Table Of ContentPreposition Stranding
Topics in English Linguistics
7
Editors
Jan Svartvik
Herman Wekker
Mouton de Gruyter
Berlin · New York
Preposition Stranding
From Syntactic to Functional Analyses
Ken-ichi Takami
Mouton de Gruyter
Berlin · New York 1992
Mouton de Gruyter (formerly Mouton, The Hague)
is a Division of Walter de Gruyter & Co., Berlin.
® Printed on acid-free paper which falls within the guidelines
of the ANSI to ensure permanence and durability.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Takami, Ken-ichi, 1952 —
Preposition stranding : from syntactic to functional ana-
lyses / Ken-ichi Takami.
p. cm. — (Topics in English linguistics ; 7)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 3-11-013376-8
1. English language — Prepositions. 2. English lan-
guage — Syntax. I. Title. II. Series.
PE1335.T35 1992
425 — dc20 92-17274
CIP
Die Deutsche Bibliothek — Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Takami, Ken-ichi:
Preposition stranding : from syntactic to functional analyses /
Ken-ichi Takami. — Berlin ; New York : Mouton de Gruyter,
1992
(Topics in English linguistics ; 7)
Zugl.: Tokyo, Univ., Diss., 1990
ISBN 3-11-013376-8
NE: GT
© Copyright 1992 by Walter de Gruyter & Co., D-1000 Berlin 30
All rights reserved, including those of translation into foreign languages. No part of this
book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or
mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval
system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
Disk Conversion: Satzpunkt Ewert, Braunschweig. — Printing: Gerike GmbH, Berlin —
Binding: Lüderitz & Bauer, Berlin.
Printed in Germany.
To my parents
Acknowledgments
This book is a revised version of my doctoral dissertation, submitted to Tokyo
Metropolitan University in April 1990 and accepted in October 1990. I am
deeply indebted to the three members of my committee, Heizo Nakajima,
Kunihiko Imai and Kinshiro Oshitari, for their numerous informative com-
ments. Particularly I would like to thank my chief advisor, Heizo Nakajima,
who expended in my behalf much time and energy in long discussions with
me and offered valuable and constructive suggestions for improving this
study. I am thankful to him also for the advice and encouragement of previous
years.
The main part of this book was written while I was at Harvard University
as a visiting scholar from August 1988 to August 1989. During my year-long
stay there (and even after that), I had many opportunities to meet with Susumu
Kuno and to discuss my ideas with him. I greatly benefited from the dis-
cussion with him and from his extensive comments and suggestions with
which he provided me after reading every chapter of the present study. It is
certain that had it not been for his insightful comments and suggestions, the
book would not have developed into this form, and I wish to express my deep-
est gratitude to him not only for his invaluable comments but also for his con-
stant encouragement.
I would also like to express my deep appreciation to the many people who
were so generous with their native speaker intuitions: Bruce Davison, Dianne
Jonas, Ben Fortson, John Maher, Elizabeth Baer, Ross King, John O'Neil,
Randy Toth, Erich Groat, Amber Duncan, Michael Lloyd and many others.
They were always ready to check the many examples I constructed and to an-
swer my troublesome questions with patience.
I am also grateful to my teacher, Sadao Takatsuki, who has guided and as-
sisted me for years, from my school days to the present, with warm and con-
tinuous encouragement. He has taught me that language is not simply a matter
of acceptability vs. unacceptability, but a matter of degree, containing many
"shaded" portions which are subject to fluctuation due to a number of delicate
factors. This attitude toward language, I believe, has constituted my starting
point.
The main part of chapter 4 was delivered at Harvard University on Novem-
ber 30, 1988. Those present provided much vigorous and helpful discussion,
vili Acknowledgments
and my thanks go particularly to Samuel Epstein, Andrew Garrett, Phil Le-
Sourd, Rex Sprouse, Kazuhiko Tajima and Orin Peraus.
In chapter 8 I deal with preposition stranding in Danish and Swedish; the
acceptability judgments I owe to Martin Paludan-Muller, Sven Holm, Lars
Heltoft, Uif Teleman, Astrid Meier-Wichmann and Bent Carl Lindblad. Par-
ticular thanks go to Martin Paludan-Muller and Sven Holm, who also read an
earlier version of this chapter, and provided me with numerous valuable com-
ments and suggestions.
The analyses in this work have been sharpened at various stages through
discussion and correspondence with my friends and colleagues, to whom I owe
a great deal: Harumi Sawada, Akio Kamio, Etsuko Tomoda, Jacob Mey,
Francis Cornish, Tatsuro Okitsu, Mikihide Matsuyama, Masahito Kubota, Shi-
geru Kushima, Kyoji Honda, Torn Sugiyama, Toshiyuki Tabata, Mitsumasa
Zushi, Shigeko Kumagai, Norimi Kimura.
Finally and more generally, I owe a deep debt of gratitude to Minoru Oda
and Masanori Higa, from whom I have received thoughtful and hearty guid-
ance for years, learning at the same time how important it is to set new goals
and try to attain them.
Though much indebted to many people, all errors and shortcomings that re-
main are, of course, my own responsibility.
Shizuoka, Japan, May 1991 Ken-ichi Takami
Contents
Acknowledgments vii
Chapter 1 Introduction 1
Chapter 2 Preposition Stranding in VPs or Ss 7
2.1. Introduction 7
2.2. Arguments against the syntactic analyses of Hornstein
- Weinberg (1981) and Chomsky (1981, 1986b) 8
2.3. Arguments against some other syntactic analyses 17
2.4. An alternative functional explanation 23
2.4.1. More/less important information 23
2.4.2. Verbs and context 31
2.4.3. Prepositions that contain a negative meaning 35
2.4.4. Two further phenomena of preposition stranding 38
2.5. Functional approaches to preposition stranding in NPs 41
2.6. Concluding remarks 46
Chapter 3 Preposition Stranding in NPs 51
3.1. Introduction 51
3.2. Previous syntactic analyses and their problems 52
3.2.1. N-vs. N'-complement 52
3.2.2. Verbs and context 59
3.3. An alternative functional explanation 64
3.3.1. The identifiability condition 64
3.3.2. More/less important information condition 69
3.3.3. Specificity 73
3.3.4. Stacked NPs 75
3.4. Other functional approaches to preposition stranding in NPs 78
3.5. Concluding remarks 84
Chapter 4 Pseudo-Passives 89
4.1. Introduction 89
4.2. A review of syntactic analyses: reanalysis and five pieces
of evidence 92
Description:The future of English linguistics as envisaged by the editors of Topics in English Linguistics lies in empirical studies which integrate work in English linguistics into general and theoretical linguistics on the one hand, and comparative linguistics on the other. The TiEL series features volumes th
