Elizabeth M. O'Dowd offers a new, discourse-functional account of the categories "preposition" and "particle" in English. She explains why certain words have membership in both categories, and solves many intriguing puzzles long associated with the syntax and semantics of these words. Based on linguistic data extracted from a series of actual conversations, O'Dowd provides new insights into how prepositions and particles are used, and how their meanings can change across different discourse contexts over time.
For a long time prepositions seemed to enjoy a clandestine status in linguistic research. This has changed with a novel path of inquiry into the inner structure of complex prepositional expressions. In a unique approach to the examination of the outer syntax of prepositions the author uses established and new syntactic and statistical tests to achieve a convincing hierarchy of thematic roles expressed by prepositional phrases.
The Ins and Outs of Prepositions
Prepositions pose more problems for the non-native speaker or learner of English than any other part of speech. Why? Prepositions are just little words that never change in form; they are pronounced softly, in unstressed syllables; they aren't even given capital letters in book titles; native speakers choose the correct ones without thinking. How can they be confusing?
The word "preposition" has a straightforward definition: a word placed before a noun or pronoun to define its relationship with another word in the sentence. For the learner of English, however, prepositions are anything but straightforward
Prepositions are difficult, if not impossible, to define without using other prepositions.
Practise Your Prepositions
A workbook to practice use of prepositions. Includes sections on adjective + preposition and verb + preposition phrases. (27 units with Answer key at end of book).
