I note that someone has recently asked again about phrasal verbs, and
so I'm posting a summary of the replies I received after my own query
about 7 weeks ago.  I'd like to thank Richard Drury and Kent Lee
for their kind responses.  As I had only received these two responses,
I was waiting to see if more would arrive, but it looks like this topic
is better at inspiring queries than it is at generating replies.
Kent's remark about resultative verb compounds is intriguing and
should help in defining a basis for categorizing phrasal verbs in
English.  Richard's bibliography addresses the history of English
phrasal verbs, a specific aspect of my original query.

-- 
 
This is regarding your question on the Linguist list about verbs like "blow
dry", "jump start", etc.  These seem somewhat similar to resultative verb
compounds in Chinese.  I'm no syntactician, so I'll refer you to Li &
Thompson's book, "Mandarin Chinese: A Functional Reference Grammer" for a
good discussion of Mandarin verbal compounds.
 
Here are some titles on the history of English phrasal verbs:
Bolinger,  Dwight  (1971).  *The  Phrasal   Verb  in  English*.  Harv=
ard  UP.
A review by F raser in *Language* 50:  568-75=A9
 
Brinton,  J.  Laurel (1988).  *The  Devel.  of  the Eng.  Aspectual  =
System*.
CUP.
 
de la Cruz, Juan M. (1969). *Origins and Development of the Phr. Vb.
to the End of the Middle Eng. Period*. PhD diss., Queen's Univ., Belfast.
 
---  (1972b). 'The  Origins of  the Germanic  Phrasal Verb'.
*Indogermanisch Forschu ngen* 77:  73-96.
 
---  (1972b). 'ME  Verbs accompanied  by  a locative  particle'.
*Orbis*  21: 114-35.
 
---  (1973). 'A  late  13th  cent. change  in  Eng.  structure'.
*Orbis*  22:161-176.
 
---  (1975).  'OE  pure  prefixes:  Structure  and  function'.
*Linguistics* 145:  47-82.
 
Denison,  David  (1985).  'Origins  of completetive  UP  in  Eng'.
*Neophil. Mitteilung en* 86:  37-61.
 
Fraser,  Bruce  (1976).  *The  Verb-particle combination  in  Eng*.
Academic Press.
 
Hiltunen, Risto  (1983). *The decline  of prefixes  and the beginning
  of the Eng.  P hr.  Vb*.  Turku:  Turun Yliopisto.
 
Mitchell,  Bruce  (1978).  'Preposition,   adverbs  etc.  in  OE'.
*Neophil.Mitteilunge n* 79:  240-57.
 
Roberts,  Murat  H.  (1936).  'The  antiquity  of  the  Germanic
verb-adverb locution'.  *Journal of Eng.  and Germanic Philology* 35:  466-81.
 
von Schon,  Catherine V. (1977). *The  origin of phrasal verbs
in Eng.*. PhD diss.  , State Univ.  of NY at Stony Brook.
 
These  are taken  from the  bibliography of  a Laurea  (=3DM.A.)
thesis  that I supervised  some  years  ago.  Good luck  with  this
fascinating subject.