A Student's Introduction to English Grammar

130 Chapter 7 Prepositions and preposition phrases

The words in [i] traditionally belong to the preposition class as well, whereas those in

[ii] do not. We have argued against a dual classification treatment of the [i] words,

analysing them simply as prepositions that license different kinds of complement. But

once we reconsider the distinction between prepositions and subordinators we find there

are good reasons for reassigning the words in [iia] as well to the preposition class. This

leaves a very small subordinator class, with that, whether and ifi as its main members.

The major argument for drawing the boundary between prepositions and subor­

dinators between [iia] and [iib] is that that, whether and ifi function as markers of

subordination whereas the other words in [5] function as heads of the constituents

they introduce. Consider the following examples:

[6] a.

b.

ii a.

b.

I think [(that) she 's probably right].

I don 't know [whether they have received our letter yet].

She stayed behind fo r a fe w minutes [after the others had left].

They complained [because we didn 't finish the job this week].

In [i] the bracketed constituents are subordinate clauses with that and whether

simply marking the subordination: the main clause counterparts are She is prob­

ably right (declarative) and Have they received our letter yet? (interrogative). In

this context the that is optional (as indicated by the parentheses): the clause is in

the position of complement to think, so it is not obligatory to mark its subordi­

nate status in its own structure. Whether is not omissible because it marks the

clause as interrogative as well as subordinate: it is just with the default declara­

tive type that the subordinator is often optional.

After and because in [ii] by contrast are not grammatical markers of subordination.

They have independent meaning, and it is by virtue of this meaning that we interpret

the bracketed constituents as adjuncts of time and reason respectively. This makes

them like heads -just as after is head in the time adjunct after the departure of the

others. They are not themselves part of the subordinate clause; rather, the subordi­

nate clauses are just the others had left and we didn 't finish the job this week, and

these function as complement within the phrases headed by after and because.

2.2 Prepositions vs adverbs

Prepositions with optional NP complements

We begin the task of redrawing the boundaries between prepositions and adverbs by
looking further at words like befo re in [4], which can occur either with an NP com­
plement or without a complement. There are a fair number of words of this kind; a
sample are listed in [7]:

[7] aboard above

beneath beyond

over past

across after along

by down in

behind below

off outside

round since through under up

As we have noted, these are traditionally analysed as prepositions when they have

an NP complement but as adverbs when they have no complement: