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A preposition is usually used with a noun phrase as its complement. A preposition together with its complement is called a prepositional phrase. [32] Examples are in England, under the table, after six pleasant weeks, between the land and the sea.
Though the prototypical preposition is a single word that precedes a noun phrase complement and expresses spatial relations, the category of preposition includes more than this limited notion (see English prepositions § History of the concept in English). Prepositions can be categorized according to whether the preposition takes a complement ...
Prepositions in this section may also take other kinds of complements in addition to noun phrase complements. Prepositions marked with an asterisk can be used transitively or intransitively; that is, they can take noun phrase complements (e.g., he was in the house) or not (e.g., he was in).
In these flexible cases, preposition phrases can be constructed with a continuous structure (pied-piping) or an alternative discontinuous structure (preposition stranding). [9] [10] When pied-piping occurs, the preposition phrase is continuous, because the preposition follows the focused expression to a new position. In preposition stranding ...
The determiners form a closed lexical category in English. [2] The syntactic role characteristically performed by determiners is known as the determinative function (see § Terminology). [3] A determinative combines with a noun (or, more formally, a nominal; see English nouns § Internal structure) to form a noun phrase (NP).
The gerund takes the same form (ending in -ing) as the present participle, but is used as a noun (or rather the verb phrase introduced by the gerund is used as a noun phrase). [23] Many uses of gerunds are thus similar to noun uses of the infinitive. Uses of gerunds and gerund phrases are illustrated below: As subject or predicative expression:
However, James D. McCawley notes a case in which color terms appear to have features of nouns and adjectives at the same time: a deep blue necktie. In this case, the modifier of blue is an adjective (deep) rather than an adverb (deeply), which suggests that the color term is a noun.
An English preposition can never follow its noun, so if we can change verb - P - noun to verb - noun - P, then P cannot be a preposition and must be particle. [h] But even with a particle verb, shifting the particle is not always possible, for example if it is followed by a pronoun instead of a noun, or if there is a fixed collocation. A second ...