cher@ihlpm.UUCP (Mike Cherepov) (03/22/85)
---
This is a general question about ending sentences with
prepositions.
It formally appears to be an illegitimate deed, but
such forms are universally spoken and otherwise used.
Did those constructs officially (whatever that means)
become an accepted standard?
How is that treated in ole England? Does Ms. Thatcher
use the title phrase as freely as Reagan?
Do somebody knows?
And stuff.
Mike Cherepovfriesen@psivax.UUCP (Stanley Friesen) (03/27/85)
In article <186@ihlpm.UUCP> cher@ihlpm.UUCP (Mike Cherepov) writes: > >This is a general question about ending sentences with >prepositions. >It formally appears to be an illegitimate deed, but >such forms are universally spoken and otherwise used. > >Did those constructs officially (whatever that means) >become an accepted standard? >How is that treated in ole England? Does Ms. Thatcher >use the title phrase as freely as Reagan? > >Do somebody knows? >And stuff. > Mike Cherepov Actually they are not *really* prepositions, they are more like adverbs, and they are a remnant of an *ancient* Germanic construct, also found in German(where they are called seperable prefixes). Basically the pair of a verb and a "preposition" act like a new (effectively) compound verb, except the "prefix" goes at the end of the clause. Thus "fill up" is a different verb than "fill", and "put down" is a different verb than "put". (Examples: He filled it up. You should put that down). (See also an Old English Grammar) The (spurious) declaration that such constructions are ungrammatical only dates back about a century, to the era of prescriptive grammar, when all grammars were forced into the mold of classical Latin, which does not have seperable affixes. Thus, since all of the affixes havbe a correspending preposition, these rule-creators decreed that they *were* prepositions, which *do* require an object. -- Sarima (Stanley Friesen) {trwrb|allegra|cbosgd|hplabs|ihnp4|aero!uscvax!akgua}!sdcrdcf!psivax!friesen or {ttdica|quad1|bellcore|scgvaxd}!psivax!friesen
barryg@sdcrdcf.UUCP (Lee Gold) (03/28/85)
The technical name for those things that look like prepositions but
are actually part of the verb is PARTICLES.
Confusing? Sometimes it gets worse; you can have two verbs-cum-
particles with different meanings but the same spellings.
For instance, take PUT-UP-WITH (meaning to tolerate) and compare it
to PUT-UP-WITH (to nail to the all by means of).
I had one Linguistics professor who claimed that indeed you shouldn't end
a sentence with a preposition--and that no native English speaker was
capable of constructing a entence that would do so.
Ever read sentences that violate not the Emily Post type rules of
etiquette grammar but the deep grammar of English syntax? Often they
sound quite poetic.
At railroad station, emotion went yesterday down.
Some colorless grief ago was happily.
One of the shocks in learning Japanese was getting used to post-positions
(like prepositions but they follow the noun rather than going before it).
Another was getting used to the regularity of having ALL adjectival
expressions precede the noun (including relative and prepositional phrases)
and the topic goes at the start of the sentence with the verb at the end,
so that you get sentences constructed along the lines of
"The-corner-on-sitting-man as-for me-to-next lives."
--Lee Goldlarry@qantel.UUCP (Larry Barnes@ex2559) (04/01/85)
> In article <186@ihlpm.UUCP> cher@ihlpm.UUCP (Mike Cherepov) writes: > > >This is a general question about ending sentences with > >prepositions. > >It formally appears to be an illegitimate deed, but ... > > > >Do somebody knows? > > Mike Cherepov > > Actually they are not *really* prepositions, they are more > like adverbs, and they are a remnant of an *ancient* Germanic > construct, also found in German(where they are called seperable > prefixes). Basically the pair of a verb and a "preposition" > act like a new (effectively) compound verb, except the "prefix" > goes at the end of the clause. Thus "fill up" is a different verb > than "fill", and "put down" is a different verb than "put". > -- > > Sarima (Stanley Friesen) The discussion about particles in English is a tad amusing for the lack of scholastic references. The two books I have handy are: Winograd, Terry. Language as a Cognitive Process (vol 1 of 2, projected). Addison-Wesley, 1983. and: Bresnan, Joan. The Mental Representation of Grammatical Relations. The MIT Press, 1982. Both go into the relatively recent phenomenon (historically) of turning verbs that take prepositional phrases as complements into verb-plus-particle combinations. This is akin to the separable compounds in German, but appear to be an independent evolution in English. (Sarima's comments about prescriptive grammar are right on.) Larry
dts@gitpyr.UUCP (Danny Sharpe) (04/01/85)
In article <1867@sdcrdcf.UUCP> barryg@sdcrdcf.UUCP (Lee Gold) writes: >One of the shocks in learning Japanese was getting used to post-positions >(like prepositions but they follow the noun rather than going before it). I've seen it said that English had a few postpositions. "Ago", as in "a long time ago" is an example. -Danny -- Either Argle-Bargle IV or someone else. -- Danny Sharpe School of ICS Georgia Insitute of Technology, Atlanta Georgia, 30332 ...!{akgua,allegra,amd,hplabs,ihnp4,seismo,ut-ngp}!gatech!gitpyr!dts -- -- Either Argle-Bargle IV or someone else. -- Danny Sharpe School of ICS Georgia Insitute of Technology, Atlanta Georgia, 30332 ...!{akgua,allegra,amd,hplabs,ihnp4,seismo,ut-ngp}!gatech!gitpyr!dts
steiny@scc.UUCP (Don Steiny) (04/01/85)
> > The technical name for those things that look like prepositions but > are actually part of the verb is PARTICLES. > Confusing? Sometimes it gets worse; you can have two verbs-cum- > particles with different meanings but the same spellings. > For instance, take PUT-UP-WITH (meaning to tolerate) and compare it > to PUT-UP-WITH (to nail to the all by means of). > > I had one Linguistics professor who claimed that indeed you shouldn't end > a sentence with a preposition--and that no native English speaker was > capable of constructing a sentence that would do so. > > --Lee Gold The sentences: 1) He ran up the bill. 2) He ran up the hill. are simple examples of sentences that are similar in surface structure, but the "up"'s are different. One is a particle and the other is a prepositions (which is a special type of particle). We can say: 3) He ran the bill up. but 4) *He ran the hill up. is ungrammatical. The differences in "up" can be defined by the way that they can move in clauses. The question of ending a sentence with a preposition is not relevant in #3, because the sentence does not end with a preposition. Most people say: 5) What were you talking about? and not: 6) About what were you talking? The reason a linguistics professor would contend that English speakers do not end a sentence with a prepostion is that the professor was making a distinction between "deep" structure and "surface" structure. "Deep structure" is a highly abstract representation, like flow charts of a computer program that could be implemented in any language. The surface structure is like the written out program in some language. It is not the binary itself, but it is a more detailed description of what the binary is like than the flow chart. In speech #5 is much more natural that #6. However this does not contradict the assertion that English speakers do not end sentences with prepositions. At the *deep* level, sentence #5 is generated as: 7) You were talking about what. and it is transformed into #5 by moving the noun phrase ("what") to the beginning of the sentence and switching the positions of the noun and verb (according to one explanation). Therefore, "what" is the object of the preposition and the sentence does not end with a preposition in "deep" structure, yet, after the "transformation" into #5, the "surface" structure, it does. The rule of prescriptive grammar is that the whole prepositional phrase must be moved to the front instead of the object. Though I do not know the specific rule the rule almost certainly came from Latin and is not a rule of English at all. -- scc!steiny Don Steiny - Personetics @ (408) 425-0382 ihnp4!pesnta -\ 109 Torrey Pine Terr. ucbvax!twg --> scc!steiny Santa Cruz, Calif. 95060 fortune!idsvax -/