Preposition stranding

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Preposition stranding, sometimes called P-stranding, is the syntactic construction in which a preposition appears without an object. (The preposition is then described as stranded or hanging.) This construction is widely found in Germanic languages, including English and the North Germanic languages (Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Icelandic); whether or not German and Dutch exhibit legitimate preposition stranding is still debated. P-stranding is also found in languages outside the Germanic family, such as Vata and Gbadi, two languages in the Niger-Congo family, and certain dialects of French spoken in North America.

In English, some grammarians frown upon preposition stranding; see Disputed English grammar.

Preposition stranding in English

In English, preposition stranding is commonly found in three types of constructions: Wh-questions, pseudopassives, and relative clauses.

• In Wh-constructions, the object of the preposition is a Wh-word in deep structure but is fronted as a result of the Wh-movement. It is commonly assumed in transformational approaches to syntax that the movement of a constituent out of a phrase leaves a silent trace. In the case of Wh-movement leaving a stranded preposition, the Wh-word is fronted to the beginning of the interrogative clause, leaving a trace after the preposition:

What_i are you talking about ____i?

• Pseudopassives are the result of the movement of the object of a preposition to fill an empty subject position for a passive verb. This phenomenon is comparable to regular passives, which are formed through the movement of the object of the verb to subject position. In pseudopassives, unlike in Wh-movement, the object of the preposition is not a Wh-word but rather a noun or noun phrase:

This chair_i was sat on ____i.

• Relative clauses in English can also exhibit preposition stranding, whether with a complementizer introducing the clause or without:

This is the book_i that_i I told you about ____i.

This is the book_i I told you about ____i.

Preposition stranding in French

Certain dialects of French seem to have developed preposition stranding as a result of linguistic contact with English. P-stranding is found in areas where the francophone population is under intense contact with English, including certain parts of Alberta, Northern Ontario, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, and Louisiana. For example, Prince Edward Island French permits all three types of preposition stranding:

• Wh-movement: Qui-ce que tu as fait le gâteau pour?

Whom did you bake the cake for?

Standard French: Pour qui as-tu fait le gâteau?

• Pseudopassives: Robert a été parlé beaucoup de au meeting.

Robert has been much talked about at the meeting.

Standard French: On a beaucoup parlé de Robert au meeting.

• Relative clauses: Tu connais pas la fille que je te parle de.

You don't know the girl that I'm talking to you about.

Standard French: Tu ne connais pas la fille dont je te parle.

However, not all dialects of French allow P-stranding to the same extent. For instance, Ontario French restricts preposition stranding to relative clauses with certain prepositions; in most dialects, stranding is impossible with the prepositions à (to) and de (of).

P-stranding in Dutch

There are two kinds of P-stranding constructions in Dutch, both of which in fact involve the stranding of postpositions.

Directional constructions

The first case involves directional constructions. A number of common Dutch adpositions can be used either prepositionally or postpositionally, with a slight change in possible meanings; for example, Dutch in can mean either in or into when used prepositionally, but can only mean into when used postpositionally. When postpositions, such adpositions can be stranded:

• Wh-movement: Welk bos_i liep hij ____i in?

literally, Which forest_i walked he ____i into?

i.e., What forest did he walk into?

• short-distance movement: […] dat hij zo'n donker bos niet in durft te lopen […]

literally, […] that he such-a dark forest not into dares to walk […]

i.e., […] that he doesn't dare walk into such a dark forest […]

Another way to analyze examples like the first one above would be to allow arbitrary "postposition + verb" sequences to act as transitive separable prefix verbs (e.g. in + lopen → inlopen); but such an analysis would not be consistent with the position of in in the second example. (The postposition can also appear in the verbal prefix position: […] dat hij zo'n donker bos niet durft in te lopen […].)

R-pronouns

The second case of P-stranding in Dutch is much more widespread. Dutch prepositions generally do not take the ordinary neuter pronouns (het, dat, wat, etc.) as objects. Instead, they become postpositional suffixes for the corresponding r-pronouns (er, daar, waar, etc.): hence, not *over het (about it), but erover (literally thereabout). However, the r-pronouns can sometimes be moved to the left, thereby stranding the postposition:

• Wij praatten er niet over.

literally, We talked there not about.

i.e., We weren't talking about it.

• Waar praatten wij over?

literally, Where talked we about?

i.e., What were we talking about?

Some regional varieties of German show the same phenomenon with da(r)- and wo(r)- forms. For example:

• Standard German requires Ich kann mir davon nichts kaufen.

literally, I can me therefrom nothing buy.

i.e., I can't buy anything with this.

• Some dialects permit Ich kann mir da nichts von kaufen.

literally, I can me there-[clipped] nothing from buy.

i.e., I can't buy anything with this.

• Alternatively, one might also say Da kann ich mir nichts von kaufen.

literally, There-[clipped] can I me nothing from buy.

i.e., I can't buy anything with this.

Again, although the stranded postposition has nearly the same surface distribution as a separable verbal prefix, it would not be possible to analyze these Dutch and German examples in terms of the reanalyzed verbs *overpraten and *vonkaufen, for the following reasons:

• The stranding construction is possible with prepositions that never appear as separable verbal prefixes (e.g., Dutch van, German von).
• Stranding is not possible with any kind of object besides an r-pronoun.

References

• An Internet pilgrim's guide to stranded prepositions
• King, Ruth. 2000. The Lexical Basis of Grammatical Borrowing: a Prince Edward Island French Case Study. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
• Haegeman, Liliane, and Jacqueline Guéron. 1999. English Grammar: a Generative Perspective. Oxford: Blackwell.
• Takami, Ken-ichi. 1992. Preposition Stranding: From Syntactic to Functional Analyses. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
• Hornstein, Norbert, and Amy Weinberg. 1981. Case theory and preposition stranding. Linguistic Inquiry 12:55–91.
• Koopman, Hilda. 2000. "Prepositions, postpositions, circumpositions, and particles". In The Syntax of Specifiers and Heads, pp. 204–260. London: Routledge.
• van Riemsdijk, Henk. 1978. A Case Study in Syntactic Markedness: The Binding Nature of Prepositional Phrases. Dordrecht: Foris.