2.2.1. English preposition and prepositional phrase
2.2.1.3. Syntactic features of prepositional phrases
When used in a clause, a prepositional phrase can function as a post-modifier of a noun, an adverbial or a complement. The following sub-sections study each function in detail, in addition to certain possible, but minor functions.
Post-modifier
Quirk et al. (2005) claim that there is always a relation to a more explicit modifier, and therefore a prepositional phrase functioning as a post-modifier can be seen as a reduction of a more complex, mainly clausal, post-modifier. These post- modifiers are naturally linked to be-sentences (p.1274).
The car outside the station the car is outside the station.
This shows that the elements of a complex noun phrase can be matched with those of a clause.
Table 2.3: Prepositional phrases as post-modifier (Biber et al., 2007)
Preposition Percentage
Of In For On To with
60-65 8 – 10 3 – 5 3 – 5 3 – 5 3 - 5
Table 2.3 shows that the preposition ‘of’ is by far the most frequent preposition, which can be explained by relying on the adjunct versus complement distinction. From the perspective of X-bar theory, two main types of post-modifiers are distinguished: those that are sisters to the head noun N, and those that are sisters to N’ (N + post-modifier). According to Carnie (2008), the first category of post- modifiers (sister to N) are said to be complements, while the second ones are adjuncts, as can be seen in the following sentence.
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Figure 2.1: Tree diagram: complements versus adjuncts (Carnie, 2008)
The structural proximity of complements to the head noun is translated into a proximity in terms of meaning, which means that “the complement will be both adjacent to the head and more importantly closer to the head than an adjunct”
(Carnie, 2008, p. 123). According to Keizer (2004), the distinction between adjunct (or post-modifier prepositional phrases) and complement is not clear cut as it is rather gradual. Furthermore, post-modification by prepositional phrases can be classified according to the restrictive /nonrestrictive and appositive/ non-appositive distinctions (Quirk et al., 2005, p. 1285).
The course on English grammar starts tomorrow. [non- appositional, restrictive]
This course, on English grammar, starts tomorrow. [non- appositional, nonrestrictive]
The question of student grants was discussed yesterday.
[appositional, restrictive]
This question, of student grants, was discussed yesterday.
[appositional, nonrestrictive]
(Quirk et al., 2005, p. 1285) Appositive post-modifiers “contain their antecedents” (Quirk et al., 2005, p.
1244), whereas relative modifiers add extra information about the head noun.
Nonrestrictive modifiers are often confused with and mostly seen as instances of adverbials
The children, behind the fence, jeered at the soldier.
Behind the fence, the children jeered at the soldier.
(Quirk et al., 2005, p. 1288) These examples show that the same prepositional phrases can be a non- restrictive modifier (first example) or an adverbial (second example) because of its position in the clause. This shows that the nonrestrictive modification is an optional one since adverbials are optional.
14 Adverbial
Adverbials are different from the other functions (Subject, Object, and Complement) since they are most of the time optional. Quirk et al. (2005) identify these elements as having: (1) range of semantic roles; (2) propensity for multiple occurrence in the same clause; (3) range of realization forms; (4) range of possible positions in the clause; (5) distinctive grammatical functions; and (6) flexibility for use in information processing and in displaying textual connections (Quirk et al., 2005, p. 478).
Modal adjuncts can be either mood or comment adjuncts. Mood adjuncts are linked to the mood system: they represent modality (certainly, definitely, usually, always, never, etc.), temporality (eventually, soon, just, still, already, and so on) and intensity (totally, utterly, scarcely, and so on) (p. 126). Comment adjuncts “express the speaker’s attitude either to the proposition as a whole or to the particular speech function” (p. 129). Examples of comment adverbs are:
Propositional: naturally, wisely, cleverly, etc.
Speech-functional: truly, actually, on the whole.
Conjunctive adjuncts “set up a contextualizing relationship with some other (typically preceding) portion of text” (Halliday and Matthiessen, 2004, p. 132).
Examples of conjunctive adjuncts are: on the other hand, in addition, etc. They represent the “logico-semantic relations” expressed between clauses, and are therefore cohesive (Halliday and Matthiessen, 2014, p. 611).
Moreover, Biber et al. (2007) maintain that prepositional phrases are the most common syntactic realization of adverbials which is due to their overuse in circumstance adverbials. However, among all stance (interpersonal) adverbials, prepositional phrases account for 15 to 20 per cent only, which is almost the same distribution for linking (conjunctive) adverbials (p. 768).
Complement
Complementation is defined by Quirk et al. (2005) as the “part of a phrase or clause which follows a word and completes the specification of a meaning relationship which that word implies” (p. 1150). Particularly, this section focuses on the complementation of verbs and adjectives by PPs. Verbs can have different relations with prepositions, as there are three types of verbs: phrasal, prepositional and phrasal prepositional verbs. In the case of phrasal verbs, the preposition is
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rather seen as a particle related to the verb, rather than to the complement.
Prepositional phrases functioning as verb complements may have one of these patterns:
Copular verbs: The children are at the zoo.
Mono-transitive verbs: They agreed on the meeting.
Complex transitive verbs: We considered him as a genius.
In fact, prepositional phrases can function as prepositional complements, adverbs post-modifiers and nominal.
Prepositional complement: He picked up the gun from under the table.
Complement of an adverb: Unhappily for Tanya, the telephone was in a corner of the living room.
Nominal: Between 6 and 7 may be convenient
(Quirk et al., 2005, p. 658) This is the foundation for the current study to identify the syntactic features of IN prepositional phrases in the scope of the study.