(^144) Chapter 7 Prepositions and preposition phrases
The same kind of fossilisation is found in transitive clauses. Compare:
[ 35 J NON-FOSSILISED
a. He accused her gf a crime.
FOSSILISED
b. I In him gff some work.
ii a. the crime [which he accused her oiJ
iii a. the crime [gfwhich he accused herJ
b. the work [which I Let him gffJ
b. the work [gff which I Let himJ
Let + off, meaning "allow not to do", is fossilised in that the preposition must fol
low the verb, with only the object intervening. Again, then, the stranded preposition
construction is permitted in both [iiaJ and [iibJ, whereas the fronted preposition
construction is permitted in [iiia] but is quite inadmissible in [iiib].
7.3 Particles
Particles are the only complements which can freely come between the
verb and its direct object. Compare, for example, the particle down with the non
particle downstairs in [36]:
[36J PARTICLE
i a. She took the suitcase down.
ii a. She took {/Q}jm the suitcase.
NON-PARTICLE
b. She took the suitcase downstairs.
b. She took downstairs the suitcase.
Both down and downstairs can follow the object, but only down can occur between
verb and object, as in [ii]. Down is a particle, but downstairs is not.
Particles are short words (one or two syllables) that with just one or two excep
tions are all prepositions unaccompanied by any complement of their own. Some of
the most common prepositions belonging to the particle category are listed in [37]:
[37J aLong away
off on
back by down fo rward in
out over round under up
Particles can never precede an unstressed personal pronoun object
One general constraint on the order 'particle + object' is that it is inadmissible if the
object has the form of an unstressed personal pronoun. For example, we can
replace the suitcase by unstressed it in [36ia] but not in [iia]:
[ 3 8J a. She took i1. gff.
7.4 Ve rbal idioms
b. * She took gff i1..An idiom is a combination of words whose meaning is not predictable
from the meanings of the components. A verbal idiom is an idiom beginning with a
verb. Kick the bucket, with the sense "die", is a familiar example: you can't guess
the meaning just by knowing the meanings of the words (it has nothing to do with
kicking or buckets).
There are huge numbers of verbal idioms in English, and many of them contain
prepositions. Some of the examples used earlier in this section contain verbal
idioms - e.g. hold NP against NP in [33ii]; come across NP in [34]; let NP off NP in