In “Send in the Clowns,” what part of speech is “in,” and should the “i” be capitalized?
A preposition and typically not, but the latter is style rather than grammar.
I don’t think it’s a preposition in this case. It seems to be part of the verb. It’s not “[Send] [in the Clowns],” but “[Send In] [the Clowns].”
Adverb. Send them where?
No. Why?
These types of verbs are called phrasal verbs, and as the article notes
I read “Send in the clowns” as simply being “Send the clowns in” with a variant word ordering. Here, “in” is a preposition, with the remainder of the prepositional phrase being implicit.
So in this sense, “In” is a particle.
Yes. And you capitalize, by almost all style guides, in the same way you capitalize “over” for the song “(Just Like) Starting Over.”
The phrasal “send in” is separable. It’s not a preposition.
That seems at odds with what Wikipedia says about capitlization of titles:
Emphasis mine.
So Chicago apparently excludes all prepositions from capitalization, while APA would exclude all “short” prepositions (under four letters).
I will say, just looking at it, I would usually not expect either “in” nor “the” to be capitalized. For what it’s worth, neither word is capitalized in the song listing on Stephen Sondheim’s website.
As discussed above, though, it’s not a preposition. It’s part of the verb. It’s a particle.
I’m not convinced that it is. Phrasal verbs, as I understand them, tend to be a single semantic unit, and have a meaning as a unit that cannot be deduced from the literal definition of the two parts. For example, “look up” (find in a reference book), “tell off” (criticize), “give up” (surrender), etc.
I don’t believe that “send in” has this sort of independent meaning. To me, its meaning is the same as the literal understanding of the words. It means to send the clowns in (to a particular area, in this case the area occupied by the singer).
To add to my previous post, on looking further, I don’t believe that the Sondheim.com site that I linked is actually affiliated with Stephen Sondheim. Nevertheless, nearly all references to the song that I can find online style it as “Send in the Clowns.”
Of course. They all erroneously consider “in” to be a preposition . . . probably Sondheim as well.
While many phrasals indeed are opaque, just as many are not (e.g., get up, set aside, grow up, etc.)
But if you really have doubts, you can do several syntactic tests (and a pronunciation test) to determine whether the word in question behaves as a preposition or the particle of a phrasal.
Separability
As I mentioned above, send in is separable. Many phrasals are separable. A preposition attached to a verb is not:
*Send in the clowns.
Send the clowns in.
Believe in God.
*Believe God in.
*
Adverb Insertion
An adverb can intervene between a verb and its preposition, but not within a phrasal:
*They walked into the room quickly.
They walked quickly into the room.
They send in the clowns often.
They send often in the clowns.
Pronunciation
The particle of a phrasal is stressed (about the same as the verb). A preposition (normally) is not stressed:
SEND IN the CLOWNS
beLIEVE in GOD
“Front-loading”
A preposition can be “front loaded” with the interrogative pronoun of a question, while a phrasal particle can’t:
*He believed in God.
In what did he believe?
He sent in the clowns.
In who did he send?
“Passivization”
A transitive phrasal can be rendered passive unmarked, but rendering a verb with its collocative preposition in the passive violates its syntactic frame, and normally is only done for humorous effect:
*The clowns were sent in by me.
?God is believed in by me.*
If that’s not enough to convince you, the Oxford English Dictionary lists send in as a phrasal verb, between send forth and send off.
I’m having a hard time believing
anyone considers Sondheim to be a preposition. I’ll have to ask for a cite.
guizot, that was a very informative post. Thank you.