Search results for 'tag:Constructions tag:Prepositions' matching tags 'Constructions' and 'Prepositions'

Confessed to

Abil — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 11:50:28 GMT

Several witches, who all confessed to having been at the Sabbaths, were in the
same year condemned to be burnt in different parts of France.

Can "to" preposition be omitted? I saw lots of sentences with "confessed having" constructions. I am little bit confused!

Re: nominative and objective pronouns.......confusing!

Huevos — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 23:31:44 GMT

Avangi
But "Than" is not.

I wasn't using the "after-preposition rule" to support this construction. Use here is open to opinion. "She is taller than I" is presciptivist, whereas "she is taller than me" is the overwelming choice of the language's native speakers. The question is how deep rooted does a use have to become before conservative prescriptivists accept it as part of the language.

By the way which version is your King James of choice?

Re: nominative and objective pronouns.......confusing!

Huevos — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 19:58:34 GMT

Avangi
What might the implied verb be?

Avangi, I don't want to get into that with this sentence. For the reason why, read my point to Raen below. "Like" is a preposition so follows that rule.

But to give you an idea what I mean about implied verb...

She is taller than me.
She is taller than I am.

Some people say "She is taller than I" but my recommendation is to leave that construction for the pretentious and supercilious, (maybe I'm just too much of an Alfred P. Doolittle to use it).

Raen
So it's always "between you and me" no matter where this expression sits in a sentence?

"Between" is a preposition. Pronouns that follow prepositions are always in the accusative case, not nominative. It's a rule, not a matter of opinion. Here are some examples that wrongly use the nominative.

He wrote a book about she.

The girl passed between he and I.

The bullet passed through he.

The waiter spilt orange juice on she.

Everyone caught the train except I.

Their father ordered the meal for they.

Re: it's probably wrong, but ...

Avangi — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 02:42:49 GMT

(We have rooms / a room.)

What would be the objection? That "there" cannot be object of the preposition because its not a noun? I think "in there" and "out there" are common constructions in all the romance languages. Sorry I don't know what it's called. - A.

Edit. Maybe I'm wrong about that. Maybe other languages are more like "there within" and "there without." "In" and "out" are probably adverbs. Edit. edit. Yes, my dictionary lists "in" as an adverb. I'm thinking, "Throw out the garbage," "Take in the washing from the line."

Re: Due to/Owing to

Cool Breeze — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 20:27:40 GMT

My take:

The match was cancelled due to / owing to / because of / on account of rain.

All correct, no difference in meaning. This is what Random House Webster's says about due to:

âUsage.7. DUE TO as a prepositional phrase meaning âbecause of, owing toâ has been in use since the 14th century: Due to the sudden rainstorm, the picnic was moved indoors. Some object to this use on the grounds that DUE is historically an adjective and thus should be used only predicatively in constructions like The delay was due to electrical failure. Despite such objections, DUE TO occurs commonly as a compound preposition and is standard in all varieties of speech and writing.

which vs of which

New2grammar — Tue, 20 May 2008 12:41:53 GMT

1. He'd only left her a note on the bedside table of which she had not understood the content.
2. The car in the driveway which has a convertible roof is my new Ferrari.

Both sentences share a similar construction where 'which describes the noun before the immediate noun but the first sentence requires an additional preposition 'of'.
Could you please explain it in an easy to understand way?

Many thanks in advance! This is one of the toughest grammar concepts for me. It may sound really simple to you so please bear with me.

Re: Participial Construction??

Mister Micawber — Thu, 15 May 2008 04:48:42 GMT

.
Your examples are of participial construction and rightly bear the same subject as the main clause. However, participial constructions also exist outside that relationship.

With the wind blowing abeam, we quickly tacked to the inlet.-- Here, the participal clause is the object of a preposition.

Re: preposition+obj pronoun+?

Avangi — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 04:44:13 GMT

Anewcomer
Avangi: Hey, i know that "a boy" shouldn't use "do" but in this context "a boy" is not a subject and shouldn't use does, however if does is used in the context (context I'm talking about) " I team up with a boy does 5 subjects" it doesn't make sense at all, unless "who" is included before "does", which I already thought to be true (relative pronoun/clause) and so does the "participle phrase" (doing), which i already know that it's widely used.

Hi Anc - I wasn't suggesting you use does instead of do in your "third type of construction." I thought if I understood why you wanted to use "do" it might give me a clue as to what you have in mind. If you could only give us an example using "do" which you're fairly sure is correct, we might then be able to apply it to the case in hand. - A.

Re: unnecessary words

Ant_222 — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 22:21:54 GMT

1 â not redundant for sure. "Dispose of" is like "get rid of", while "dispose" implies a kind of destruction.

2 â although "why" is considered undesired in constructions like "the reason why I love you", in your example "why" sounds good to me, so I think it is neither wrong nor unnecessary...

EDIT: Clive: or does it happen only in programming that "dispose" means destroy and takes no prepositions??

Verbs

ganesh77 — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 09:38:41 GMT

The list isn't meant to be exhaustive or carefully arranged. Any additions, corrections or further examples would be welcomed.

1 main verbs; lexical verbs (all verbs which are not auxiliaries or modals)

2 action verbs; event verbs; dynamic verbs (a verb which can be used in continuous tenses) i.e. eat, run, talk

3 state of being verbs; existence verbs; state verbs; stative verbs; static verbs (a verb which describes a state and is not usually used in a continuous tense) i.e. be, own, know

4 regular verbs (a verb that has four forms and follows the normal rules)

5 irregular verbs; strong verbs (a verb not following the normal rules for inflection)

6 auxiliary and modal verbs (which make up verbal phrases) â 23 in total

7 linking verbs; copulative verbs; copulas (a verb which links the subject and complement of a clause) i.e. It is warm today.

8 transitive verbs (a verb used to talk about an action or event that involves more than one person or thing, and so is followed by an object) i.e. Sheâs wasting her money.

9 intransitive verbs (a verb used to talk about an action or event that only involved the subject and so has no object) i.e. She arrived.

10 multiword verbs

a type 1 â intransitive [phrasal verbs; adverb particle

b type 2 â transitive (inseparable) [prepositional verbs; preposition particles]

c type 3 â transitive (separable) [phrasal verbs; adverb particle]

d type 4 â transitive (with two inseparable particles) [phrasal-prepositional verbs; first particle is an adverb, second particle is a preposition]

11 compound verbs

12 delexical verbs (a verb which has very little meaning in itself but is used with an object to describe an action) i.e. She gave a small cry.

13 ditransitive verbs (a verb which can have both a direct and indirect object) i.e. She gave me a kiss.

14 ergative verbs (a verb which can be used transitively to focus on the performer of the action, or intransitively to focus on the thing affected by the action) i.e. He boiled the water. The water boiled.

15 reporting verbs; performance verbs; performative verbs (a verb used with a quote or a reported clause to describe what people say or think) i.e. suggest, say, wonder

16 reciprocal verbs (a verb which describes an action involving two people doing the same thing to each other) i.e. They met in the street.

17 reflexive verbs (a verb which is typically used with a reflexive pronoun) i.e. Donât cut yourself with that knife.

18 defective verbs (a verb without all the inflected forms of a regular verb) i.e. modals

19 finite and non-finite

a infinitives

b gerunds; verbal nouns

c participles

20 catenative verbs (a verb that takes other verb forms as objects; found at the head of a series of linked constructions) i.e. We agreed to try to decide to stop eating snacks.

21 causative verbs (a verb that designates the action necessary to cause another action to happen) i.e. The devil made me do it.