Lecture10 the preposition

Meaning - prepositions express the relations between words in a sentence. But if true, this would imply that they do not denote any relations existing outside the language. Foreign scholars ( R.A.Quirk, Susan M. Gass, C.Collins) have made a lot of surveys to find out the status of the preposition. They have found out that prepositions may have different meanings. Some examples will show it.

• If we compare the two sentences: The book is lying on the labkl and The book /,y lying under the table, we may see that the preposition I plays a significant role in these sentences, as it changes the location of the book. So we may say that the preposition can create 1 prepositional phrase with the headword "preposition" (see 2. 2.b).

• In some cases a preposition merely serves as a link between words. Take, for instance, the sentence: It was like, a spike of iron pushed slowly up through his stomach (.1.Collier). Here we cannot say that the preposition "of has any meaning of its own, it only shows the relation between two words and may express a genitive case of the noun.

• In some cases the preposition may completely change the meaning of the word, especially verb and such phrases are called "verbal phrases": He started up the engine and was _off_ (=left the room) (J.Collicr).

It also should be taken into account that prepositions may not change the meaning of the verb or noun or adjective or gerund as it was shown in example of a genitive case of noun. They arc simply used as set expressions with the headword; Moreover he smelt of plum brandy (L-Durrell).

The position in a sentence - On the sentence level the preposition is never a part of a sentence by itself; it enters the part of sentence whose main centre is the following noun, or pronoun, or gerund.

The preposition may be in pre-position to the word it modifies,

e.g.: Here 1 am beside myself with troubles (L.Durrell)

In post-position, after the word it modifies, e.g.: This sort of thine could only happen at Lourdes. (L.Durrel)

• Can be omitted. Alice Maclin in her "Guide to English" writes: "Do not put "of after another preposition unless the dictionary shows it. Do not, for example, write "off of" or "behind of. When the "of can be used or left out, leave it out" [29,247]

Form, function and classification- (see the table attached) Difference between a preposition and other parts of speech:

1. A preposition and an adjective - the adjective near, used in such phrases as the near future. On the other hand, there is the preposition near, found in such sentences as they live near me. The adjective has degrees of comparison, and the preposition of course has none.

A preposition and a conjunction - prepositions usually show relationship between the words in a phrase, but conjunctions connect the sentences, e.g.: ...long before Joey (preposition), long before. me (preposition), long before (conjunction) even my old man had ever stood on these same terraces (B.Gianville).

A preposition and an adverb - Some adverbs are similar to but not Guy the same as related prepositions, e.g.:

a. The taxi was waiting near the hotel (prepositional phrase)

b. The taxi was waiting nearby, (adverb)

Though identical in a form adverbs and prepositions are different » speech. The adverb has a special function in the sentence that 11 adverbial modifier, prepositions cannot have separate function only as a phrase.

With numerals, even more than with pronouns, it is difficult to keep the strictly grammatical approach and not to let oneself u diverted into lexicological considerations. O.Jespersen has quite rightly remarked that numerals have been treated by grammarians in a different way from other parts of speech. This is what he says, "...the grammarian in this chapter on numerals does what he never dreamed of doing in the two previous chapters (those on nouns and adjectives. — B. I, he gives a complete and orderly enumeration of all the words belonging to this class,"

It seems therefore all the more necessary to stick to two grammatical aspect of things when dealing with this particular, category of words. What, indeed, ought to be said about numerals from a grammatical viewpoint?

There are no grammatical categories to be discussed in numerals. There is no category of number, nor of case, nor any other morphological category. The numerals are, to all intents and purposes, invariable. So there is only the function of numerals to be considered, and also possibilities of their substantivization.

The most characteristic function, of numerals is of course that of an attribute preceding its noun. However a numeral can also perform other functions in the sentence (it can be subject, predicative, and object) if the context makes it clear what objects are meant, as in: We are seven, Of the .seven people I was looking for I found only three..

An ordinal numeral can also be modified by an infinitive denoting the action in which the object mentioned occupies a definite place; a characteristic example of this usage is, lie was the first to come.

The numerals, both cardinal and ordinal, share certain peculiarities of syntactic construction with pronouns. Cf, e. g-,five children, five of the children, five of them; some children, .some of tne. children, some of them; also the first travellers, (he first of the travellers, the first of them. This, however, does not seem a sufficient reason for uniting pronouns and numerals into one part of speech, and such a union has not so far been proposed.

It is common knowledge that prepositions are a most important element of the structure of many languages, particularly which, like Modern English, have no developed case system in .heir nominal parts of speech.

We have briefly discussed the problem of the meaning of prepositions but here we shall have to consider it at some length.

It is sometimes said that prepositions express the relations between words in a sentence, and this is taken as a definition of the meaning of prepositions. If true, this would imply that they do not denote any relations existing outside the language. However, this is certainly not true, and two or three simple examples will show it. If we compare the two sentences: The book is lying on the table, and The book is lying under the table, and ask ourselves, what do-the prepositions express here, it will at once be obvious that they express relations (in space) between the book (the thing itself) and the table (the thing itself). The difference in the situations described in the two sentences is thus an extralinguistic difference expressed by means of language, namely, by prepositions, it would certainly be quite wrong to say that the prepositions merely express the relations between the word book and the word table, as the definition quoted above would imply. The same may be said about a number of other sentences. Compare, for instance, the two sentences, He will come before dinner, and He will come after dinner. It is absolutely clear that the prepositions denote relations between phenomena in the extralinguistic world (time relations between "his coming" and "dinner"), not merely relations between the word come and the -word dinner.

We must add that there are cases in which a preposition does not express relations between extralinguistic phenomena but merely serves as a link between words. Take, for instance, the sentence This Depends on you. Here we cannot say that the preposition on has any meaning of its own. This is also clear from the fact that no other preposition could be used after the verb depend (except the

Preposition upon, which is to all intents and purposes a stylistic variant of on). Using modern linguistic terminology, we can say that preposition on is here predicted by the verb depend. The same may be said about the expression characteristic of him. If the adjective characteristic is to be followed by any prepositional phrase at all the preposition of must be used, which means that it is predicted by the word characteristic. Returning now to our examples The book is lying on the table and The book is lying under the table, we must of course say that neither the preposition on nor the preposition under is predicted by the verb lie.

A special case must now be considered. In some phrases which are not part of a sentence, a preposition does not connect two words because there is no word at all before it, and so its ties are one sided: they point only forwards, not back,As characteristic examples we may quote the titles of some poems and novels: "To a Skylark" (SHELLEY) "On a Distant Prospect of" Eton College" (GRAY), "OP Human Bondage"

(MAUGHAM), "Under the Greenwood Tree" (TH.HARDY). The syntactical function of the prepositions in cases of this type is a peculiar one. The preposition either expresses a relation between the thing expressed by the noun and something not mentioned in the text (as in "To a Skylark"), or it gives the characteristic of the place where something not specified takes place ("Under the Greenwood Tree"). It is evident that in such cases the preposition has only a one sided connection, namely with the noun following it, but we may ask whether it has not also some reference to something not expressed which may be imagined as standing before the preposition. Let us, for instance, compare the actual title of W. Somerset Maugham's novel,

"Of Human Bondage", with a possible variant "Human Bondage ,without the preposition. In this way the meaning and function of the preposition become clear: the preposition of is here used as it is used in the phrases speak of something think of something, etc,.In the title, as it stands, the proposition implies that the author is going to speak of Human Bondage, that is, human bondage is going to be discussed.

We shall arrive at a similar conclusion if we compare the actual title of TH.Hardey s novel,”Under the greenwood tree”,with the possible variant “The greenwood tree”. The preposition implies that we shall be reading about something happening under the tree, rather than about the tree itself. So it will probably be right to say that something

implied (very vaguely, it must be admitted). We should '"especially note some peculiar uses of the preposition about, namely in such sentences as, There were about twenty people in the room, which of course means that the number is given approximately. The preposition here nas only a one-sided connection, namely with the numeral, and has no connection at all with the preceding verb. It certainly does not express any relation between were and twenty. Syntactically, it makes an element of the subject group (about twenty people). Indeed we may be inclined to doubt whether the word about is a preposition at all in such a case. It rather approaches the status of a particle.

This is still more confirmed by examples in which the group introduced by about stands after another preposition, as in the sentence, This happened at about three o'clock. The group about three o'clock here follows the preposition at in quite the same way as the group three o'clock would follow it in the sentence This happened at three o'clock. The group about three o'clock is a designation of a certain time as much as the group three o'clock, and to establish its relation with the verb happened it also requires the preposition at to be used.

We also find two prepositions close to each other in different contexts. Compare, for instance, the following sentence: He sat until past midnight in the darkness while grief and sorrow overcame him. (E. CALDWELL) Here also belongs the phrase from under in sentence like The cat stretched its paw from under the table. It seems quite possible to take this in the same way as we took at about in thepreceding example, and to say that under the table denotes a certain and from indicates movement from that place. However, it is also possible to view this case in a somewhat different way, namely to supposethat from under is a phrase equivalent to a preposition, and should not have two prepositions following one another here.This problem should be further investigated.

Prepositions can sometimes be followed by adverbs, which become partly substantivized when so used. The groups from where, since then, since when are too widely known to require illustrative examples. Another case in point is the following:

She is beautiful with that Indian summer renewal of physical charm which comes to a woman who loves and is loved, particularly to one who has not, found that love until comparatively late in life. (O'NEILL)

Prepositions in English are less closely connected with the word or phrase they introduce than, say, in Russian. It would be impossible in English for a preposition to consist of a consonant only, that is, to be non-syllabic, which is the case with the three Russian prepositions e, b, c This greater independence of English prepositions manifests itself in various ways.

There is the possibility of inserting, between a preposition and the word or phrase it introduces, another phrase, which can, in its turn, be introduced by a preposition. Here is an example of this kind: The first of these, "The Fatal Revenge", appeared in 1807, and was followed by, among other, "The Milesian Chief. (COUSIN) The two prepositions, by and among, stand one after the other, but there is certainly no syntactic connection between them, and probably there is I a pause, corresponding to the comma of the written text. The connection between followed and by appears to be closer than that, between by and the phrase which it introduces, namely, "The Milesian Chief. Unless it were so, the preposition by would come after the inserted phrase among others, rather than before it. But that variant, though perhaps not impossible, would certainly be less idiomatic than that in the text.

This way of making one preposition come immediately after another, showing the independence of the first preposition, is also seen iti some cases where the status of the second preposition may be-, doubted, that is, it may be doubted whether the word is really a preposition in that context (compare what has been said on p. 152). The following sentence, which is fairly characteristic of modern usage, will show the essence of the phenomenon: His industry was marvellous, and its results remain embodied in about 40 books, of which about 25 are commentaries on books of Scripture. (COUSIN) Of course all this is made possible by the fact that prepositions in English do not require the word they introduce to have a specified case form.

Sometimes even a parenthetical clause come between the preposition and the noun it introduces, e. g. Some weeks ago Mr came down to me in, as it seemed to me, a state of

considerable agitation. (CONAN DOYLE).

The looseness of the tie between the preposition and the following noun can be offset by a closer tie between the preposition and the preceding word. This may be seen, for instance, in some passive constructions with the phrase "verb + noun + preposition" acting as a kind of transitive unit. Examples of this use are well known. Compare the following sentence: Their conference was put an end to by the anxious young lover himself, who came to breathe his parting sigh before he set off for Wiltshire. (J.AUSTEN) The active construction would have been, The young lover put an end to their conference, where an end would be a non-prepositional, and to their conference a prepositional object. It might be argued, however, that put an end is something of a phraseological unit and should therefore be treated as the predicate. Be that as it may, the fact remains that the noun end is included into the passive form of the verb, and the subject of the passive construction is the noun which, in the active construction, would have been part of the prepositional object.

It should also be noted that a preposition does not necessarily connect the word which immediately precedes it with the one that follows. Cases are frequent enough in which there is no connection at all between the preposition and the preceding word. For instance, in the sentence, This beauty is a trifle dimmed now by traces of recent illness (O'NEILL) there is no connection between the words now and by. The preposition by is of course connected with the passive participle dimmed and the adverb now could be left out without affecting the connections and the functions of the preposition: This beauty is dimmed by traces of recent illness. The same may be said about the sentence / get the same tale of woe from every one in our part of the country (Idem); the preposition from is not connected with the. noun woe which precedes it, it is connected with the verb get, which is separated from it by five other words. Many more examples of this kind might be given. This should warn us against an oversimplified understanding of the syntactical function of preposition.

Special attention must be given to groups of words whose meaning and functions in the sentence are the same as those of prepositions, Here belong the groups out of, as to, as for, instead of j« spite of, etc. We cannot term these groups prepositions, since a preposition is a word, not a word group, and it is essential to keep up the distinction between words and word groups; neglect of it would bring about a muddle both in grammar and in lexicology. The current haziness in the treatment of such groups and the vague terms "compound preposition" and the like are. not conducive to a clear and consistent grammatical theory. Since much the same can be said about phrases equivalent in meaning and function to conjunctions, we will return to this problem after having considered the conjunctions.