English Words That Don't Fit the Parts of Speech

Factual Questions
21

[QUOTE=ralph124c]
I find these words very confusing: one could write “the house burned down”-and also write “the house burned up”-both have the same meanings.Are “down/up” nounns or adjectives?
[/QUOTE]

Actually, what you’ve got there are (colloquial) verb phrases: “burned down” and “burned up.” Down and up are considered part of the verb and cannot be broken off from it as they could in their adjectival forms. If either were to be eliminated, the resulting sentence: “the house burned.” has a slightly different meaning in that it was not completely reduced to ashes as is presumed in the down (to the basement) or up (in smoke) phrases.

22

[QUOTE=ralph124c]
I find these words very confusing: one could write “the house burned down”-and also write “the house burned up”-both have the same meanings.Are “down/up” nounns or adjectives?
[/QUOTE]
I have heard “burn down” and “burn up” described as ‘phrasal verbs’, where the “down” and “up” completely change the meaning of “burn”. I suspect that they are closest to adverbs, but am quite prepared to learn that they’re something else.

23

[QUOTE=ralph124c]
I find these words very confusing: one could write “the house burned down”-and also write “the house burned up”-both have the same meanings.Are “down/up” nounns or adjectives?
[/QUOTE]

Definitely not nouns, and I don’t think they are adjectives there: they modify the verb “burned”, so they are adverbs. In other contexts, they are prepositions: “The house is up the road” or “The house is down the road.”

24

[QUOTE=Sunspace]
I have heard “burn down” and “burn up” described as ‘phrasal verbs’, where the “down” and “up” completely change the meaning of “burn”. I suspect that they are closest to adverbs, but am quite prepared to learn that they’re something else.
[/QUOTE]
Many years ago, a non-native English speaking friend of mine told me that (whatever those things are called) English is chock full of them and they make learning English extremely difficult because, in most cases, you can’t determine the meaning by looking at the individual words.

“burn down” and “burn up” are not that bad, because they mean essentially the same thing, and if you really think about the individual words, you’re likely to arrive at a reasonably close to correct meaning.

But then there’s “knocked down” and “knocked up”. Rather different meanings. The meaning of the former can probably be correctly deduced from the individual words, but try that with the latter . . . Or “knocking around”.

Or “cleaned up” and “cleaned out”.

Or “broke down”, broke up", “broke out”, and broke in". Some even have very different meanings, depending on context. “broke out of jail” vs. “broke out in hives”, or “the burglar broke in” vs. “I broke in my shoes”.

Who made up this language, anyway? :slight_smile:

25

Zoe writes:

> Most linguists were at one time English majors, I would think . . .

No, linguistics grad students and professors most commonly studied linguistics as undergraduates. Some were English majors and many majored in other languages. Some studied math, philosophy, anthropology, psychology, or any of a variety of other subjects as undergraduates. They tended to have gotten interested in linguistics either by enjoying learning languages or by being fascinated by analyzing complicated systems (which is what languages are). They didn’t get into the field by being interested in literature or in being picky with other people’s grammar (although some of them do like to do that also).

26

[QUOTE=ralph124c]
I find these words very confusing: one could write “the house burned down”-and also write “the house burned up”-both have the same meanings.Are “down/up” nounns or adjectives?
[/QUOTE]
Traditional grammatical analysis categorizes these words as “adverbs”. But there are some disadvantages to this approach, and so it’s been abandoned in favor of more precise terminology. Modern analysis categorizes these words as “prepositions”.

People who get stuck on the etymology of “preposition” dislike this expansion in meaning, but a catch-all term to describe these words is quite helpful. It’s easy to see why using just a few examples.

**1. I haven’t eaten since.

  1. I haven’t eaten since lunch.

  2. I haven’t eaten since we had lunch at your place.**

Traditional analysis would give the three words “since” three different parts of speech. The first is an adverb. The second is a preposition. The third is a conjunction. But that’s not a particularly helpful way of looking at this situation, because the word “since” all three cases conveys the exact same meaning and connects to the first part of the sentence in the exact same way.

We don’t have these categorization problems with, say, verbs. We’re much more flexible.

**4. I asked.

  1. I asked a question.

  2. I asked what time we’re eating lunch.**

“Asked” is a verb in all three sentences. It doesn’t stop being a verb even if it’s transitive (sentence 5) or if it’s followed by a subordinate clause (sentence 6). In all three cases, we’re content to use the same categorization. And so linguists looked at the word “preposition” and decided, hey, the similarities outweigh the differences to a large enough extent that we should classify the word “sense” in the first three sentences as “prepositions”, even though there’s nothing following the word in sentence one, and there’s a whole clause following it in sentence 3.

In addition to allowing a more comprehensive (and helpful) definition of preposition, it also allowed a more precise definition of adverb.

Most amateur grammarians, however, are too enamored of the traditional classifications (and too poorly read on the subject) to change their ways. And so we’re left with two sets of terminology. This is why I would hesitate to say it’s incorrect if someone calls your original sentences “adverbs”. But I am going to point out that there’s a better way of looking at the situation, one that allows us to see the similarities in related syntactical structures instead of concentrating on mostly irrelevant differences.

27

[QUOTE=Kendall Jackson]
Traditional grammatical analysis categorizes these words as “adverbs”. But there are some disadvantages to this approach, and so it’s been abandoned in favor of more precise terminology. Modern analysis categorizes these words as “prepositions”.
[/QUOTE]

I’m not sure that works either, because prepositions are normally connected with nouns. As Sunspace pointed out, these combinations of a verb and preposition are very common in English. They are Germanic in origin, and similar combinations are also very common in German, where they are more strongly bound to the verb, e.g., infinitive “abbrennen” (to burn up), present tense “Das Haus brennt ab” (the house burns up), and past participle “Das Haus ist abgebrannt” (the house is burnt up).

As in English, you have a combination of a verb (brennen) and a normal preposition (ab), but in the infinitive form it’s one word and in the past participle it’s one word with “ge” in the middle – “ge” can’t function as a word on its own, but just helps form participles (e.g., “abgebrannt” and “gebrannt”) and verbs (e.g. "gebieten’ from “ge” plus “bieten”). Although they are less strongly bound in English, they still function as a unit.

Since such words as “up”, “down”, “in”, “out”, “on” and “off” function with similar meanings both as prepositions and as parts of phrasal verbs in both English and in German, it might be more useful to describe them as particles in both situations. (The German “ge” is also pretty clearly, in my view, a particle too).

28

[QUOTE=Giles]
I’m not sure that works either, because prepositions are normally connected with nouns.
[/quote]
This is only true if you’re too attached to the traditional definition. According to the current technical definition, this just isn’t right.

Unfortunately, I moved overseas recently and I had to leave my personal library behind, and I’m not capable of sorting through all the deeper syntactic differences between German and English off the top of my head. But if you have a chance to peruse The Cambridge Grammar, previously mentioned in this thread, the authors lay out the newer terminology and explain in detail the underlying theoretical foundations for their labels.

That book isn’t perfect, of course (no book on contemporary language ever is), but it does represent the most up-to-date research in English grammar that can be found in a comprehensive text. Any attempt to develop a more useful technical terminology would first have to square itself against their arguments, of which my own post in this thread is simply a poor introduction.

But to try to hash it out a little bit more: You seem to oversimplify the relationship between German and English. German separable prefix verbs are classified as a single word, as demonstrated (as you noted) by the integration of the prefix with the verb in both the past participle and infinitive forms. And even when the pieces are separated, the prefix goes to the last position in the clause, the position specifically reserved for verb forms. I see no special advantage in creating a new part of speech for them in German since their syntactic properties link them so strongly with the main part of the verb that they consistently and predictably function as a single unit - just as their appearance in dictionaries as a part of the verb so readily demonstrates.

In contrast, the English prepositions have a great deal more freedom. In addition to the independence of the prepositions from the infinitive and past participle forms, there’s also much looser word order restrictions. Compare: “I burned the house down.” “I burned down the house.” Compare, too, examples with and without noun complements for the preposition: “I fell down.” “I fell down the stairs”.

To create a new category “particle” in English is to say that the word “down” is either a particle or a preposition in my falling-down sentences. While there’s nothing inherently wrong with a word existing in more than one part of speech, it’s still highly unuseful to have two different parts of speech when the word is functioning in the exact same way in both sentences.

Again, this would be like not accepting intransitive verbs as real verbs, just because they don’t come with a direct object attached. Professional linguists realize the differences between prepositions with noun complements and those without, just as they realize the difference between transitive and intransitive verbs. In the case of their definition of prepositions, they’ve decided that the similarities between different types of prepositions are more important than the differences.

It’s well worth going through their arguments thoroughly before insisting on new classifications.

29

[QUOTE=Giles]
(The German “ge” is also pretty clearly, in my view, a particle too).
[/QUOTE]

German ‘ge’ is not a word so it cannot be a particle. Its a prefix.

30

[QUOTE=Kendall Jackson]
In contrast, the English prepositions have a great deal more freedom. In addition to the independence of the prepositions from the infinitive and past participle forms, there’s also much looser word order restrictions. Compare: “I burned the house down.” “I burned down the house.” Compare, too, examples with and without noun complements for the preposition: “I fell down.” “I fell down the stairs”.
[/QUOTE]

I’m a bit confused here. In ‘I burned down the house’, is ‘the house’ the complement of down? I mean, if I compare that sentence to ‘I burned in front of the house’, I get the feeling that ‘in front of’ is doing totally different things than ’ down’ is.

31

[QUOTE=Švejk]
I’m a bit confused here. In ‘I burned down the house’, is ‘the house’ the complement of down? I mean, if I compare that sentence to ‘I burned in front of the house’, I get the feeling that ‘in front of’ is doing totally different things than ’ down’ is.
[/QUOTE]
It is. While I’ve admired your arguments in other language threads, Kendall, I can’t get on board with the idea that down is still a preposition in “I burned down the house.” It’s attached inextricably to “burn,” and operates by different rules from prepositions.

I burned down the house.
I burned the house down.
I walked down the lane.
*I walked the lane down.

I walked along the lane.
*I burned along the house.

“burn down” is a semantic blob that is not the sum of the parts “burn” and “down.”

32

The whole point of Grammar is to make your writing clear. It’s not fair to say linguists or English majors have classified all speech, because they will just make it fit, even if it doesn’t

Look at how we used to classify animals, now that DNA is used we’ve had to rethink a lot of it.

This was a case of people just making things fit, even when they couldn’t.

Since English is made up, like any other language, and since it changes, there is no one real correct way. Especially now with the Internet.

In the decades to come with more and more people in such places as India learning English we will see a shift away from American and British English.

33

This is entirely wrong. Linguists do not make anything fit. (That’s for your high school English teacher.)

Linguists listen to what people actually say, by carefully recording their speech, and read what they actually write, using large samples of all varieties of writing.

They describe the way words are used in the real word. That’s exactly what makes them descriptivists, as this entire thread has shown. They can and do make distinctions between grammatical uses, meaning uses that correspond to the formal grammar of English, and ungrammatical uses, meaning uses that fall outside these strictures. But they normally do so to illuminate why grammar exists as it does.

Correctness and grammar are two different, if somewhat overlapping, provinces. Correctness typically comments on meaning and usage rather than technical grammar issues. I admit that for most people “grammar” is an overarching term used for any deviation. If you were a regular here you’d encounter any number of threads with “grammar*” in the title that are really about usage, as later posters are careful to point out.

There is no one correct way to use English, words, sentences, or paragraphs. But grammar is usually a case of correct or incorrect. It’s a vital distinction, and one that you’re missing.

  • often misspelled :smack:
34

[QUOTE=Bosstone]
It is. While I’ve admired your arguments in other language threads, Kendall, I can’t get on board with the idea that down is still a preposition in “I burned down the house.” It’s attached inextricably to “burn,” and operates by different rules from prepositions.
[/quote]
These “different rules” are entirely dependent on your labeling system.

Linguists use a different system. For them, “down” in this sentence is not operating by different rules from other prepositions. It’s a preposition according to their system. You might dislike that their prepositions are broader in function than what you’re accustomed to, but you should investigate their system before dismissing it. It’s entirely possible that you won’t find their nomenclature helpful, but my personal lack of skill in explaining it is not a failing of the linguists. It’s my own fault entirely.

Come to think of it, I probably shouldn’t have entered this thread at all. It might be best for me to refrain from in-depth grammar threads until I can cite chapter and verse once again. But now that I’ve started here, I’ll try to finish it.

It’s true that your examples of prepositions are functioning differently. Absolutely correct. But that’s because prepositions are a class of words, not a term outlining a specific function. Take, for example, nouns. A noun can be the subject of the sentence. Or it can be the direct object. Or the object of a preposition. Or a modifier for another noun. But no matter what function a noun takes, it’s still a noun. There’s an underlying connection between nouns no matter what specific function they’re taking.

Prepositions, according to the current technical definition, are like nouns in this way. Standing in front of a noun (in the pre-position) is, according to this system, just one of the functions of a preposition. Another function is the “adverbial” quality that you’re pointing out. And yes, that “adverbial” function is different from the traditional function of prepositions. But this is in the same sense that a subject is different from a direct object. There are still enough underlying connections between prepositions of differing functions to group this class of words together under a common label.

Now, you certainly don’t have to use the terminology in this way. There are many distinct advantages in using the traditional terminology. But I felt, reading this thread, that it would be worthwhile to discuss the newer terminology. I’d like to point out, in case you missed it, that I never called the original terminology “incorrect”. It’s just a labeling system, after all.

Given the current state of the field, I think it’s well worth pointing out that the labeling system has been updated in strange ways by the professionals. It was definitely on topic, and I thought it was important to mention. And I really encourage you to read up on it - we haven’t even begun to touch the most revolutionary aspect of this newfangled definition, which almost entirely undercuts the subordinating conjunction (long story short: most words that we think of as subordinating conjunctions are now classed as prepositions).

That’s probably the best I can do right now to explain this. I encourage you to read up on the new definition if you get the opportunity, but after that, you can take it or leave it.

35

Burn down the house.
Burn the house down.
Burn it down.
*Burn down it (though see note below)

Walk down the lane.
*Walk the lane down. (though see note below)
Walk down it.
*Walk it down. (though see note below)

If the “part of speech” (is that the term linguists use?) is determined by the functions a word can play in sentences, why not say that there are two different words “down,” of two different parts of speech, being used in the above examples? The one in the “burn” sentences, apparently, can be used after a pronoun, while the one in the “lane” sentences, apparently, can’t.

-Kris

Here’s the “note below” – I can imagine these sentences meaning something if I interpret them as using the “other” down.