VERB PHRASES OR PREPOSITIONAL PHRASES?

Transcription

1 VERB PHRASES OR PREPOSITIONAL PHRASES? In the monograph-review column of the Eigo-Seinen Journal July 1968 Issue, the reviewer Professor Minoru Yasui expressed his doubt over my proposition about prepositional phrases which I had set forth under the title of A Concept of Complements in the Study Report 1965 Issue of the

2 VERB PHRASES OR PREPOSITIONAL PHRASES? 37 Tsuru College Association of English Literature. Mr. Yasui raised a question concerning such my school grammarversion analysis based on the syntactic theory of Professor Ralph W. Long of the University of Puerto Rico : She looked at us. S P C Since Mr. Yasui displayed no alternative in the said review, I must conclude that he held the conventional view, so far as everyday school grammar is concerned, just as Jespersen and Onions did like this : TVP She looked at us. I partially repeated the proposition in question in my monograph entitled A Defense of School Grammar, which I read at the 1966 Annual Convention of the Japan Association of Current Mnglish. Naturally prepositions are like transitive verbs expected to require as their objects substantives-that and pronouns. is, nouns, noun phrases, noun clauses, This combination of preposition and object is called a prepositional phrase or a continuity, and it would be psychologically unstable to disband this unit and let this preposition assume another combination this time with the preceding word or words. The tight word groups, according to, by menas of, instead of, and the like, are customarily not classified as prepositional phrases but as " phrasal prepositions," and further form prepositional phrases together with their objects. Historically speaking, some prepositions were formerly never used but their ideas were expressed by the complex inflections of their now following substantives. For example, the instrumental, dative, genitive endings are now replaced by the prepositions with, for or to, of, respec-

3 38 tively. Whatever meaning the preposition may or may not convey in Current English, the preposition should not be functionally separated from its object although some other word or words may on occasion intervene. It is generally agreed upon that phrases are phrases when their constructions are exocentric, that is when the part of speech of the headword is different from that of the word group itself. But in this case the so-called transitive verb phrases are construed endocentrically. The part of speech, or the word class, of each headword of look at, search for, depend on, send for, is evidently and obviously verb just as that of each unit as a whole is verb. No doubt it is very convenient for us foreigners to memorize the verbpreposition combinations semantically as idioms. But here the preposition should be remembered as a leader of another unit which is not semantic but grammatical and can be called an adverbial complement and, as already known, a prepositional phrase. We must not mistake the semantic cluster of words for a grammatical one. The proponents of the so-called transitive verb phrase may cite the possibility of the object being used as the subject in the passive rewritten sentence. The orphan was looked after by the people. S P A (A : Adjunct) I would say the after is an adverb in this case and also a complement just as the by- phrase is an adverb phrase and a complement, since complements are minimum requirements that complete the predication of verbs.. After is necessary for look to have a particular meaning which cannot be achieved without this particular function word. By- phrases are almost

4 VERB PHRASES OR PREPOSITIONAL PHRASE? 39 always required explicity or implicity by phassive sentences hence their complements. The orphan was looked after by the people. S P C C His idea was paid attention to by the people. C C In school grammar we would like to keep close to Onions' Five Sentence Forms, but sometimes we must admit some variations. The above specimens can be explained each as a variation of the Second Form, the S-P-C pattern, and as that of the Fifth Form, the S-P-O-C pattern. Paul Roberts asserts in Section 116 of his Understanding Grammar that the after of Please look after my little brother is not a preposition but an adverb and meaningless by itself. He says that if after my little brother is a prepositional phrase the sentence must mean, not " Guard my little brother," but either " look when my little brother is done looking " or " Look in the direction my little brother took when leaving." Please look after my little brother. P P 0 Even Paul Roberts here admits that there are two respects in which such combinations as look after do not behave like single words : firstly we may sometimes put other words between the two elements, and secondly we do not place inflectional endings at the end of the combination. Professor Paul Roberts, who always keeps up with the Joneses, now revokes what he said in his Understanding Grammar of 1954, and proclaims in Section 906 of his transformational English Syntax Teacher's Edition of 1964 that in both sentences He retied on the evidence and He relied on Tom the relied is an intransitive verb, and both on the evidence and on Tom are prepositional pharases and complements of the preceding

5 40 predicators, very much like what I have insisted on till now. He also sees a similar pattern in He fled to Chicago. In the following sections of the new book he further recognizes prepositional phrases and complements of transitive verbs substantially as follows : He dropped in the box a letter that he would later regret very much. S P C 0 He sent the painting to Chicago. By the way, I wish to point out that Paul Roberts confuses complements with adjuncts in treating what he calls particles. John put the books away. John took it off. He cleaned it up. He calls these adverbs not complements but particles and yet each built-in part of the transitive verb. In point of fact the away and off are certainly complements but the up is an adjunct just as I have decsribed in detail in my other monographs. This up ought to be what he calls an adverbial of manner and is not as tightly connected with the preceding verb as the away and off, both of which may be rewritten as prepositional phrases such as in the bookcase and off his head respectively. From his statement that complements are structures other than particles which complete the meaning of certain intransitive and transitive verbs, the part other than particles should be deleted. He says complements that occur with intransitive verbs except be are generally adverbials, and he asserts on Page 169 of his English Syntax that the adverb home of stay home is a complement. On Page 168 he sees a S-P-O-C pattern in He left the pencil there. Then why the adverb up of get up early in the morning should not be a complement but a mere particle and yet an integral part of the verb?

6 VERB PHRASES OR PREPOSITIONAL PHRASES? When we speak of adverbial complements, we had better mean not only prepositional phrases but single adverbs if they are equally essential to the predicators. Through these specimens it is clear that there is no room of recognizing a verb phrase whatsoever. On Page 170 of the English Syntax Paul Roberts seems to be at a loss how to handle these two sentences : He glanced up at the clock, and The operator put through the call to Chicago. He says each sentence contains both a particle and a complement. I would rather analyze them as follows : He glanced up at the clock. S P C ant a The operator put through / the call to Chicago. S P C 0 ant Each complement of the above sentences is an apposed word group which consists of an adverb as the antecedent and a prepositional phrase as its appositive. for the sake of simplification Dr. Long would use the symbol " p " of principal for an antecedent. Obviously the glanced is an intransitive verb, and the put a transitive verb. The up and though are both adverbs and parts of the complements. How can a proponent of verb phrases see one in such sentences? Is it glanced up at, or the split glanced... at? Or is it put through, and the split put... through if a though is placed after the call? Since the primary function of language is to convey meaning and all grammatical structures exist for this purpose, it is impossible to ingore meaning completely when we analyze sentences grammatically, and yet

7 we must try to disregard meaning as much as possible and construe sentences according to the outward forms and functions, just as Jespersen recognizes only two cases of nouns : common case and genitive case. Once we admitted an ideational verb phrase where we could see a syntactic structure, there would be no end of semantic production. we recognized a transtive verb phrase, why should we not recognize an intransitive verb phrase as well? He got up. S P He carried the _ plan / out. He took care of the affairs. They paid attention to the ZIP code. We shall have to follow his advice. They are going to have to pay attention to the new system. Perhaps even an adjunct might be considered part of the verb phrase. He gets up early in the morning is almost equivalent to He is an early riser, and would permit the following analysis. FIe gets up early in the morning. S P Thus we hardly could put a stop to the trend of semantic unification. To straighten things out we must refrain from that practice of putting everything together to make a sentence element. Instead I believe the following analyses of the aforementioned specimens are more reasonable and convincing in our defensible school grammar. If

8 VERB PHRASES OR PREPOSITIONAL PHRASES? He got up. S P C He carried the plan out. C AP He took care of the affairs. They paid attention to the ZIP code. NP We shall have to follow his advice. S P AP NP They are going to have to pay attention to the new system. S P He gets up early in the morning. S PC A A For the basis of sentence analysis we had better prefer outward forms and functions to flexible and elusive meanings wherever and whenever possible in order to minimize confusion and complexities in our daily teaching of this world language.