Scott,

 

The key part of your question is making the facts clear to 7th graders.
The problem arises because we have two words spelled the same and
apparently having the same morphological analysis.  The roots of these
words have meanings as verbs that are different from the meanings they
have in compound prepositions.  Would it be possible to present them as
part of a lesson on morphological derivation and productivity?  We can
add -ness to lots of adjectives and get nouns that are semantically
transparent, that is, the word becomes a noun that names the quality
described by the adjective.  But adding -ant or -ent to a verb produces
adjectives that frequently are not semantically transparent, that is,
that don't simply treat as a quality or characteristic the meaning of
the verb.  Consider abound/abundant, compete/competent,
confide/confident, ignore/ignorant, etc.  In these cases, whether
because the stem vowel changes or because the meaning of the derived
adjective is not predictable from the combination of stem plus suffix,
the derivational morphology is not productive.  Obviously this
presentation is a little dense for 7th graders, but I suspect it could
be simplified, and in the process they'd learn something of word
derivation and the concept of productivity.

 

Herb

 

From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Scott Woods
Sent: Sunday, October 07, 2007 6:06 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: preposition versus present participle

 

Listmates,

 

In a number of texts (Greenbaum's, Kolln & Funk's, Warriner's, among
others), several -ing ending words which seem to be participles of verbs
are listed among the prepositions. These include according to,
concerning, considering, following, failing, and including. What is the
distinction between prepositional phrases beginning with such words and
participial phrases beginning with similar -ing participles?  Can the
same word function as either a preposition or a participle, depending on
how it is used? Are there any suggestions for how this might be
explained to bright 7th graders?  

 

Thanks,

Scott Woods

  

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