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From: barmar@mit-eddie.UUCP (Barry Margolin)
Newsgroups: net.nlang
Subject: Re: Final prepositions turn me on.
Message-ID: <1701@mit-eddie.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 28-Apr-84 17:54:28 EDT
Article-I.D.: mit-eddi.1701
Posted: Sat Apr 28 17:54:28 1984
Date-Received: Sun, 29-Apr-84 08:16:47 EDT
References: <1349@inmet.UUCP>
Organization: MIT, Cambridge, MA
Lines: 23

The problem here is that "She turned on me" is ambiguous, and the
ambiguity is resolved by using some commonsense ideas about what is
possible.  Another sentence with the same structure is "She turned on
the lights", but the interpretation of "turned on" is different (in this
case, "turn on" means to assume the "on" state).  I can think of at
least four possible interpretations for a sentence with the structure
"She turned on X":
	She attacked X.
	She made X assume the "on" state.
	She aroused X.
	She was on X, and she rolled over (turned).

I think that the third meaning is just a colloquialism derived from the
second, i.e. arousing someone is analogous to turning on a light.  I
think that in this meaning of "turn on" the word "on" isn't really being
used as a preposition; it is probably a reference to a switch which has
two labels, "on" and "off", and "turn X on" is short for "turn X's
switch to the 'on' position"; it could also be an adjective, describing
the device, as in the sentence "The light is on".
-- 
			Barry Margolin
			ARPA: barmar@MIT-Multics
			UUCP: ..!genrad!mit-eddie!barmar