Questions With Prepositions Pdf

[Sergei Chime]

Wehave had a lot of "which preposition goes here" questions. These are by their nature very specific and localized, and are also not usually particularly interesting. I think we need some more specific guidelines on how to ask good questions about preposition use as well as how to politely close questions that do not meet these requirements.

Here are some recent examples of preposition questions for reference:

1. Is it common to use 'between' with the preposition 'to'

2. Is 'of' necessary in 'all of'

3. Perform magic to children vs perform magic for children

4. Reducing degeneracies of/from/in FKK transmitter

5. "Acted in the benefit of" vs "acted for the benefit of" vs "acted to the benefit of"

6. For the current vs in the current

7. "Muse on" vs "Muse about"

8. Appealing for or appealing to

I admit the possibility that I have developed a bias against preposition questions. I list the examples above not to judge their worthiness, but merely to help formulate criteria for these kinds of questions.

Sorry, but I think such questions need to be sharply downvoted, or greatly enhanced. No research effort is shown. (Note: Maybe that sounded contentious, but please don't downvote my answer here until you've read all the way to the end.)

I recently heard a song called Dance to the Music, but I once had a music teacher tell me, "You need to dance with the music," meaning, with the beat of the music. So, I want to know, which is it better to say? Dance to, or dance with? Which is the more appropriate preposition? Thanks in advance.

I recently heard a song called Dance to the Music, but I once had a music teacher tell me, "You need to dance with the music," meaning, with the beat of the music. So, I am trying to figure out, which is it better to say? Dance to, or dance with? Which is the more appropriate preposition?

So, I tried using Google books instead, but I found out that Anthony Powell wrote a twelve-novel sequence, called A Dance to the Music of Time. That made it hard to find good examples from those results, also.

Now, I'm not saying that everyone would be frustrated with the initial question, or that nobody would downvote the revised question, but I'll bet the revised question would get many more upvotes than downvotes, while the initial question would not be welcomed so warmly, nor appreciated nearly as much.

However, there is a strong bias on this site towards being anti-ELL, that is, a notion that english.stackexchange.com is a site for fluent users. I don't hold to that but I can see how preposition questions might not fit that vision, and might be better for the mythical ell.stackexchange.com.

Finally, as to the questions being too-localized, I think it's beneficial to provide examples of preposition use, because examples are one of the best ways to learn them. So even though the individual questions are localized, they serve a purpose. In a sense, each preposition question is basically asking for one answer from the "what are all the ways to use preposition X" (but THAT question would get nuked for being a "list").

I share your distaste for these questions. However, as Xavier points out, it's precisely these matters which unsophisticated users are most likely to stumble over; in a sense, they're our cost of doing business.

I suggest that the most appropriate approach is to be particularly rigorous on the "General Reference" aspect: require posters to consult reputable dictionaries, report the definitions they found, and define precisely what ambiguity they find in these definitions. At worst, they'll go away when they find out that they're expected to do the basic work; at best, they'll learn what a dictionary is and isn't good for and raise questions which are of interest.

That said, there are still numerous ways that preposition questions are poorly worded. The questions should be treated not as a general problem but individually; if they are too local or general reference, then vote or flag to close. If they are poorly worded, comment and/or edit.

This has been discussed millions of times I guess, however, I have noticed, in years, that not all prepositions can start a sentence but feel just fine at the end of it. My teacher never liked us placing a preposition at the end. She always tried to correct us, however, I always preferred placing a preposition at the end of a sentence.

OK, here's the scoop on this usage:Please consider the utterance (I'm working with speech here).A) the repetition of the preposition (stranding the preposition) is not needed:1) declarative: I'm going to New York later this afternoon.2) interrogative: Where are you going later this afternoon? Notice how the TO disappears in the question.Ah, but then why do people say: Where are you going to [this afternoon]? There are various answers. They are not educated speakers or they are sloppy speakers. The fact is that in the question to is not needed. That said, people do speak like that. Would a speaker like myself say it? Probably not. Except for emphasis: Where did you say you were going to?

1) Declarative: He is at the game? [standard]; 2) Interrogative: Where is he? The preposition, as with to above, is not needed.3) Where's he at? or Where is he at? [marked as uneducated or dialectal, as in Black English or common varieties where people aren't really paying attention to their own speech]At where is he? = not idiomatic, not heard

B) stranded prepositions (aka hanging prepositions) Let's start with a declarative sentence: I'm writing about horror movies.Interrogative (standard speech): What are you writing about?

Not repeating the object of the preposition is called preposition stranding and it is very common in spoken English and is used by native English speakers. /About what are you writing/ though grammatical would never be heard, really.

1) Declarative: This depends on the student's attitude: 2) Interrogative: standard speech: What does this depend on? More of a written form: On what does this depend? But, it could be said.

The last example: For whom are you doing this? Can be stranded in standard speech: Whom are you doing this for? Please note also that here /who/ is often used in place of /whom/ and is acceptable in some circles, but not in formal speech. However, the stranded preposition is fine.

Native speakers have no problem understanding that on is to be taken in combination with what and put. It is natural in English for prepositions to appear at the tail-end of an interrogative.

In the first scenario, the subject of the sentence -- the some people -- has not been identified, so the question "Who are they?" makes sense. In the second scenario, the fact that every person in the sentence has been named implies that the audience knows who Nick, Ashley, and John are, so the question "Who are they?" makes less sense to ask, and instead "Who are they with?" makes more sense.

In fact, if I were to say "Nick is with Ashley and John at the bar" to someone who I thought knew all three people, and their response was "Who are they?", it would be jarring, and my response would likely be "Oh, have you not met them?".

In summary (and to answer this question), the questions "Who are they?" and "Who are they with?" are used in different contexts, and though people will listen to the entire sentence, the speaker is already anticipating which of the two questions is more likely.

I once thought ope was a preposition to be used with genitive, which I found pretty interesting because most Latin grammars do not mention it (I think I once read one that did, but I can't find it now). Then I realized it is just the dative of ops (in my defense, ope -by the power or support of sth- has a very preposition-ish meaning). Nevertheless, doing some linguistics-fiction I wondered it was a feasible way for such a preposition to evolve after the desappearence of other uses of ops.

And then I found this site, stating that there is the preposition tenus, which actually works with genitive. I've never heard of that one, and the page does not cite any sources, but there are other sources that favor the point.

Update: some people have pointed that tenus is indeed a postposition, since it goes after the noun being modified. In the meantime, I have learnt that in linguistics there is a more general word, adposition to embrace both pre- and postpositions. I was unaware of any of these two words: good to learn new things. Thanks @Cerberus.

I added the concept to the question's title. I left the word preposition here and there for a number of reasons: 1) both sources cited treat tenus as a preposition (even clarifying it has to be used after the noun), 2) there is no adposition tag in Latin.SE, 3) in English, prepositions may be used after nouns in certain circumstances (see here, under the title Usage Note), and some definitions confirm it.

I was able to find several examples thanks to Cassell's "Latin Dictionary," and Allen and Greenough's "New Latin Grammar." First, tenus is mentioned as taking either the genitive or ablative. It references Vergil, Livy, and Lucretius as having examples of the genitive use.

So there you have at least two examples of a preposition taking the genitive and placed in front of the word. The grammar book points out that the second example there is from prose of the Republican Period, and not found elsewhere at that time.

Questions with prepositions at the end of the clause can be challenging for students. The word order of these questions is often different from the word order students use in their native language. This lesson makes students aware of these questions and also gives students the opportunity to practice using the structure.

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