| PREPOSITIONAL PHRASES AND PREPOSITIONS. |
To express our thoughts with greater exactness we may need to expand a word modifier into several words;
as, “A long ride brought us there” = “A ride of one hundred miles brought us to Chicago.”
These groups of words, of one hundred miles and to Chicago — the one substituted for the adjective long, the other for the adverb there — we call Phrases.
A phrase that does the work of an adjective is called an Adjective Phrase.
A phrase that does the work of an adverb is called an Adverb Phrase.
As adverbs modify adjectives and adverbs, they may modify their equivalent phrases; as, “The train stops only at the station.”
They sometimes modify only the introductory word of the phrase — this introductory word being adverbial in its nature; as, “He sailed nearly around the world.
That we may learn the office of such words as of, to, and at, used to introduce these phrases, let us see how the relation of one idea to another may be expressed.
Wealthy men.
These two words express two ideas as related.
We have learned to know this relation by the form and position of the words.
Change these, and the relation is lost — men wealth.
But by using of before wealth the relation is restored — men of wealth.
The word of, then, shows the relation between the ideas expressed by the words men and wealth.
All such relation words are called Prepositions (Lat. præ, before, and positus placed — their usual position being before the noun with which thy form a phrase).
A phrase introduced by a preposition is called a Prepositional Phrase.
This, however, is not the only kind of phrase.
|
DEFINITION.— A Phrase is a group of words denoting related ideas, and having a distinct office, but not expressing a thought.9
DEFINITION.— A Preposition is a word that introduces a phrase modifier, and shows the relation, in sense, of its principal word to the word modified.10
|
|
| 1. | The pitch of the musical note depends upon the rapidity of vibration. |
Explanation.— The diagram of the phrase is made up of a slanting line standing for the introductory word, and a horizontal line representing the principal word.
Under the latter are drawn the lines which represent the modifiers of the principal word. |
| |
Notice that ofttimes the preposition of expresses the logical relationship between the object (the musical note, & the vibration)
and one of its attributes (its pitch viz. its rapidity) in the opposite order from its grammatical relationship of noun and modifier!
We say that the musical note ‘has’ a pitch, or that the vibration ‘has’ a rapidity.
A paraphrase with have must reverse the roles of these words as subject and predicate.
Notice also that depend upon is a phrasal verb evidenced by its passive: “The rapidity may be depended upon.”
|
| Parsing.—
Of is a preposition showing the relation, in sense, of note to pitch; etc.
|
| Exercises (Lesson 17) Diagram the following: |
| 2. | The Gulf Stream can be traced along the shores of the United States by the blueness of the water. |
| 3. | The North Pole had been approched in three principal directions. |
|
| Answers |
| 4. | In 1607, Hudson penetrated within six hundred miles of the North Pole. |
Note.— 1607 may be treated as a noun, and six hundred as one adjective. |
| |
Note that these adverbial modifications are of a different rank.
The first phrase “in 1607” modifies the whole of the sentence, being, as it were, a secondary predicate.
The other phrase connected by “within” is more tightly related to the verb, being “selected” by it.
The nature of the meaning of the verb has much to do with the closeness of its relationship to modifiers and complements.
This also illustrates that troublesome line between morphology that treats of word and affix combinations and syntax that treats of how words fit together to form phrases, clauses, and sentences.
What are words or phrases in one sentence may in another be expressed as parts of words.
Based on the examples in Lesson 33 the authors could have had the pupil make 1607 and six hundred adverbial nouns as a limiting adjective.
Thus, the year number would be explanitory of the phrase the year understood.
It would consist of two parts joined by asyndeton:
sixteen, an adverbial noun as limiting adjective to hundred, joined to seven, an adverbial noun as limiting adjective, together modifying the year.
The second number would consist of two parts: six, an adverbial noun as limiting adjective modifying hundred, an adverbial noun as limiting adjective modifying miles.
In my paraphrastic grammar the virtual morpheme of many is further extracted (similarly much where appropriate) from such plural quantified nouns.
|
| 5. | The breezy morning died into the silent noon. |
| 6. | The delta of the Mississippi was once at St. Louis. |
| 7. | Coal of all kinds has originated from the decay of plants. |
|
| Answers |
| 8. | Genius can breathe freely only in the atmosphere of freedom. |
Explanation.— Only modifies the whole phrase. |
| |
In this case the preposition of serves to connect an explanitory noun,
where freedom and atmosphere share the same referent.
Here the indefinite an instead of the definite the might as well be appropriate.
Notice also that the verb breathe is aided by a modal auxiliary can.
The sentence is put together in a formal written style.
The English speaker may well find that only feels more comfortable positioned as a verb modifier,
even when it is still logically a modifier to the prepositional phrase:
“Genius can only breathe freely in the atmosphere of freedom.”
|
| 9. | The Suspension Bridge is stretched across the Niagara river just below the falls. |
Explanation.— Just modifies the preposition. |
| |
The authors choose to make attributive nouns modifiers.
The compound Suspension Bridge, however, serves as a name for this bridge only and can be considered one name (a proper noun).
This could also be the case with the Niagara river.
Notice here also that the verb stretch is aided by a passive formative be + –en.
The meaning might be more fluently expressed today by using the so-called medio-passive form stretches instead (cf. (13) below):
“The Suspension Bridge stretches across the Niagara river just below the Falls.”
The stative meaning of the authors’ passive voice when used in the present tense suggests that the participle stretched is functioning as a predicate adjective.
One last comment about the use of capital letters may also be in order.
The authors practiced a semantically based convention that was never adopted universally so that contrasted with today’s morphological practice it seems one mass of confusion.
Today the word “river” would be capitalized as part of the proper noun “Niagara River.”
At the same time the word “Falls” as with “Delta” above in (6) would not be capitalized, particularly when not explicitly modified by “Niagara.”
“The Suspension Bridge stretches across the Niagara River just below the falls.”
|
| 10. | In Mother Goose the cow jumps clear over the moon. |
| 11. | The first standing army was formed in the middle of the fifteenth century. |
| 12. | The first astronomical observatory in Europe was erected at Seville by the Saracens. |
| 13. | The tails of some comets stretch to the distance of 100,000,000 miles. |
| 14. | The body of the great Napolean was carried back from St. Helena to France. |
|
| Answers |
COMMA—RULE.—Phrases that are placed out of their usual order and made emphatic, or that are loosely connected with the rest of the sentence, should be set off by the comma.
An expression in the body of a sentence is set off by two commas; at the beginning or at the end, by one comma.
For the usual order of words and phrases, see Lesson 51.
|
|
Remark.—This rule must be applied with caution.
Unless it is desired to make the phrase emphatic, or to break the continuity of the thought, the growing usage among writers is not to set it off.
|
Direction.—Tell why the comma is, or is not, used in these sentences:—
1. Between the two mountains lies a fertile valley.
2. Of the scenery along the Rhine, many travelers speak with enthusiasm.
3. He went, at the urgent request of the stranger, for the doctor.
4. He went from New York to Philadelphia on Monday.
5. In the dead of night, with a chosen band, under the cover of a truce, he approached.
|
Direction.—Punctuate such of these sentences as need punctuation:—
1. England in the eleventh century was conquered by the Normans.
2. Amid the angry yells of the spectators he died.
3. For the sake of emphasis a word or a phrase may be placed out of its natural order.
4. In the Pickwick Papers the conversation of Sam Weller is spiced with wit.
5. New York on the contrary abounds in men of wealth.
6. It has come down by uninterrupted tradition from the earliest times to the present day.
|
Direction.—See in how many places the phrases in the sentences above may stand without obscuring the thought.
|
