A Student's Introduction to English Grammar

[25] STRANDED PREPOSITION

a. *This is the safe [which the

key to was stolen].

ii a. *1 have a lecture ending at two

[which I'll be free all day after].

iii a. * What way am I annoying you in?

§6.1 Complements 139

FRONTED PREPOSITION

b. This is the safe [IQ which the key

was stolen].

b. I have a lecture ending at two

[afte r which I'll be free all day].

b. In what way am I annoying you?

In [ia] the stranded preposition occurs within a subject NP (the subject of was

stolen). That is fairly clearly ungrammatical.

In [ii] the pp is in adjunct rather than complement function, specifically an

adjunct of time. There is a tendency for the stranding construction to be avoided

in adjuncts generally. With adjuncts of place it is not so strong, so you may hear

sentences like ?That's the town [which lfirst met her in]; but the tendency is quite

strong for many other adjuncts, like adjuncts of time or duration.

This is more than just a tendency with some fixed adjunct expressions: the man­

ner adjunct in what way, as in [iiib], can never be split up by stranding.

(c) Syntactic factors that disfavour or exclude the non-stranded version

One thing that is never made clear in the books that recommend against stranding
prepositions is that there are also syntactic circumstances that make the non­
stranded version, with preposition fronting, almost or completely impossible. Again
we illustrate with just a few examples:

[26] STRANDED PREPOSITION

a. That depends on [who I give it to].

11 a. What did you hit me /,g£?

iii a. Which metals does it consist f][?

FRONTED PREPOSITION

b. *That depends on [to whom I give it].

b. * Fo r what did you hit me?

b.? Qiwhich metals does it consist?

In [i] the clause containing the preposition (bracketed) is a subordinate interrog­

ative clause functioning as complement to a preposition (on); here stranding is

obligatory.

In [H] we have the idiom what fo r meaning "why", wherefo r is never fronted.

The verb consist in [iii] is one of those that license a pp complement with a spec­

ified preposition (like transfer in [20iH]), and there is a fairly strong preference

for the stranding construction with such verbs. The [b] version isn't grammati­

cally forbidden, but it sounds very stiff and formal.

6 The structure of PPs

Prepositions function as heads of phrases, and as such can take various
dependents, both complements and modifiers.

6.1 Complements

Prepositions take a range of complement types comparable to that of verbs: