(^138) Chapter 7 Prepositions and preposition phrases
Prescriptive grammar note
A stranded preposition quite often occurs at the end of the sentence. Prescriptive manuals
generally discuss preposition stranding in terms of sentences that end with a preposition, and
some of the more old-fashioned ones still state that ending a sentence with a preposition is
incorrect or at least inelegant. This is a case of a particularly silly prescriptive rule that is
clearly and massively in conflict with actual usage. All fluent users of English use stranded
prepositions, and most usage books now recognise that. Nonetheless, some schoolbooks still
seem to be trying to teach students to avoid stranded prepositions, and some speakers who
mistakenly believe in the old rule struggle to obey it. The truth is that the construction illus
trated in [22] has been grammatical and commonplace in English for hundreds of years.
An alternative to the stranding construction of [22] is available. It places the
preposition at the beginning of the clause so it accompanies the NP that is under
stood as its complement. We call it preposition fronting. The fronting alternatives
to the sentences in [22] are shown in [23].
[23] Fo r whom did they vote?
ii I can 't find the book [to which she was referring].
[interrogative]
[relative]
The choice between the stranding and fronting constructions
There are some factors that influence the choice between stranding and fronting,
and in certain cases one or the other is not grammatical. Two kinds of factor are
involved, one having to do with style, the other with particular syntactic features of
the clause concerned.
(a) Style
The fronted construction is more formal than the stranded one. This can be seen in
such a pair of interrogative clauses as:
[ 2 4] STRANDED PREPOSITION FRONTED PREPOSITION
a. Where did this come from? b. From where did this come?Version [ a] is by far the more natural of the two, with [b] sounding stiff and strange
to most speakers. Interrogatives with preposition fronting are heard in prepared and
organised speech, as in a planned interview (To what do you attribute this trend?),
but in ordinary conversation the stranding construction is strongly preferred.
(b) Syntactic factors that disfavour or exclude the stranded version
Although the traditional prescriptive warning about preposition stranding is non
sense, there are some syntactic circumstances (hardly ever mentioned in the
books that say stranding is bad grammar) that can make preposition stranding
almost or completely impossible. We list a small sample of such circumstances
in [25]: