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From: barryg@sdcrdcf.UUCP (Lee Gold)
Newsgroups: net.nlang
Subject: Re: Being taken care of. (prepositions)
Message-ID: <1867@sdcrdcf.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 27-Mar-85 20:34:12 EST
Article-I.D.: sdcrdcf.1867
Posted: Wed Mar 27 20:34:12 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 30-Mar-85 00:45:34 EST
References: <186@ihlpm.UUCP> <374@psivax.UUCP>
Reply-To: barryg@sdcrdcf.UUCP (Lee Gold)
Distribution: net
Organization: System Development Corp. R+D, Santa Monica
Lines: 28
Summary: 

The technical name for those things that look like prepositions but
are actually part of the verb is PARTICLES.
Confusing?  Sometimes it gets worse; you can have two verbs-cum-
particles  with different meanings but the same spellings.
For instance, take PUT-UP-WITH (meaning to tolerate) and compare it
to PUT-UP-WITH (to nail to the all by means of).

I had one Linguistics professor who claimed that indeed you shouldn't end
a sentence with a preposition--and that no native English speaker was
capable of constructing a entence that would do so.

Ever read sentences that violate not the Emily Post type rules of
etiquette grammar but the deep grammar of English syntax?  Often they
sound quite poetic.

     At railroad station, emotion went yesterday down.
     Some colorless grief ago was happily.

One of the shocks in learning Japanese was getting used to post-positions
(like prepositions but they follow the noun rather than going before it).
Another was getting used to the regularity of having ALL adjectival
expressions precede the noun (including relative and prepositional phrases)
and the topic goes at the start of the sentence with the verb at the end,
so that you get sentences constructed along the lines of

      "The-corner-on-sitting-man as-for me-to-next lives."

--Lee Gold