§ 7.2 The complements of prepositional verbs 143The prepositions that begin the underlined PPs are not in contrast with other prepo
sitions like those in [31-32]. The complement-licensing properties of the verbs
specifically mention the particular preposition that heads the complement.^2
The examples in [33i] are all intransitive.
Those in [ii] are transitive - the PP complement follows an NP object.
In [iii-iv] the complement of the preposition is predicative - again, this is evident
from the possibility of its having the form of an AdjP or bare role NP.Fossilisation
Some verb + preposition combinations are fossilised, in the sense that they don't
permit any variation in their relative positions. An example of such a fossilised
combination is come + across, meaning "find by chance", as in I came across some
letters written by my grandmother. It is contrasted in [34] with the non-fossilised
combination ask + fo r, "request":
[34] NON-FOSSILISED
a. I asked /Qr. some information.
ii a. the infonnation [which I asked /Qr.]
iii a. the infonnation [/Qr. which I aske4JFOSSILISED
b. I came across some letters.
b. the letters [which I came across]
b. *the letters [across which I came]The difference is illustrated in the relative clause construction enclosed in brackets
in [ii-iii]. These examples include relative clauses containing the relative pronoun
which functioning as complement to a preposition. As we saw in §5, there are ordi
narily two variants of this construction:
In the stranded preposition construction, which occupies front position in the
clause, and the preposition occurs after the verb, separated from its complement.
This is the variant shown in [ii].
In the frooted preposition construction, the preposition is fronted along with its
complement which, as in [iii], so it appears immediately before its complement
as normal.Both variants are permitted with ask fo r, but only the first is permitted with come
across: [iiib] is not grammatical. The reason is that the second type of relative
clause construction separates the preposition from the verb which specifies it,
whereas fossilisation doesn't allow any departure from the fixed order of verb +
preposition. The fronted preposition construction is not grammatically compatible
with the fossilised come across that means "find by chance".
2 Some verbs occur with more than one specified preposition. But the resultant preposition-verb com
binations generally have very different meanings. For example, we get He was looking after me, He
was looking m me, and He was looking fQL me, involving utterly different notions - caring, watching,
and searching, respectively.