The Minor Parts of Speechcomplement of the verb give, and in conscious of her surroundings, the PP of
her surroundings complements the adjective conscious.
The following are some examples of PPs; the preposition is italicized:
(18) a. of my toe
b. to Tangiers
c. beneath contempt
Exercise
- Select five prepositions from Table 7 and create a prepositional
phrase around each using the phrases in (18) as models. - In the paragraph just beneath Table 7, (a) identify all of the preposi-
tions, referring to Table 7 as necessary, and (b) paraphrase the meaning
of each preposition.
Though prepositions are generally followed immediately by noun phrases,
in wh-clauses a NP may be moved away from its preposition:
(19) a. What did you call about? (cf. You called about what?)
b. She asked what you called about.
c. The lamp which you called about has been sold.
In these cases, the NP objects of the prepositions (what and which) have
moved elsewhere in the sentence, and in fact precede their prepositions. In a
sense the preposition has been abandoned by its object NP; for this reason, we
call such cases preposition stranding. The stranding of prepositions is some-
times criticized in prescriptive circles, but in many cases unstranded preposi-
tions sound either stilted or downright ungrammatical:
(20) a. ?About what did you call?
b. *She asked about what you called.
c. The lamp about which you called has been sold.
Aside from their behavior in such cases, though, prepositions are formally very
simple.
Before examining the semantics of prepositions, we should mention one
further formal complexity—the tendency of prepositions to enter into com-
plex frozen expressions that resemble idioms; Table 8 lists some examples.