Particularly, I love the anomalies of the English language because they stump and frustrate those who feel a sense of arrogance in knowing all the classifications. They're those patches of word stickers that defy the class. Verbal particles are one such patch. Traditional grammarians say that verbs always follow the rules assigned to their category and are easily identifiable. One such rule is that the last word of a verb must be one of its four principal parts. The verb never ends with any other word. Auxiliaries and principal parts are the only possible word categories permissible. Even if a verb ends a sentence, the last word word of the verb is a principal part, not, say a preposition. Sentences can't end with a preposition. Traditional grammarians don't even recognize the term verbal particle because to do so would be to acknowledge that something doesn't really abide by the descriptions that they have spent years learning and feeling so knowledgeable about.
Oops, what about that last sentence? "About" is one of those apparent prepositions. But, is the sentence not a natively formed spoken grammatical structure? Of course it is. But the grammarian is quick to point out that the sentence is a bastard sentence, a sub-par sentence, a non-standard sentence. It has an easy fix: ...descriptions about which they have spent years learning and feeling so knowledgeable. Oh, ok. That change would follow the rules all right for both verbs and prepositions although nearly all Americans would be "wrong" when saying it their more intuitive way.
But then, there are those instances that don't have the "fix" available. "I want you to shut up," is such an example. "Up" is normally an adverb, but in this case, "up" doesn't tell how, when, or where to shut anything. Sometimes adverbs double as prepositions (as in "the climbers went up the mountain"). However, changing to "up which to shut" is not a possibility. The infinitive form is "to shut up" not "to shut" plus an adverb or "to shut" plus a preposition with a relative pronoun preceding the infinitive. Now, there's your anomaly.And how about "behavior you don't have to put up with?" Is the grammarian going to tell you to fix it by saying, "behavior up with which you will not put?" Not even they would be so foolish. The infinitive of the verb is "to put up with," not "to put" plus an answer to how, when, or where, or a transformation of "with" to the beginning of a prepositional phrase ("with which you will put up" still strands "up" as a part of the verb). Ludicrous!
And then there's the phrase, "rules to go by." This is a synonymous expression to "rules to follow," right? Well, if you take the traditional fix, "rules by which to go," then the synonymity vanishes because "to follow" does not mean "to go." Instead, "to follow" means "to go by." And how about "to do (something) over." Is that the same as "over which to do?" Never in a million years! Is it the same as "to do" something and then answer the adverb question when? Over. Perhaps, except that the native speakers have coined a noun to name the action (which occurs frequently, such as "to brand" becoming the noun "brand" or "to try" becoming the noun "try"). Natives speak of "do-overs" as a single word, a noun. That suggests they see the term "over" as a part of the action.
All of the above is to reiterate that when anomalies occur, their explanations are meaningful and explicable even when not apparent. One of my most cherished times is an anomaly on the landscape of my life. It defies normal classification. Oh, an explication exists, just as there is an explication for words after verbs - a new way of thinking about verbs - a particle (part of another category) that attaches itself in a way that doesn't include the whole category. The explanation is, though, special-ized, making the anomaly on my landscape special-ized as well.
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