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From: rob@ptsfb.UUCP (Rob Bernardo)
Newsgroups: net.nlang
Subject: Re: English verbal miscellany
Message-ID: <316@ptsfb.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 20-Feb-86 00:16:10 EST
Article-I.D.: ptsfb.316
Posted: Thu Feb 20 00:16:10 1986
Date-Received: Fri, 21-Feb-86 07:42:40 EST
References: <10132@tardis.UUCP> <771@spar.UUCP> <130@calma.UUCP> <879@h-sc1.UUCP> <117@uvacs.UUCP> <131@spar.UUCP>
Reply-To: rob@ptsfb.UUCP (Rob Bernardo)
Organization: Pacific Bell, San Francisco
Lines: 84

In article <131@spar.UUCP> ellis@spar.UUCP (Michael Ellis) writes:
>    English's auxiliaries {can, will, may, shall} are indeed quite odd. 
>    For instance, note that, in addition to lacking infinitives, participles
>    gerunds, imperatives, (and passives, which would seem to have little use) 
>    they also lack -s in the 3rd person singular. As Alex pointed out, we
>    must get by with circumlocutions to express the defective forms.

Historically speaking, the auxilliaries are derived from verbs. However,
if you look at the syntax of English (as it is today) without trying to
force it into the mold of some more "classical" grammar, these words would
have to be considered in a class separate from verbs since they do not
undergo verbal conjugation and have a different SYNTACTIC function than verbs.

>    ========================================================================
>
>    One frequently overlooked feature of english that is quite powerful is
>    its generalized treatment of {intransitive verb} + {preposition} as a
>    compound transitive in passive transformations. I know of few languages
>    which allow such flexibility.
>
>    For example, note the similarity between:
>
>	John sees Mary
>	Mary was seen by John
>	Mary was the one (whom) John saw
>	Mary was the one seen by John
>
>    and
>
>	John looked up the answer
>	The answer was looked up by John
>	This answer was the one (which) John looked up
>	This answer was the one looked up by John
>

Linguists have considered "up" in the expression "look up" (in the sense
of "to search for") a "particle", not a preposition. Although historically
derived from prepositions and homophonous with prepositions, particles
function differently from prepositions. 

	1. The particle plus the verb are together an idiom. That is,
	the meaning of them together is not exactly predictable from
	their separate meanings. The "look" in "look up" does not necessarily
	having anything to do with visual attention and the "up" does not denote
	a skyward direction.

	2. The particle, unlike the preposition, does not have an object.

		John looked up the answer.

	is NOT similar in structure to

		John looked up the chimney.

	In the former, "the answer" is the direct object of "look up",
	while "the chimney" is the object of the preposition "up".
	This is reflected in our attempts to make passives out of these
	sentences:

	    The answer was looked up by John.	[This is okay compared to ...]
	    The chimney was looked up by John.  [Doesn't quite sound like
	   					English to me]


The fact that TWO words can make up a single verb is more an artifact of
our writing than anything else. After all, Latin used prepositions as
in a similar way, except the Romans wrote them together with the verb and
considered them prefixes: pre-, a(d)-, a(b)-, co-   ad nauseam  :-)

One reason why they are written separately from the original verb is
because they do not always appear next to the verb. In fact, if the
direct object is a pronoun, the particle MUST FOLLOW the direct object:

	John looked the answer up.	[Okay.]
	John looked up the answer.	[Okay.]
	John looked it up.		[Okay.]
	John looked up it.		[Not okay (unless you read this
					sentence with the non-idiomatic
					meaning of "look" and "up").]

(That is further evidence that "up" does not function as a preposition here.)

There are some verbs where an English preposition has been prefixed to a verb,
e.g. "understand", "oversee".