The use of these expressions is governed only by rudimentary syntacticprinciples. As long as thesemantics is all right,
a phrase of any syntactic category can go in any of the major breakpoints of the sentence: the front, the end, or the
break between the subject and the predicate.
Another such subsyste mco mprises the prepositional phrases and“adverbials” denoting time, place, instrument,
accompaniment and so forth. These are freely ordered at the end of the verb phrase; syntax apparently just lets one
lump them there any old way:
(3) a. Sa mstruck gold last night in Alaska with his trusty pick.
Sa mstruck gold in Alaska last night with his trusty pick.
Sa mstruck gold with his trusty pick last night in Alaska.
b. Beth bought a book yesterday for her sister for $10.
Beth bought a book for her sister yesterday for $10.
Beth bought a book for $10 for her sister yesterday.Again, this freedo mbespeaks a so mewhat protosyntactic pheno menon. The relation of each phrase to the sentence is
determined more or less pragmatically, using the meaning of the noun as a guide:last nightis a time becausenightis;for
Billis a recipientbecauseBillis a person,for an houris a duration becausean houris a time, andfor $10is a quantity of
exchange because $10is an amount of money. Similarly, with a knifedenotes an instrument,with Billdenotes a
collaborator, andwith caredenotesa manner.Fortends tobeused for relations directlyor indirectlyinvolvingpurposes,
but it is not entirely consistent;withis even less characterizable in general.
The architecture at this point is a true tripartite system, as shown in Fig. 8.4.
Fig. 8.4‘Early modern’tripartite architecture