No problem. There are three major meanings I can presently think of.
1. to toss and turn while one is asleep
E.g., The bed has enough room to roll over in your sleep.
2. defeat
E.g., Don’t oblivion roll over you.
Oblivion defeating you means you are forgotten, abandoned, and nobody care about you.
3. this one is rather complicated and i let http://www.m-w.com (s.v. roll over) speak for me.
1 a : to defer payment of (an obligation) b : to renegotiate the terms of (a financial agreement)
2 : to place (invested funds) in a new investment of the same kind : REINVEST <roll over IRA funds>
An example is, "The company rolls over the funds from year to year."
This means that company has some superfluous funds at the end of this fiscal year and part or whole of the funds go into the next year’s budget.
Hope I could explain it as clearly as you want,
Flam
Flam has nailed this one - I’ll just add a few words.
Roll over normally means just that: to turn through 180 degrees.
I rolled over in bed so I could watch the sun come up through the open window.
There is also the sense of utter defeat. When my cat catches a mouse and brings it to me, he rolls it over to show that it’s dead.
The defence lawyer’s summary was so eloquent that the prosecution case simply rolled over.
This phrasal is also used to mean postpone or hold back. This is usually only applied in a financial sense.
The tax rebate was so small that it was rolled over until next year.
The builders were so slow that she threatened to roll over their wages until she saw some real progress.
This sense is most common now with lottery jackpots.
Nobody claimed last week’s jackpot of €1 million, so tonight’s roll-over jackpot stands at €2 million.
No, I don’t think so. ‘Roll over’ is the phrasal verb and ‘for’ is used as an ordinary preposition. If you post an example sentence with ‘roll over for’ in it, we might be able to analyse it. Check the different meanings of ‘roll over’ to see if you’ve got the one that fits.
The first has or can have a sexual connotation, or it could simple mean to allow oneself to be easily taken advantage of as in "When the boss asked him to move to a new office thousands of kilometers away and take a pay cut, Peter simply rolled over without any argument."
The second means to rapidly and utterly defeat as in "The invading army rolled over the defenseless population" (Sorry, didn’t mean to let politics creap here)
BNJ has got this one. The point is that the use of the word ‘for’ changes the sentence to mean exactly the opposite. When ‘roll over’ is used with a direct object it means can mean ‘defeat’, without a direct object it can be reflexive, ‘conceding defeat’.
After I posted my earlier comment, the thought came to me that the image is of the sub-dominant dog "rolling over" to indicate his (usually it’s a male) submission to the alpha male in the pack. The submissive dog is showing his stomach and showing he is defenseless and not a challenger to the leader’s authority.
Quite a few verbs in English become reflexive when not used with a direct object.
"I washed."
"I washed the car."
This is also true of the phrasal ‘roll over’ when used to mean ‘defeat’ or ‘submit’.
"I rolled over." => "I submitted/was defeated."
"I rolled it over." => "I defeated it."
The use of ‘for’ in the original quote marks an adverbial, its omission makes that similar phrase the direct object.
Another way to view it is transitivisation of intransitives. Methinks English verbs are quite adept at this.
E.g. walk (usually intransitve)
I walked to the park. —-> but if transitivised
I walked my dog to the park.
[quote author=Garzo link=board=what;num=1085907923;start=0#11 date=06/04/04 at 09:58:02]Quite a few verbs in English become reflexive when not used with a direct object.
"I washed."
"I washed the car."
Hmm… I don’t hear that first example as reflexive!
[quote author=Garzo link=board=what;num=1085907923;start=0#11 date=06/04/04 at 09:58:02]This is also true of the phrasal ‘roll over’ when used to mean ‘defeat’ or ‘submit’.
"I rolled over." => "I submitted/was defeated."
"I rolled it over." => "I defeated it."
And this is an excellent example of the importance of word order in English.
I rolled it over and I rolled over it have opposite meanings to me!
[quote author=Tim Ward link=board=what;num=1085907923;start=0#13 date=06/04/04 at 10:45:23]Hmm… I don’t hear that first example as reflexive!
Who is being washed in the phrase ‘I washed’ when it has no direct object (or intransitive, just for Flam)? Me! That sounds as close to reflexive as I get.
[quote author=Tim Ward link=board=what;num=1085907923;start=0#13 date=06/04/04 at 10:45:23]And this is an excellent example of the importance of word order in English.
I rolled it over and I rolled over it have opposite meanings to me!
The first instance only has this phrasal meaning. Placing the direct object next to the verb clearly shows that it is the recipient of the action; placed after the preposition, it becomes more closely governed by it.
[quote author=Garzo link=board=what;num=1085907923;start=0#14 date=06/04/04 at 11:21:20]Who is being washed in the phrase ‘I washed’ when it has no direct object (or intransitive, just for Flam)? Me! That sounds as close to reflexive as I get.
Well, that’s the point. I don’t hear that as a reflexive verb, unless you end it with myself. Without the reflexive pronoun I’m left wondering if it’s bad grammar, an incomplete sentence, or some other problem.
