A Student's Introduction to English Grammar

(^128) Chapter 7 Prepositions and preposition phrases
[2] TRADITIONALLY A PREPOSITION TRADITIONALLY NOT A PREPOSITION
a. The sun sank [below the horizon].
ii a. I haven't seen her [,since Easter].
iii a. They set off[� the rain].
b. I went [below].
b. I haven't seen her [since she left town].
b. We stayed indoors [because of the rain].
iv a. %He jumped [out the window]. b. He jumped [out of the window].
'\l Below fails to qualify in [ib] because it has no complement at all.
" The other items in [b] fail because they have complements that are not NPs: a
clause in [iib] and a pp headed by of in [iiib/ivb].

. ' With out there is divided usage. In AmE it can sometimes take an NP comple­
ment, as in [iva], but in BrE it requires of-so it can be a preposition in AmE but
not in BrE.

(b) No inflection

The prepositions of traditional grammar do not inflect. We have just at, for example:

there are no forms *atter, *ats, or whatever.

(c) Meaning: relations in space or time

Most traditional prepositions have meanings to do with relations in space or time: at

the post office identifies a spatial location, into the garden fixes a direction of travel,

after lunch locates a time period as following lunchtime, etc. Not all prepositions

have this kind of meaning (for example, despite in [2iiia] doesn't), so this can't be

used as a condition for belonging to the class of prepositions; but it is relevant to a

general definition of prepositions, and we will take it up again in §4.

(d) Function: head of wide range of dependents

Prepositions head phrases that characteristically occur in a range of functions,

notably dependents of either nouns or verbs, including as a special case the com­

plement of the verb be. In the following examples single underlining marks the PP,

double underlining the head on which it is dependent:

[3] DEPENDENT OF NOUN

a house at the beach

ii the chair in the corner

iii the woman from Pa ris

iv a bottle of milk

DEPENDENT OF VERB COMPLEMENT OF BE

He saw her at school. He i! at lunch.

She k11 in the pool. We were in the pool.

She comes fro m Pa ris. She is from Pa ris.

I don 't approve ofit. That i! ofinterest.

2 Extending the membership of the class

The reason why we extend the membership of the preposition class
beyond the words that traditional grammar calls prepositions is that we see no jus­
tification for restricting it to words that have NP complements. That is, we don't
think the condition discussed under (a) in § I should be regarded as essential.