If we recognize that lexical categories (parts of speech) vary across languages, vary through time, are defined by properties that may also be shared by other categories, then it's not surprising that prepositions and verbs share some properties.
They both have valence. Prepositions and verbs can both take objects and can both be intransitive. A preposition like "out" can be used in "She walked out the door" and "She walked out," indicating that prepositions that are sometimes called adverbs may also be treated as intransitive prepositions. Some prepositions can clausal complements just as some verbs do--not to mention some nouns and adjectives. Describing prepositions by their properties also simplifies that object of wonder we call the adverb by eliminating a subclass of them.
Prepositions differ from verbs in lacking tense inflection, not taking auxiliaries, lacking subjects, not inverting with subjects (because they don't have them). But notice that not all verbs have all of these properties either. Only auxiliaries invert, etc.
However, this prototype treatment of lexical categories makes it more difficult to exhaustively list the members of a category because we have to ask questions like which properties words have to share to be considered members of the category and whether category membership is a matter of degree rather than discrete.
Language, as usual, never ceases to fascinate.
Herb
-----Original Message-----
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Spruiell, William C
Sent: Monday, April 12, 2010 2:00 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Prepositions
This will be an overgeneralization, but I'll state it anyway and assume
that if (when?) it's shot down, the wreckage might still be useful.
English grammars vary in how they use the term 'preposition', but any
given grammar will adopt one of two basic approaches (reflecting the
form/function distinction) and then edge away from it for problem cases.
(1) Use 'preposition' for a set of words that *can* be used to begin a
prepositional phrase -- regardless of the function a given instance is
serving in a particular sentence.
(2) Use 'preposition' only for words that are beginning a prepositional
phrase.
Approach (1) would label the 'up' in "put up with" and the "up" in "I
looked up when I heard the noise" as prepositions. Approach (2) would
lead to different terms, e.g. "adverbial particle" in the latter
sentence. Of course, the second you try to provide a list of
prepositions, you're shoved toward (1), since you're almost completely
decontextualizing the words.
Almost all grammars that adopt (1), though, make an exception for the
"beginning a subordinate clause" category. Thrax just had a "particle"
class, but once people started subdividing that, having prepositions and
coordinating conjunctions in separate categories made sense. But that
left subordinating conjunctions kind of floating in between....
Bill Spruiell
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