Chapter XVIII

THE PREPOSITION

It is common knowledge that prepositions are a most important element of the structure of many languages, particularly those which, like Modern English, have no developed case system in their nominal parts of speech.

We have briefly discussed the problem of the meaning of prepositions but here we shall have to consider it at some length.

It is sometimes said ¹ that prepositions express the relations between words in a sentence, and this is taken as a definition of the meaning of prepositions. If true, this would imply that they do not denote any relations existing outside the language. However, this is certainly not true, and two or three simple examples will show it. If we compare the two sentences: The book is lying on the table, and The book is lying under the table, and ask ourselves, what do the prepositions express here, it will at once be obvious that they express relations (in space) between the book (the thing itself) and the table (the thing itself). The difference in the situations described in the two sentences is thus an extralinguistic difference expressed by means of language, namely, by prepositions. It would certainly be quite wrong to say that the prepositions merely express the relations between the word book and the word table, as the definition quoted above would imply. The same may be said about a number of other sentences. Compare, for instance, the two sentences, He will come before dinner, and He will come after dinner. It is absolutely clear that the prepositions denote relations between phenomena in the extralinguistic world (time relations between "his coming" and "dinner"), not merely relations between the word come and the word dinner.

We must add that there are cases in which a preposition does not express relations between extralinguistic phenomena but merely serves as a link between words. Take, for instance, the sentence This depends on you. Here we cannot say that the preposition on has any meaning of its own. This is also clear from the fact that no other preposition could be used after the verb depend (except the preposition upon, which is to all intents and purposes a stylistic variant of on). Using modern linguistic terminology, we can say that the preposition on is here predicted by the verb depend. The same may be said about the expression characteristic of him. If the adjective characteristic is to be followed by any prepositional phrase at all the preposition of must be used, which means that it is predicted by the word characteristic. Returning now to our examples The book is lying on the table and The book is lying under the table, we must of course say that neither the preposition on nor the

¹ See, for instance, Грамматика русского языка, т. I, стр. 41.

150 The Preposition

preposition under is predicted by the verb lie. If we put the sentence like this: The book is lying... the table, the dots might be replaced by a number of prepositions: on, in, under, near, beside, above, etc. The choice of the preposition would of course depend on the actual position of the book in space with reference to the table. Similarly, if we are given the sentence He will come... the performance, the dots may be replaced by the prepositions before, during, after, according as things stand. Now, in defining the meaning of a preposition, we must of course start from the cases where the meaning is seen at its fullest, and not from those where it is weakened or lost, just as we define the meaning of a verb as a part of speech according to what it is when used as a full predicate, not as an auxiliary.

We need not go further into the meanings of various prepositions in various contexts, since that is a problem of lexicology rather than grammar. What we needed here was to find a definition based on the real meaning of prepositions.

The next point is, the syntactical functions of prepositions. Here we must distinguish between two levels of language: that of phrases and that of the sentence and its parts. As far as phrases are concerned, the function of prepositions is to connect words with each other. ¹ On this level there are patterns like "noun + preposition + noun", "adjective + preposition + noun", "verb + preposition + noun", etc., which may be exemplified by numerous phrases, such as a letter from my friend, a novel by Galsworthy, fond of children, true to life, listen to music, wait for an answer, etc.

On the sentence level: a preposition is never a part of a sentence by itself; it enters the part of sentence whose main centre is the following noun, or pronoun, or gerund. We ought not to say that prepositions connect parts of a sentence. They do not do that, as they stand within a part of the sentence, not between two parts.

The connection between the preposition," the word which precedes it, and the word which follows it requires special study. Different cases have to be distinguished here. The question is, what predicts the use of this or that preposition. We have already noted the cases when it is the preceding word which determines it (or predicts it). In these cases the connection between the two is naturally strong. In the cases where the use of a preposition is not predicted by the preceding word the connection between them is looser, and the connection between the preposition and the following word may prove to be the stronger of the two. This difference more or less corresponds to that between objects and adverbial modifiers expressed by prepositional phrases. Thus, in a sentence like This depends on

¹ This statement will require some modification when we come to the function of prepositions in such cases as "Under the Greenwood Tree", etc. (see p. 158).

Connections of Prepositions 151

him the preposition is predicted by the verb and the phrase on him is of course an object, whereas in a sentence like The book is lying under the table the preposition is not predicted by the verb and the phrase is an adverbial modifier. However, this criterion does not hold good in all cases.

Sometimes the boundary line between a preposition and another part of speech is not quite clear. Thus, with reference to the words like and near there may be doubtful cases from this viewpoint. For instance, there certainly is the adjective near, used in such phrases as the near future. On the other hand, there is the preposition near, found in such sentences as they live near me.

The adjective has degrees of comparison, and the preposition of course has none. In this connection let us examine the following sentence, which presents us with a whole bundle of problems involving both that of parts of speech and that of subordinate clauses: When they had finished their dinner, and Emma, her shawl trailing the floor, brought in coffee and set it down before them, Bone drew back the curtains and opened wide the window nearest where they sat. (BUECHNER) The question about the word nearest is closely connected with that about the ties between the where- clauseand the main clause. As to the word nearest, there are obviously two ways of interpreting it: it is either an adjective in the superlative degree, or a preposition. Each of the two interpretations has its difficulties. If we take nearest as an adjective in the superlative degree, it will follow that this adjective (that is, the adjective near) can take an object clause, in the same way as it takes an object within a clause, e. g. near our house, near midnight, etc., and this would mean that the subordinate clause where they sat is treated very much like a noun. If, on the other hand, we take nearest as a preposition, we should have to state that there is a special preposition nearest in Modern English: it would obviously not do to say that the preposition near has degrees of comparison. There would appear to be no valid reason to prefer the one or the other of the two views, and a third possibility seems to present itself, viz. saying that we have here a borderline case of transition between an adjective in the superlative degree and a preposition.

This is one more example of language phenomena requiring a careful and wholly undogmatic approach: it would be futile to expect that every single language fact would fit easily into one pigeonhole or another prepared for it in advance. Language phenomena have as it were no obligation to fit into any such pigeonholes and it is the scholar's task to approach them with an open mind, to take into account their peculiarities, and to adjust his system as best he can to receive such "unorthodox" facts. Another example of this kind has been considered above: it concerned the status of the words many, much, few, and little (see pp. 71—72).

152 The Preposition

A special case must now be considered. In some phrases, which are not part of a sentence, a preposition does not connect two words because there is no word at all before it, and so its ties are опз-sided: they point only forwards, not back.

As characteristic examples we may quote the titles of some poems and novels: "To a Skylark" (SHELLEY) ,"On a Distant Prospect of Eton College" (GRAY), "Of Human Bondage" (MAUGHAM), "Under the Greenwood Tree" (TH. HARDY). The syntactical function of the prepositions in cases of this type is a peculiar one. The preposition either expresses a relation between the thing expressed by the noun and something not mentioned in the text (as in "To a Skylark"), or it gives the characteristic of the place where something not specified takes place ("Under the Greenwood Tree").

It is evident that in such cases the preposition has only a onesided connection, namely with the noun following it, but we may ask whether it has not also some reference to something not expressed which may be imagined as standing before the preposition.

Let us, for instance, compare the actual title of W. Somerset Maugham's novel, "Of Human Bondage", with a possible variant "Human Bondage", without the preposition. In this way the meaning and function of the preposition become clear: the preposition of is here used as it is used in the phrases speak of something, think of something, etc. In the title as it stands, the preposition implies that the author is going to speak of human bondage, that is, human bondage is going to be discussed. ¹

We shall arrive at a similar conclusion if we compare the actual title of Th. Hardy's novel, "Under the Greenwood Tree", with the possible variant "The Greenwood Tree". The preposition implies that we shall be reading about something happening under the tree, rather than about the tree itself. So it will probably be right to say that something is implied (very vaguely, it must be admitted).

We should especially note some peculiar uses of the preposition about, namely in such sentences as, There were about twenly people in the room, which of course means that the number is given approximately. The preposition here has only a one-sided connection, namely with the numeral, and has no connection at all with the preceding verb. It certainly does not express any relation between were and twenty. Syntactically, it makes an element of the subject group (about twenty people). Indeed we may be inclined to doubt whether the word about is a preposition at all in such a case. It rather approaches the status of a particle.

This is still more confirmed by examples in which the group introduced by about stands after another preposition, as in the

¹ The title is actually a translation of Spinoza's title "De servitude humana" (a book of his "Ethics"), but this is irrelevant for our analysis.

Special Uses of Prepositions 153

sentence, This happened at about three o'clock. The group about three o'clock here follows the preposition at in quite the same way as the group three o'clock would follow it in the sentence This happened at three o'clock. The group about three o'clock is a designation of a certain time as much as the group three o'clock, and to establish its relation with the verb happened it also requires the preposition at to be used.

We also find two prepositions close to each other in different contexts. Compare, for instance, the following sentence: He sat until past midnight in the darkness while grief and sorrow overcame him. (E. CALDWELL) Here also belongs the phrase from under in a sentence like The cat stretched its paw from under the table. It seems quite possible to take this in the same way as we took at about in the preceding example, and to say that under the table denotes a certain place and from indicates movement from that place. However, it is also possible to view this case in a somewhat different way, namely to suppose that from under is a phrase equivalent to a preposition, and then we should not have two prepositions following one another here. This problem should be further investigated.

Prepositions can sometimes be followed by adverbs, which apparently become partly substantivised when so used. The groups from there, from where, since then, since when are too widely known to require illustrative examples. Another case in point is the following: She is beautiful with that Indian summer renewal of physical charm which comes to a woman who loves and is loved, particularly to one who has not found that love until comparatively late in life. (O'NEILL)

Prepositions in English are less closely connected with the word or phrase they introduce than, say, in Russian. It would be impossible in English for a preposition to consist of a consonant only, that is, to be non-syllabic, which is the case with the three Russian prepositions в, к, с. This greater independence of English prepositions manifests itself in various ways.

There is the possibility of inserting, between a preposition and the word or phrase it introduces, another phrase, which can, in its turn, be introduced by a preposition. Here is an example of this kind: The first of these, "The Fatal Revenge", appeared in 1807, and was followed by, among other, "The Milesian Chief"... (COUSIN) The two prepositions, by and among, stand one after the other, but there is certainly no syntactic connection between them, and probably there is a pause, corresponding to the comma of the written text. The connection between followed and by appears to be closer than that between by and the phrase which it introduces, namely, "The Milesian Chief". Unless it were so, the preposition by would come after the inserted phrase among others, rather than

154 The Preposition

before it. But that variant, though perhaps not impossible, would certainly be less idiomatic than that in the text.

This way of making one preposition come immediately after another, showing the independence of the first preposition, is also seen in some cases where the status of the second preposition may be doubted, that is, it may be doubted whether the word is really a preposition in that context (compare what has been said on p. 152). The following sentence, which is fairly characteristic of modern usage, will show the essence of the phenomenon: His industry was marvellous, and its results remain embodied in about 40 books, of which about 25 are commentaries on books of Scripture. (COUSIN) Of course all this is made possible by the fact that prepositions in English do not require the word they introduce to have a specified case form.

Sometimes even a parenthetical clause come between the preposition and the noun it introduces, e. g. Some weeks ago Mr Blessington came down to me in, as it seemed to me, a state of considerable agitation. (CONAN DOYLE)

The looseness of the tie between the preposition and the following noun can be offset by a closer tie between the preposition and the preceding word. This may be seen, for instance, in some passive constructions with the phrase "verb + noun + preposition" acting as a kind of transitive unit. Examples of this use are well known. Compare the following sentence: Their conference was put an end to by the anxious young lover himself, who came to breathe his parting sigh before he set off for Wiltshire. (J. AUSTEN) The active construction would have been, The young lover put an end to their conference, where an end would be a non-prepositional, and to their conference a prepositional object. It might be argued, however, that put an end is something of a phraseological unit and should therefore be treated as the predicate. Be that as it may, the fact remains that the noun end is included into the passive form of the verb, and the subject of the passive construction is the noun which, in the active construction, would have been part of the prepositional object.

It should also be noted that a preposition does not necessarily connect the word which immediately precedes it with the one that follows. Cases are frequent enough in which there is no connection at all between the preposition and the preceding word. For instance, in the sentence, This beauty is a trifle dimmed now by traces of recent illness (O'NEILL) there is no connection between the words now and by. The preposition by is of course connected with the passive participle dimmed and the adverb now could be left out without affecting the connections and the functions of the preposition: This beauty is dimmed by traces of recent illness. The same may be said about the sentence I get the same tale of woe from

Functions of Prepositions 155

every one in our part of the country (Idem); the preposition from is not connected with the noun woe which precedes it, it is connected with the verb get, which is separated from it by five other words. Many more examples of this kind might be given. This should warn us against an oversimplified understanding of the syntactical function of a preposition.

Special attention must be given to groups of words whose meaning and functions in the sentence are the same as those of prepositions. Here belong the groups out of, as to, as for, instead of, in spite of, etc. We cannot term these groups prepositions, since a preposition is a word, not a word group, and it is essential to keep up the distinction between words and word groups; neglect of it would bring about a muddle both in grammar and in lexicology. The current haziness in the treatment of such groups and the vague terms "compound preposition" and the like are not conducive to a clear and consistent grammatical theory. Since much the same can be said about phrases equivalent in meaning and function to conjunctions, we will return to this problem after having considered the conjunctions.

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