing.
• attend to (inseparable, formal sense) — pay careful attention to; take care of.
  • Please attend to the details on page seven.
  • The nurse attended to the patient’s needs.
  • I’ll attend to it personally.
  • She attended to her elderly mother in her final years.
  • Register: formal/literary. The listen carefully sense is archaic (Attend, all ye who pass by — Whitman).

Mentioning and citing — allude to, ascribe to, look upon, pertain to

The verbs of indirect reference and formal regard.

• allude to (inseparable) — refer to indirectly or in passing.
  • The professor alluded to a famous case without naming it.
  • She alluded to her health in vague terms.
  • The poem alludes to Eliot’s “Prufrock” in its opening line.
  • He alluded to the audit without addressing the findings.
  • Register: formal/literary/scholarly. Crucially, allude to implies indirect reference; direct reference is refer to or cite.
• ascribe to (inseparable) — attribute to (a cause, source, author).
  • Historians ascribe the collapse to multiple factors.
  • The quote is often ascribed to Churchill but is probably apocryphal.
  • He ascribed his success to luck.
  • The painting is ascribed to a student of Vermeer rather than the master himself.
  • Register: formal/scholarly. Synonymous with attribute to but slightly more literary.
• look upon (inseparable, formal sense) — regard; consider.
  • The board looks upon the merger favorably.
  • Future historians will look upon this decade differently.
  • She looked upon him as a mentor.
  • The Court looked upon the procedural error as harmless.
  • Register: formal/literary. Slightly archaic; the common alternative is regard or see.
• pertain to (inseparable) — relate to; have relevance to.
  • The clause pertains only to commercial use.
  • That doesn’t pertain to the question.
  • Documents pertaining to the case were sealed.
  • The objection pertains to the foundation, not the relevance.
  • Register: formal/legal/scholarly. Very common in legal writing.

Declining and refraining — refrain from, dispense with, give way to

The verbs of formal abstention and yielding.

• refrain from (inseparable) — abstain from; choose not to do.
  • Please refrain from talking during the performance.
  • He refrained from comment when pressed.
  • I’ll refrain from speculating.
  • The witness refrained from naming individuals.
  • Register: formal. Common in announcements, court orders, ceremonial speech.
• dispense with (inseparable) — do without; eliminate as unnecessary.
  • Let’s dispense with the formalities and get to business.
  • The proposal dispenses with the two-year residency requirement.
  • We can dispense with the introduction.
  • The book dispenses with chapter divisions entirely.
  • Register: formal/business/literary.
• give way to (inseparable, three-part) — yield to; be replaced by.
  • The storm gave way to a clear evening.
  • Initial resistance gave way to acceptance.
  • Anger gave way to grief.
  • The minimalism of the early period gave way to ornate maximalism in his late work.
  • Register: formal/literary. Common in narrative and historical writing.

Returning, harking back, and reverting — hark back to, revert to, light upon

The verbs of recurrence and discovery in formal register.

• hark back to (inseparable, three-part) — recall; evoke (an earlier era or precedent).
  • The architecture harks back to the Federal period.
  • Her phrasing harks back to King James English.
  • The campaign harks back to Reagan’s 1980 rhetoric.
  • His prose style harks back to mid-century New Yorker essays.
  • Register: formal/literary/journalistic. Hark is otherwise archaic but lives in this fixed PV.
• revert to (inseparable) — return to (an earlier state, practice, or owner).
  • The land reverts to the state if the trust dissolves.
  • He reverted to his old habits within a month.
  • The discussion reverted to the original question.
  • Under the original deed, ownership reverts to the descendants after fifty years.
  • Register: formal/legal/scholarly.
• light upon (inseparable) — happen upon; come across (an idea, fact, solution) by chance.
  • She lit upon the solution while walking the dog.
  • The reporter lit upon a forgotten interview from 1992.
  • I lit upon the phrase in an old letter.
  • Wandering the archive, he lit upon a 1923 manuscript that changed the field.
  • Register: formal/literary. Light on is the more common variant; light upon is more elevated. Past tense is lit upon in literary prose.

Resorting and succumbing — resort to, succumb to

Two PVs of being driven to action or state.

• resort to (inseparable) — turn to (a less desirable option) when better choices fail.
  • They resorted to layoffs after the funding round collapsed.
  • I had to resort to bribery to get the records.
  • Don’t resort to threats — we can negotiate.
  • The administration resorted to executive orders after Congress stalled.
  • Register: formal/journalistic. The presupposition is that the option is suboptimal.
• succumb to (inseparable) — yield to (pressure, illness, temptation); be overcome by.
  • He eventually succumbed to the cancer in March. (= died of)
  • She succumbed to the pressure and signed.
  • The team succumbed to the early lead and never recovered.
  • Most negotiators eventually succumb to the temptation to over-anchor.
  • Register: formal/literary. In obituary register, succumbed to is the standard euphemism for died of.

Holding forth and expounding — hold forth on, expound on

Two PVs of extended speech.

• hold forth on (inseparable, three-part) — speak at length and confidently, sometimes pompously.
  • He held forth on monetary policy for forty minutes.
  • She likes to hold forth on the state of the union.
  • The retired professor held forth on every topic at every family dinner.
  • Register: literary/critical. Often mildly disapproving — implies the speaker enjoys hearing themselves.
• expound on (inseparable, two-part) — explain or set out in detail.
  • The professor expounded on the theory at length.
  • He expounded on his thesis for an hour.
  • The keynote expounded on the company’s five-year strategy.
  • Register: formal/literary. Less disapproving than hold forth but still implies length.

A note on prepositional verbs vs true phrasal verbs

A theoretical aside that pays off productively: most of the verbs in this lesson are technically prepositional verbs, not phrasal verbs. The distinction:

• A phrasal verb combines a verb with an adverbial particle that modifies the verb’s meaning. The particle can sometimes be stressed and sometimes separated from the verb. Example: I called him up; I picked the package up / I picked up the package.
• A prepositional verb combines a verb with a fixed preposition that introduces an object. The preposition is never separated, never stressed (the verb takes the stress), and the object is always after the preposition. Example: I look at the photo (not I look the photo at); She abides by the rules.

Most of the literary cluster — abide by, conform to, adhere to, allude to, ascribe to, pertain to, refrain from, succumb to, resort to, revert to, hark back to, light upon — falls in the prepositional camp. Stress falls on the verb, not the preposition. Adhere to, not adhere to. This stress pattern is one of the recognition markers of educated speech.

The practical consequence: never separate, never modify, never drop the preposition. Drill these as locked verb-preposition units.

Where you’ll meet these in real US prose

The literary PV cluster surfaces in five identifiable contexts in contemporary US writing.

Supreme Court opinions and legal briefs: abide by, conform to, adhere to, pertain to, set forth, refrain from, dispense with, revert to, succumb to. The Court’s prose is Latinate and PV-rich. The plaintiff failed to abide by the procedural requirement; the court must refrain from substituting its judgment for the legislature’s; the burden reverts to the defendant once a prima facie case has been established.

The New York Review of Books, the London Review, n+1, Harper’s essays: allude to, hark back to, light upon, look upon, give way to, expound on, hold forth on. Essayistic prose draws on the literary cluster for its measured cadence. Sontag alludes to a passage in Auerbach; her argument harks back to a tradition the reader is expected to know; her sentences give way to longer, almost biblical periods.

Obituaries and ceremonial speech: succumb to, hark back to, look upon, attend to, refrain from. The obituary register is dense with this cluster, especially succumbed to as the euphemism for died of.

Academic writing across disciplines: conform to, ascribe to, pertain to, adhere to, succumb to, dispense with, allude to. The cluster is the connective tissue of scholarly argument.

Religious and homiletic register: abide by, attend to, refrain from, give way to, succumb to, hark back to. Sermons, liturgy, and pastoral letters preserve the cluster in its most archaic forms.

Reading these contexts is C2 reading; producing the cluster in the right context is C2 writing.

Productive vs recognition

Register matrix

Common Russian-speaker mistakes

1. Dropping the preposition entirely. Conform the rules (correct: conform to the rules); succumb pressure (correct: succumb to pressure); allude the case (correct: allude to the case). These are prepositional verbs — the preposition is the lexical core. Russian transitive verbs don’t require this scaffold, so the omission is the single most common L1 slip.
2. Wrong preposition by L1 calque. Adhere with (correct: adhere to); abide with (correct: abide by — and note that abide with exists, archaically, meaning “stay with,” as in the hymn Abide with Me); ascribe with (correct: ascribe to). The prepositions are fixed and non-negotiable.
3. Using allude to for direct reference. The article alludes to the Supreme Court ruling is wrong if the article names the ruling explicitly. Allude to requires indirectness. Direct reference is refer to, cite, or mention.
4. Using resort to without the bad-option presupposition. I resorted to email sounds odd unless email was a suboptimal fallback; if email was the natural choice, just I emailed. Resort to requires the implication that better options failed.
5. Confusing succumb to (yield to/die of) with suffer from. He suffered from cancer (had the disease over time) vs He succumbed to cancer (died of it). In obituary register, succumbed to is the right verb; for ongoing illness, suffered from.
6. Using hold forth approvingly. Hold forth almost always carries a mildly disapproving overtone in modern US prose — the speaker is talking too much and enjoying it too much. To describe extended speech approvingly, use expound on, speak at length, or deliver an extended argument.
7. Treating hark back as transitive. The architecture harks back to the Federal period (correct, intransitive with to introducing the period); the architecture harks back the Federal period (wrong — preposition required). Also note: hark back implies recall or evocation, not literal return.
8. Saying light on in narrative when you mean light upon. Both exist; light upon is the more literary and the form preferred in elevated prose. He lit upon a phrase (literary) vs the bird lit on the branch (the literal landing sense).

Latinate substitutes and what’s lost when you use them

The literary cluster always has a more transparent alternative. Knowing both — and choosing the literary form when the register calls for it — is C2 production.

Each row is a real productive choice at C2. You don’t have to use the literary form; but you should know what you lose when you don’t.

Common Russian-speaker mistakes (additional drill)

The single largest trap with this entire cluster is the fixed preposition. Russian verbs of regard, mention, comply, and yield take direct objects or different prepositional scaffolds entirely. English requires the locked partner: abide by, conform to, adhere to, allude to, refer to, ascribe to, pertain to, refrain from, dispense with, hark back to, revert to, succumb to, resort to. Drill them as one piece — verb-plus-preposition — and never as a verb alone.

Summary

• The literary PV cluster is mostly prepositional verbs with fixed prepositions; all are inseparable; the preposition is the lexical core.
• Adherence cluster: abide by (external rules), conform to (standards), adhere to (one’s own principles), attend to (formal take care of).
• Reference cluster: allude to (indirect), ascribe to (attribute), pertain to (relate to), look upon (formal regard).
• Abstention cluster: refrain from (abstain), dispense with (eliminate as unnecessary), give way to (yield to/be replaced by).
• Recurrence cluster: hark back to (evoke earlier era), revert to (return to earlier state), light upon (chance discovery).
• Yielding cluster: resort to (turn to bad option), succumb to (yield to/die of).
• Extended speech: expound on (neutral-formal), hold forth on (mildly disapproving).
• Productive at C2 in formal writing and ceremonial speech; recognition-only for archaic-flavored items like look upon and light upon.
• The Russian-speaker traps: dropping the preposition, wrong preposition by calque, using allude to for direct reference, using succumb to loosely, using hold forth approvingly.

One more drill — the test of registering register

Read these three sentence pairs aloud and notice the register shift.

1. She follows the rules. / She abides by the rules.
2. The investigation was about the missing funds. / The investigation pertained to the missing funds.
3. The fashion changed from minimalism to maximalism. / Minimalism gave way to maximalism.

The literary form in each pair is not better; it is different. Use it when the register is formal, scholarly, legal, ceremonial, or essayistic. Use the plain form everywhere else. At C2 the choice is conscious and reversible — you can switch between the two clusters within a paragraph for effect.

Next lesson: Archaic and dated phrasal expressions — pull a fast one, take to (a person), do a number on, give someone the bum’s rush, take leave of, set someone straight, talk turkey, give someone what-for, give someone what’s coming, get one’s just deserts — recognition-only fixed expressions you will meet in older fiction, courtroom drama, and the speech of older Americans.