Prepositions and transitivity

The primary use of prepositions in English is to introduce a peripheral noun phrase, providing locational or temporal specification (e.g. in the house, at three o’clock) or marking an instrument (with a stone), a beneficiary (for Mary), a recipient (to John), etc. Each type of prepositional NP can occur with a wide variety of verbs.

Prepositions have two further uses—within ‘inherent preposition’ verbs and within phrasal verbs. It is important to distinguish these two kinds of verb. The root of an inherent preposition verb is not normally used alone— refer only occurs in refer to, with an object NP, e.g. She referred to my book. Refer to is syntactically parallel to mention, as in She mentioned my book, suggesting that refer to should be treated as a single, transitive-verb, lexeme.

The root of a phrasal verb is used alone, but its meaning in a phrasal verb is quite different from its meaning when used alone. Thus we have the simple transitive root take, and also phrasal verbs such as take after ‘resemble’ (e.g. one’s mother), take up ‘practise’ (e.g. medicine), take on ‘accept’ (e.g. new responsibilities). The meaning of a phrasal verb cannot be inferred from the meanings of its constituent root and preposition; it must be regarded as a separate lexeme.

We thus distinguish (i) verbs that consist just of a root, e.g. take, mention; (ii) those that consist of root plus preposition, where the root cannot be used alone, e.g. refer to; and (iii) those that consist of root plus preposition, where the root can be used alone, but with a different meaning, e.g. take after, take up, take on. Deals with type (ii), with an inherent preposition. We show that the inclusion of a preposition, and the choice of which preposition, is semantically motivated. There are six syntactic types, exemplified by set in, take after NP, put NP off, see NP through NP, take up with NP and put NP down to NP. Then consider the semantic and syntactic effects of the insertion of a preposition, e.g. kick (at) the door, and of the omission of a preposition, e.g. swim (across) the river.