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Those Problematic English Prepositions!

by Bob Grubic

over in out through under behind on between

CFIBACI Conference Long Beach, California November 13, 2004

WHICH ENGLISH ARE WE TALKING ABOUT?

The rules of English grammar are often variable because of differences in register and dialect. English has a formal register which is used in expository writing and in formal speeches. English also has an informal register used in informal conversation and in informal writing. In appropriate contexts both registers are acceptable and are parts of Standard English. Unacceptable forms are either nonstandard, i.e., characteristic of a dialect that is different from Standard English, or ungrammatical forms that are not acceptable to any native speaker of English.

Acceptable (Standard Dialect)

Formal Register written, formal grammar e.g.: There exist a number of alternatives that we should consider. Informal Register spoken, colloquial grammar e.g.: Theres several ways of looking at this problem. Nonstandard Dialects of English e.g.: I didnt say nothing.

Unacceptable

Ungrammatical (not English) e.g.: I no say that.

PARTS OF SPEECH
Noun a word that names a person, animal, place, idea, or thing house, car, people, love a word that describes a noun or pronoun (tells what kind or how many) big, happy, tall, green a word that takes the place of a noun or noun phrase he, she, it, this, who, mine a word that shows action or state of being run, talk, interpret, feel a word that describes a verb, adjective, or another adverb (tells how, when, where, or how much) carefully, slowly, unequivocally, very, quite a word placed before a noun or pronoun to define its relationship with another word in the sentence on, under, between, during, with, at a connecting word and, or, but, moreover, however an exclamation that often expresses strong feelings or intense emotion Ouch! Wow! Damn!, Golly! Bravo!

Adjective

Pronoun

Verb

Adverb

PREPOSITION

Conjunction

Interjection

PARTS OF SPEECH OR WORD CLASSES

Traditional grammars of English, following an approach which can be traced back to Latin, agreed that there were eight parts of speech in English: the noun, pronoun, adjective, verb, adverb, preposition, conjunction, and interjection. Some books paid separate attention to the participle; some additionally mentioned the article. But none was in any doubt that the definition of the parts of speech was an essential first step in learning about English Grammar. Why is it necessary to talk about parts of speech at all? The main reason is to be able to make general and economical statements about the way the words of the language behave. It is only a matter of common sense to generalize, when we notice that a set of words all work in the same way. In a simple case, we observe such sentences as It is in the box. It is near the fence. It is on the horse. It is by the table. It is under the car. It is for the book. and note the identity of structure. In each instance, there is an item preceding the which seems to have the same sort of function, expressing some kind of proximity relationship between it (whatever that is) and the following words. Rather than talk about each of these items individually, it makes sense to group them together into a single category. Latin had words with the same function, which the grammarians called prepositions (from prae + positio placing in front that is, in front of a noun, (and modern English grammars have happily continued to use the term. Modern grammarians are happy because this is one of the areas where Latin and English grammar seem to behave in a similar way. The notion of preposition is a particularly useful one for describing English. However, there is less happiness when people try to apply the old part-of-speech labels to English words that do not have a clear counterpart in Latin (such as the, shall, or the to in to go), or when they use definitions of the parts of speech that prove difficult to work with. Indeed, when linguists began to look closely at English grammatical structure in the 1940s and 1950s, they encountered so many problems of identification and definition that the term part of speech soon fell out of favor, word class being introduced instead. Word classes are equivalent to parts of speech, but defined according to strictly linguistic criteria.

Parts of Speech or Word Classes

THOSE PESKY, PROBLEMATIC PREPOSITION

Pesky = troublesome, annoying
Problematic = difficult to deal with or understand

Prepositions pose more problems for the non-native speaker or learner of English than any other part of speech. Why? Prepositions are just little words that never change in form. They are pronounces softly, in unstressed syllables. The arent even given capital letters in book titles. Native Speakers choose the correct ones without thinking. How can they be confusing? Lets focus on the prepositions with this crossword puzzle

THE CLASS OF PREPOSITIONS

A preposition expresses a relationship of meaning between two parts of a sentence, most often showing how the two parts are related in space or time: We sat on the bench, They left at three. Most of the common prepositions consist of only one word; they have no distinctive ending, and do not vary. Several prepositions consist of more than one word. Single-word prepositions include: about, at, before, by, down, for, from, in of , on, out, over, round, since, through, to, under, up, with. Multi-word prepositions include: (two-words) ahead of, because of, due to, instead of, near to; (three words) as far as, by means of, in accordance with, in spite of, on behalf of. The words in these prepositions do not vary freely, as they would in other circumstances. In spite of, for example, cannot change to *out spite of or *in spite for. Several prepositions are restricted in their frequency of use, especially such foreign borrowings as anti, circa, versus, and vis--vis. Unto is archaic, and used only in religious contexts. There are also some dialect uses, such as towards (British) vs. toward (American), outwith (Scots, except), and while (Yorkshire, until).

SIMPLE STRUCTURE

PREPOSITION on

OBJECT the fence

PREPOSITIONAL PHRASE on the fence

Prepositional phrases are used as: Adjectives The cat on the fence cried all night. Three men in blue suits escorted the President. He bought a car from the Ford dealer.

Adverbs

She threw the trash into the dumpster. We bought the tickets from Ticket Master. In an instant I knew it was a mistake.

A BIT OF HISTORY
English is recognized as having three distinct periods:

Old English

Middle English

Modern English

450 AD

1100 AD

1500 AD

Things happened to the English language after the decay of Old English and through the Middle English period. There were independent changes taking place in different areas of English one was a change from SOV to more SVO. Another was the loss of inflected forms (noun and adjective endings) to more critical use of preposition. English used to be an inflected language. example: paem scipum (dative ending on article and noun) O.E. to to the shippes (using the common plural ending) M.E. Sometimes the genitive s was left off a noun that ended in s or that was followed by a word beginning with s. The only noun case to survive into Modern English was the genitive (s or s in writing) a relic which continued to present problems in later centuries. Some of the personal pronouns also kept the old dative forms: he vs. him, she vs. her, etc.) The endings of the verb remained close to those of Old English during this period. Most verbs would have had the following forms, illustrated here in Chaucers English for turnen turn. Verb (I) (thou) (he/she/it) (we/you/they) Present Tense turn (e) turnest turneth turne (n) Past Tense turned (e) turnedest turned (e) turned (en)

9 In early Modern English, several prepositions had different uses from today. Of, in particular, is widespread: the zeal of (for) thine house, tempted of (by) Satan. Others examples include in (at) a good old age, taken to (as a) wife, and like as (like or as) the sand of the sea. In English, word order within sentences is more rigid than it is in many other languages, or than it was in English 1,000 years ago. One reason for this is that English has lost most of its original Germanic system of inflections. This was a system of (1) suffixes on nouns and adjectives that reflected the gender, number, and case of every noun in a sentence and (2) suffixes on verbs that reflected the person and number of the subject noun. Without recourse to this full range of inflections to mark subjects (and other objects of various kinds) English came to rely on a more fixed word order to distinguish subjects from objects. This rather fixed word order operates in conjunction with prepositions, which help to indicate the semantic function of various objects. The basic underlying word order in an English sentence is: Example: Subject Verb Direct Object Joe writes poetry.

Thus, we say that English is an S-V-O language like French, Spanish, and many other languages. If you have only studied languages like English, Spanish, and French, you might assume that all languages follow S-V-O word order pattern. In fact, several other languages such as Cantonese and colloquial Egyptian Arabic are also S-V-O. However, there are three major orders for these constituents in the languages of the world, and S-OV and V-S-O are the two alternatives to S-V-O. Some major languages that follow the subject-object-verb pattern as their basic ones are Japanese, Korean, and Persian. Some languages that use the verb-subject-object pattern as the basic order are MalayoPolynesian languages such as Tagalog, the classical versions of Semitic languages such as Hebrew and Arabic, and Celtic languages like Welsh and Breton.

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PREPOSITIONS AND POSTPOSITIONS

Preposition gradually took on a more critical role in English in the Middle English period, but there also exits a structure called a postposition. A postposition is a grammatical particle that expresses some sort of relationship between the preceding noun or pronoun (its object) and another part of the sentence; a postpositional phrase functions as an adjective or adverb. Postpositions are the equivalents of prepositions in languages where the object precedes the verb, such as Japanese. (SOV languages) There are three European languages (Finnish, Estonian, Hungarian) that use postpositions instead of prepositions, and they are attached to their noun, e.g. in Hungarian a haz = the house a hazban = in the house Here are some more examples:

Finnish: talon edess ("house in front of"), talon takana ("house behind of") Hungarian: kutya nlkl ("dog without") Japanese: doko ni ("where at"), doko e ("where to") Korean: Hanguk e ("Korea to") Hindi: Kamra m? ("room in") German: dir gegenber ("you opposite"); ihr zuliebe ("her sake for"), ihm zufolge ("him according to") Korean: jip jip-an hac gyo hac gyo esa

Other examples in Korean: English house in the house school at school

The Navajo language also uses postpositions. English has one postposition: "ago"; however, English also has a tendency to form postpositional compound words, such as "thereafter" and "wherein", a quality likely borrowed from Latin, a fellow prepositional language. Some English speakers also tend to use prepositions postpositionally when their objects are interrogative pronouns, such as in "Where to?" or "What for?". The possessive s and might be considered postpositions. A postpositional particle that is attached to a noun in English would be ward, as in homeward and earthward.

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A CLOSER LOOK AT PREPOSITIONS

Most of the prepositions in English are simple, one-word prepositions. Some are multiword prepositions (also called two-word, three-word, or compound prepositions). See the lists below. In the English language we have approximately 70 simple prepositions. About half of them have two syllables (under, over, behind, without) or more (underneath, notwithstanding). Notice that many of these words show location (on, off, behind, under, etc.), some show time (before, after), while others show less concrete relationships (of, for, to, with). SIMPLE PREPOSITIONS
aboard about above across after against along alongside amid amidst among around as at before behind below beneath beside besides between beyond but by concerning despite down during except far from for from in inside into like near of off on onto opposite out outside over past per round since through throughout till to toward towards under underneath until unto up upon via with within without

COMPOUND PREPOSITIONS
according to ahead of as far as as opposed to as to at that point in time at this point in time back from back to because of by means of by reason of by virtue of close to contrary to due to during the course of for the purposes of for the reason that from the point of view of in a manner similar to in accordance with in addition to in back of in case of in close proximity with in excess of in favor of in front of in lieu of in light of in order to in receipt of in regard to in relation to in routine fashion in spite of in terms of in the event that in the immediate vicinity of in the nature of inasmuch as instead of near to next to on behalf of on the basis of on top of out of prior to pursuant to similar to subsequent to up to with a view to with reference to with regard to with respect to

12 MOST COMMON PREPOSITIONS These are the 9 most frequently used prepositions: at from on by in to for of with

However, this grouping is somewhat misleading, because each form has multiple meanings and functions.

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POSITIONING
The position of the preposition can vary depending on whether its use is formal or informal.

Simple Prepositional Phrase: Formal: At what are you looking? Informal: What are you looking at?

In Adjective Clause: Formal: I will paint the chair in which Im sitting. Informal: I will paint the chair Im sitting in.

In Relative Clause: Formal: I know the place about which you spoke. Informal: I know the place you spoke about.

14 There was controversy at one time regarding this positioning. Things have changed in more recent times.

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WHY FOCUS ON PREPOSITIONS?

1. Ideas conveyed by prepositions are very important. He ran to the bus. vs. He ran from the bus.

2. Language learners often put a marker in place of the word. They know something must go there. He ran uh the corner. 3. There are strong and weak forms in pronunciation that can be missed. Examples of some weak forms: I came fr\m Texas wit my cousin. Ill take four \ those cookies. I went t\ Chicago last weekend.

4. Andmistakes are even made by native English speakers.

up to high school age teenagers heard on TV news: There are people accused with these crimes.

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WITH WHOM DO THE PREPOSITIONS HANG OUT?

Many English verbs and adjectives occur with one and only one preposition. Such prepositions must be learned as an integral part of the verb or adjective (as part of the lexical unit). Here are several lists:

Verb + Preposition Combinations

17 Adjective + Preposition Combination

18 Adjective + Preposition Combination

19 Preposition + Noun Combinations

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WHATS THE MEANING OF THIS?

Verb

DIFFERENT Prepositions

DIFFERENT Meaning

Sometimes the same verb with two different prepositions will have significantly different meanings. provide for provide with argue about argue with You should provide for your old age now. (make provisions for) The Red Cross provided us with blankets. (gave blankets to us) We argued about politics. (topic) We argued with the professor. (participant)

Verb

DIFFERENT Prepositions

SAME Meaning

Sometimes two different prepositions can be used with the same verb with little or no change of meaning. compete with compete against Joe competes with his older brother too much. Joe competes against his older brother too much.

Verb

SAME Prepositions

DIFFERENT Meaning

Sometimes the same preposition can have two different meanings. I bought the gift for Mary. (I bought a gift and gave it to Mary for her birthday.) I bought the gift for Mary. (Mary didnt have time to buy a gift. She asked me to do her a favor, so I bought it for her, and then she gave it to her friend for her friends birthday.) He robbed the bank with a gun. He robbed the bank with his brother. (instrument) (participant)

21 There are some prepositions that co-occur fromto from until/till out ofinto off (of)on (to) (distance range, time range, or range of degree) Bill walked from the bus stop to the liquor store. (time range only) Class is from 8 till 10. (change of enclosure or state) We got out of the car and into the van. (change of location with verbs like take and put) Take off your coat and put on your sweater. *** The prepositions out, over, and to a certain extent under, have formed numerous verb compounds, some of which are frequent and common vocabulary items in English. out + V outdo outrun outlast outgrow over + V overdo overrate overeat overcome under + V underestimate underrate underline underscore similar meanings similar meanings

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ERRORS ERRORS ERRORS ($#@*& Prepositions!)

Non-native speakers of English tend to have three types of problems with prepositions: 1. Using the wrong preposition, e.g.: *My grandfather picked the name on me. (for) 2. Omitting a required preposition, e.g.: *I served the Army until 1964. (in) ^ 3. Using a superfluous preposition, e.g.: *I studied in Biology for three years. * * * Many errors occur with the prepositions in, on, and at. These prepositions, all associated with temporal and spatial relationships, are easily confused. 1. Spatial meanings of in, on, at: John is standing on the sidewalk. (two-dimensional) John is in the house. (three-dimensional) John is at the corner. (one-dimensional: point/intersection) John is at the door/window. (in the general area)

2. Temporal meanings of in, on, at: It happened in 1960. (for months, seasons, years, and periods of the dayincluding the morning, evening, afternoon) It happened on Dec. 10. (for dates and days of the week) It happened at 9:15. (for times of the dayincludes noon, midnight, night, dawn, dusk, sunrise, and sunset.)

23 3. Source meanings of from and (out) of: Paper is made from wood. (source not visibly obvious) This table is made (out) of wood. (source not visibly obvious)

4. Temporal use of in/within (not the contrast: Come back in 30 minutes. (30 minutes from now) Come back within 30 minutes. (refers to duration of span)

5. Since/for to express spans of time: I have lived here since 1960. (refers to beginning of span) I have lived here for 16 years. (refers to duration of span)

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NATIVE LANGUAGE INTERFERENCE

Serbian-Croatian-Bosnian English: for Usual translation: za Thanks for everything. English: on Usual translation: na That depends on you. English: from Usual translation: od Hes coming from the station.

(na ordinarily mean on) Hvala na svemu. (od ordinarily means from) To zavisi od vas. (sa ordinarily mean with) Dolazi sa stanice.

German English: to Usual translation: zu Welcome to America. English: on Usual translation: auf That depends on you.

(in ordinarily means in) Willkommen in Amerika. (von ordinarily means of) Das hngt von dir ab

French English: for Usual translation: pour Thanks for your message. English: on Usual translation: sur It depends on you.

(de ordinarily means of) Merci de votre message (de ordinarily means of) Cela dpend de vous.

25 Spanish English: at Usual translation: a I laughed at the program. English: for Usual translation: with I looked for my keys. English: none No translation needed I leave home early every day.

(de ordinarily mean of) Me re del programa. NO PREPOSITION USED IN SPANISH Busqu mis llaves. NO PREPOSITION USED IN ENGLISH Salgo de la casa temprano todos los das.

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SIDEBAR FOR PHRASAL VERBS

Phrasal verbs do not have prepositions, they have particles. Notes A phrasal verb (also called a two-part or twoword verb) consists of a verb + particle Verb + Particle = Phrasal Verb Particles and prepositions look the same. However, particles are part of the verb phrase, and they often change the meaning of the verb. Examples Lets figure out this problem now. Ho called in a consultant. Shes looking up at the roof. (Shes looking in the direction of the roof). Shes looking up the word. (Shes searching for the word in the dictionary.) The verb and particle are usually common words, but their separate meanings may not help one to guess the meaning of the phrasal verb. PHRASAL VERB set up catch up put up MEANING establish become popular erect They set up a business last year. It didnt catch on right away. They put up a new entrance.

Were putting up signs for our business. NOT Were erecting signs

NOTE: Phrasal verbs are much more common in everyday speech than their one-word equivalents. Like other verbs, phrasal verbs often have more than one meaning.

Please turn down the radio. The music is too loud. (Please lower the volume.) Bill didnt get the job. They turned down his application. (They rejected his application.)

Many phrasal verbs are transitive. (The take a direct object.) PHRASAL VERB pick out something call up someone lay out something MEANING select phone spend Pick out the chair you like best. Call up the consultant. Mr. Ho laid out a fortune.

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Most transitive phrasal verbs are separable. This means that a noun object can go a. after the particle
OR

They tore down the entrance. They tore the entrance down. Ho tried out the complex theories of feng shui. NOT Ho tried the complex theories of feng shui out.

b. between the verb and the particle. Notice that when the noun object is part of a long phrase, we do not separate the phrasal verb.

I didnt understand the word so I looked it up NOTE: If the direct object is a pronoun, it must in the dictionary. NOT I looked up it. go between the verb and the particle. Some phrasal verbs are intransitive. (They do not take an object.) PHRASAL VERB catch on sit down MEANING become popular take a seat Feng shui has caught on all over. Sit down over there.

There are very few non-Germanic languages that have phrasal verbs. Thus most nonnative speakers usually find such verbs strange and difficult. Yet they are such an important part of colloquial English that no one can speak or understand conversational or informal English easily without a knowledge or phrasal verbs. Some non-native speakers have a tendency to overuse single lexical items (single words) in informal contexts where a phrasal verb would be much more appropriate, e.g.: Question: Do you need an ashtray? a. Answer: Yes, I want to extinguish my cigarette. b. Answer: Yes, I want to put out my cigarette. Response a sounds pedantic and awkward to native speakers since the single lexical item is formal and the context is informal. The phrasal verb equivalent given in b would thus be much more appropriate.

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Phrasal Verbs using up

(sth = something
act up add up add up to sth ante up back up bang sb/sth up bear up beat up beef sth up belly up to sth blot sth up blow up board sth up boil up bone up on sth bottle sth up break up bring up brush up (on) sth buck up build up build up to sth bulk up bump sth up burn up bust up butter sb up buy up sth call up camp sth up carve sth up catch up catch up on sth catch up with sb chalk sth up check up on sb/sth cheer up chew sb/sth up choke up churn up clam up clean up clear up clock up sth close up cloud up come up

sb = somebody)
come up against sth/sb come up for sth come up on sth come up with sth conjure sth up cook sth up coop sb/sth up cough up cover up crack up creep up on sb/sth crop up cuddle up curl up cut up dam sth up deliver sth up dig sth up dish sth up divvy sth up do up doll sb up double up drag sth up draw up dream sth up dredge sth up dress up drink sth up drive sth up drum sth up dry up dummy up ease up eat up end up face up to sth fatten sb/sth up feed sb up feel sb up feel up to sth fess up fill up fire sth/sb up firm sth up fix up flub up follow up foul up freshen up fuck up gang up on sb gas sth up gear up get up giddy up give up give up on sb/sth go up goof up grow up gum sth up gussy sb/sth up hang up heat up hike sth up hit sb up for sth hitch sth up hold up hold sb/sth up as sth hole up hook up with sb hurry up hush sth up jack sb/sth up jazz sth up join up join up with sb/sth juice sth up keep up kick up something kiss up to sb knock sb up lap sth up lay sb/sth up lead up to sth let up lick sth up light up limber up line up link up listen up live up to sth liven up load up on sth load sb (up) with sth lock up look up look up to sb loosen up louse up make up make up for mark sb/sth up match up measure up meet up mess up mix up mock sth up mop up move up muck sth up open up own up pack up pair up partner up pass sth up patch sth/sb up pay up pep sb/sth up perk up pick up pick up on pile up pipe up play sth up play up to sb point sth up polish sth up pony up pop up power sth up prick up prop sth up psych sb/yourself up puff up pull up pump sth up

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pump sb up put up put sb up to sth put up with sb/sth rack sth up rake sth up ramp up read up on sth reckon sth up render sth up rev up ride up ring sth up rip sth up roll up root sth up rough sb up round sb/sth up run sth up run up against sth/sb rustle sth up saddle up scare sth up scoop sth up screw up scrub up seize up send up serve sth up set up settle up sew sb/sth up shack up shake up shape up shoot up shore sth up show up shut up sign up silt up sit up size sb/sth up slip up smash sth up snap sb/sth up snatch sth up sneak up soak sth up sober up soften sb/sth up sop sth up soup sth up speak up speed up spit sth up split up spring up spruce up square up stack up stand up stand up for sb/sth stand up to sb/sth start up stay up steam up step up stick up stick up for sb stink sth up stir up stitch sth up stock up stoke up stop sth up straighten up strike up string sth/sb up suck up sum up swallow sb/sth up sweep up take up take sb up on sth take up with tank up tart up team up tear up think sth up throw up tie up tone sth/sb up tool up top sth up tot sth up total sth up touch sth up trade up trip up trump sth up tune up turn up wad sth up wait up wake up wake (up) to wall sth up warm up warm up to wash up whip up wind up wipe sth up wise up work up work up to sth wrap up write sth/sb up yield sth up zip up

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SO, WHAT CAN NON-NATIVE SPEAKERS DO?

1. Be aware of the problem with prepositions (and phrasal verbs). KNOWLEDGE IS POWER! Know about the grammatical structures complexities possible interference errors 2. Know the importance of prepositions (and phrasal verbs). 3. Focus on prepositions, think about them, and be pro-active in improving on them. 4. Use a dictionary and word-study aids (flash cards, these handouts, etc.) 5. They just have to be learned one at a time or in groups.

For a short while after the conference, this handout will be available for free downloading as a PDF document from my website: www.bobgrubic.com.

34 REFERENCES Azar, Betty Schrampfer, Understanding and Using English Grammar, 2nd ed., Prentice Hall Regents, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1989. Celec-Murcia, Marianne and Larsen-Freeman, Diane, The Grammar Book, An ESL/EFL Teachers Course, Newbury House Publishers, New York, NY, 1983. Coghill, Jeffrey and Magedanz, Stacy, CliffsStudySolver English Grammar, Wiley Publishing, Inc., New York, NY, 2003. Crystal, David, The Cambridge Encyclopedia of The English Language, Cambridge University Press, New York, NY, 1997. Fernald, James Champlin, Funk & Wagnalls Standard Handbook of Synonyms, Antonyms, and Prepositions, Funk & Wagnalls, New York, NY, 1947. Fuchs, Marjorie and Bonner, Margaret, Focus on Grammar, a High-Intermediate Course for Reference and Practice, Addison Wesley Longman, Inc., White Plains, NY, 2000. Funk and Wagnalls Standard Handbook of Prepositions, Conjunctions, Relative Pronouns and Adverbs, Funk & Wagnalls, New York, NY, 1953. Good, C. Edward, A Grammar Book for You and I, oops, Me!, Capital Books, Inc., Sterling, VA, 2002. Pyles, Thomas and Algeo, John, The Origins and Development of the English Language, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich College Publishers, Fort Worth, TX,1993. Woods, Geraldine, English Grammar for Dummies, Hungry Minds, Inc., New York, NY, 2001. Yates, Jean, The Ins and Outs of Prepositions, Barrons Educational Series, Inc., Hauppauge, NY, 1999.
Answers to crossword puzzle on p. 5