Laura Favilli 497488 The Verbal Use of Prepositions: Prepositional Verbs and Phrasal Verbs Semantics: The English Verb 2019 – 2020 INTRODUCTION Prepositions represent an extremely frequent and fundamental grammatical element used both in English and in Romance languages. Fang (2000), reporting the corpus of a study made of one million English words, affirms that one out of ten words of the corpus is a preposition. In the same way, considering a Romance language such as Spanish, it is also demonstrated how, considering a corpus of 20 million words, approximately 10% of the 175 most used words were discovered to be prepositions (Ramón et al., 2005). Moreover, language acquisition studies demonstrated how prepositions in both Romance languages and English often represent an extremely challenging task in acquisition and understanding of a language, not only for second language learners, but for the native speakers of that language as well. In fact, articles and prepositions have been proved to be the primary cause of grammatical errors for students of English as a foreign language. Still, despite the complexity of prepositions’ employment being documented by a great number of linguists, psycholinguists and computational linguists, there seem to be very few studies about their function in the application of NLP (Natural Language Processing). Hence, we could assume that this lack of sources derives from the fact that prepositions are considered to be the most polysemous category of words, so that it becomes extremely difficult to predict and identify their linguistic usage, as well as their cross-linguistic regularities (Girju, 2008). Moreover, observing prepositions’ role in English semantics, we can see that little space is given to directional adverbs such as forward or prepositions in English and American 1 coursebooks, and if we consider books about phrasal verbs, we can see incredibly small sections about prepositions usage. On the other hand, Lindstromberg, after having searched for academic books about prepositions and having found little material, he discovered a dictionary (Sinclair, 1987) which shows how, for instance, an entry for the preposition on can present 19 subsections; the book however did not present any attempt of explaining the semantic relations among the various functions presented. This might give us an idea of how unsystematic and difficult the prepositions’ semantics are and that they should be often learned phrase by phrase as well as in singular narrow contexts. Still, Lindstromberg (1996) also highlights how the collocational approach sometimes underestimates too much the systematicity of the prepositional semantics. I. USE OF PREPOSITIONS WITH VERBS Prepositions’ primary function is that of introducing peripheral noun phrases, which may provide information to the sentence such as a beneficiary or a recipient (e.g. for/to John), an instrument (e.g. with a knife) and temporal and locational specification (e.g. at 6pm/ in the street). Considering specifically how prepositions act when being part of the verbal element, we can see that they present two further functions within two types of verbs – inherent preposition verbs and phrasal verbs. These two types of verbs differ from the simple one-word verbs, as they composed precisely of a root and a preposition (or more in the case of some types of phrasal verbs). Moreover, while in an inherent preposition verb the root cannot be used alone, but should be substituted by its correspondent one-word verb (e.g. refer to – to mention), the phrasal verbs’ root can be used alone, but with a totally different meaning from the phrasal verb itself (e.g. to take after = to resemble, which has no relation with the one-word verb root to take) (Dixon, 2005). 2 As far as prepositional verbs are concerned, we can treat them in two different ways. The first approach would be that of considering them as transitive verbs, as to say as two-word lexemes that behave exactly like any other transitive one-word verb. The second option is that of considering them intransitive verbs, which are followed by a noun phrase, consequently considering their preposition not as part of the verbal element, but as part of the noun phrase instead. Dixon (2005) argues that the right approach to employ should be the first one, since the second option put us in front of two main problems. The first issue relates to the fact that, despite considering the inherent preposition verb an intransitive verb, it can be passivized easily as, for example, a noun phrase following the verb rely on can freely become a passive subject, as opposed to noun phrases which follow e.g. float on. We can rely on John’s sense of property → John’s sense of property can be relied on We have floated on that pool → That pool has been floated on (Dixon, 2005, pp. 290) The second problem has to do with the number of prepositions that an inherent preposition verb can be followed by. In fact, in contrast to other intransitive verbs such as travel to, which can potentially be followed by a wide range of prepositions, inherent preposition verbs can be followed only by one specific preposition, which cannot be neither replaced nor omitted. “We will travel to/towards/around/in Japan” “We were referring to/ at/ for/ on what we saw in Japan” (Dixon, 2005, pp. 290) Therefore, opting for the first approach to treat an inherent preposition verb, we thus should consider it as a transitive verb, to which it is both syntactically and semantically similar, and by which it could be easily substituted (e.g. She relies on him→ She trusts him). Still, it is also important to highlight that including a preposition, as well as which preposition to include, is not arbitrary. On the contrary, it implies a semantic reason, so that the meaning of an inherent preposition verb, even if similar, is not the same as its corresponding one-word verb, the difference is subtle but remarkable. Usually, this difference lays in the fact that an 3 inherent preposition verb normally implies a much more directed volition than its one-word semi-synonym, as in the case of confess to/ admit or look at/see and listen to/ hear (Dixon, 2005). “She loves to listen to classical music” “She suddenly heard a loud noise downstairs” II. PHRASAL VERBS Dixon defines phrasal verbs as “combinations of verb plus preposition(s) that has a meaning not inferable from the individual meanings of verb and preposition(s), so that it must be regarded as an independent lexical item and accorded a dictionary entry of its own” (2005, pp. 293). He also provides a classification of the six main varieties of phrasal verbs: 1. V + p (set in, come to, pass out) 2. V + p + N (set about X, come by X, pick on X) 3. V + N + p (put X off, take X on, bring X down) 4. V + N + p + N (see X through Y, hold X against Y, hold X against Y) 5. V + p + p + N (take up with X, go in for X, scrape by on X) 6. V + N + p + p + N (put X down to Y, let X in for Y, take X up on Y)1 In this classification of phrasal verbs, we can infer whether they could be considered transitive or intransitive. For instance, we can observe how in types 3, 4 and 6 the noun phrase which immediately follows the verb is in a direct object position, so that it can easily be turned into a passive subject, and the verb can thus be considered a transitive verb. Types 2 and 5, on the other hand, present a low possibility to be passivized, as in this case the noun phrase does not V (verb), p (preposition), N (noun phrase) in Dixon, R., M., W. “A Semantic Approach to English Grammar”. Oxford University Press. 2005. pp. 293. 1 4 come immediately after the verbal element. Finally, verbs of type 1 are the only phrasal verbs considered fully intransitive (Dixon, 2005). Quirk (1990) provides some criteria to differentiate phrasal verbs from prepositional verbs: 1. In a prepositional verb, the preposition must precede the noun phrase, while in a phrasal verb we can find its preposition both before or after the noun phrase following the verb. “They called on the dean → They called the dean on” “They put off the meeting → They put the meeting off” (Hudcovičová, 2014, pp. 23) 2. When the noun phrase that comes after the verb is a personal pronoun, this latter can both precede or follow the preposition of a prepositional verb, but it must precede the preposition in the case of a phrasal verb. “They called on him → They called him on” “They put it off → They put off it” (Hudcovičová, 2014, pp. 24). 3. In the case of a prepositional verb, an adverb can usually be inserted, but this does not happen with phrasal verbs. “They called angrily on the dean” “They put angrily off the meeting” (Hudcovičová, 2014, pp. 24). 4. At the beginning of a relative clause, a phrasal verb’s preposition cannot precede a relative pronoun. “The man on whom they called” “The man up whom they called” (Hudcovičová, 2014, pp. 24). 5. At the beginning of a wh- question, a phrasal verb’s preposition cannot precede the interrogative word. “On which man did they call?” “Up which man did they call?” (Hudcovičová, 2014, pp. 24). 6. A prepositional verb’s preposition is usually unstressed, unlike a phrasal verb’s preposition, which normally is stressed. 5 “Which man did they ´call on?” “Which man did they call ´up?” (Hudcovičová, 2014, pp. 24). To sum up, these guidelines can help to distinguish phrasal verbs from transitive prepositional verbs or multi-word verbs. Still, it should be highlighted how fundamental it is to consider each verb according to the context it acquires in a specific sentence, taking into account not only its semantic interpretation, but also the syntactical and phonetic level (Hudcovičová, 2014). CONCLUSION The aim of this essay is that of recollecting some of the academic studies carried out on the employment of prepositions, with a deepening in their use in the verbal function. As we have already seen, despite the primary use of prepositions being that of introducing peripheral noun phrases, they can be employed with verbs as well, semantically providing a change in meaning, which may be subtle in some occasions or remarkable in others. Moreover, we have observed how verbs are not only made by a single-word lexeme, but on the contrary, the verbs in which we can observe prepositions to be a full part of the verbal element are of two types: prepositional verbs (Dixon’s inherent preposition verbs) and phrasal verbs. These two variants of verbs, despite appearing extremely similar in their form, present a great range of differences, which can be observed following some general guidelines provided in the second chapter. These differences mainly depend on the syntactic level of words order and adverbs insertion, but it is also observed how the stress of the two variants of verb can be influenced as well. Nonetheless, preposition use in general, but also their specific use with verbs, proves to be extremely difficult and unsystematic from a semantic point of view, and an evidence to it can be observed in the quite little material available in the studies about semantic relations among prepositional sub-sections’ functions. 6 BIBLIOGRAPHY Dixon, R., M., W. “A Semantic Approach to English Grammar”. Oxford University Press. 2005. pp. 289-304. Fang, A. C. “A lexicalist approach towards the automatic determination for the syntactic functions of prepositional phrases”. Natural Language Engineering. 2000. 6:183–201 in Girju (2008). Girju, R. “The Syntax and Semantics of Prepositions in the Task of Automatic Interpretation of Nominal Phrases and Compounds: A Cross-Linguistic Study”. University of Illinois at UrbanaChampaign. 2008. pp. 185-186. Hudcovičová, M. “Analysis of verbal prepositional structures of and to”. Univerzita Palackého v Olomouci. Olomouc. 2014. pp. 23-27. Lindstromberg, S. “Prepositions: meaning and method”. Oxford University Press. ELT Journal. July 1996. Volume 50/3. Quirk, R. and S. Greenbaum. “A Student´s Grammar of the English Language”. Longman. Harlow, Essex. 1990 in Hudcovičová (2014). Ramón, A., Cantos, P., Sànchez, A., Sarmiento, R. and Almela, M. “Frequencias del Español. Diccionario de estudios lèxicos y morfològicos. Ed.Universitas. Madrid. 2005 in Girju, R. (2008). 7