Another point about PPs. There is a big difference in the roles of the two prepositional phases in this sentence: * Fastow was in the penitentiary after the scandal. "In the penitentiary" is a complement. "After the scandal" is purely adverbial and modifies the verb phrase "is in the penitentiary." * Adverbials can be moved to the front of the clause, so you can say "After the scandal Fastow was in the penitentiary." * Complement PPs can't be moved to the front. Adverbial PPs cannot follow a linking verb. For both reasons you can't say *"In the penitentiary Fastow was after the scandal." ________________________ Richard Veit Department of English, UNCW To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web interface at: http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html and select "Join or leave the list" Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/