A Student's Introduction to English Grammar

146 Chapter 7 Prepositions and preposition phrases

they are generally quite ordinary, and often identical to the structure the same

sequence of words has when the meaning is the literal and predictable one.^3

8 Prepositional idioms and fossilisation

In the last section we were concerned with verbal idioms - idioms

beginning with a verb. There are also a large number of prepositional idioms -

idioms beginning with a preposition. In particular, we examine here a sample of

expressions with the form preposition + noun + preposition that are idiomatic in

meaning and largely or wholly fossilised in syntax. Examples are given in [40i-ii],

which contrast with the ordinary sequences in [iii]:

[40] by means of hard work

11 by virtue of her age

iii in photos of their parents

on behalfQ,f my son

in front q.f the car

to lJ.uestions of ethics

with effect from today

in league with the devil

with knowledge of his goals

Fossilisation means that the parts cannot be varied independently as freely as in

ordinary sequences. One reflection of this is that we cannot drop the first preposi­

tion in [i-ii], to yield NPs that can be used elsewhere, though we can do this in [iii]:

[41] i *Means of hard work enabled her to pass the exam.

ii *Virtue of her age led them to drop the charges.

iii Photos of their parents were lying on the table.

The expressions photos of their parents, questions of ethics and knowledge of his
goals are obviously NPs which in [40iii] happen to be functioning as complement
of a preposition but which can also appear in the normal range of NP functions, such
as subject in [41iii].
The analysis of [40i-ii], however, is much less obvious. Many writers treat the
underlined sequences here as syntactic units, commonly called 'complex preposi­
tions'. The motivation for this lies in the meaning: in front of the car is semantically
comparable to behind the car, and this tempts grammarians to see in fro nt of as an
element of the same kind as behind, only more complex in its internal structure. It
is a mistake, however. Semantic relations of this kind do not provide a reliable guide
to syntactic analysis.
For examples like those in [40i] there is compelling evidence that the structure is
the same as for [40iii], with the first preposition taking an NP as complement.
Notice that the noun can take pre-head dependents:

[42] by similar means on my son's behalf with immediate effect

These show that the fossilisation is only partial. The changes made here to the

sequence following the first preposition demonstrate clearly that it has the status of

3 Many grammars use the term 'phrasal verb' for some or all of the expressions we have been consid­

ering in §§7.3-4. We have not adopted this term. It is thoroughly misleading. It's not the whole

expressions fa ll out, tie in with, etc., that are verbs; it's just the lexemesfall, tie, etc.