Because preposition

If you haven’t already done so, you might want to talk with your students about the 2013 Word of the Year selections just voted on by the American Dialect Society at the annual Linguistic Society of America meeting.

The word, as you may have already heard, is because. You can check out Ben Zimmer’s post here and Anne Curzan’s here and LanguageLog’s here.

If you’re worried about the classification of because as a preposition, as some are, you can read this by Geoff Pullum. However, he can be offputting; he calls those who label because an adverb “stupid” and those who call it a conjunction “flamingly and demonstrably wrong.” Yikes.

So let’s look at some data. We, on this blog, haven’t discussed prepositions or conjunctions, for that matter, so a real exploratory investigation of this is perhaps best delayed, but let’s take a preliminary look.

Let’s first see how because does behave like other prepositions. Most prepositional phrases (bracketed below) contain a head preposition and a complement (in second set of brackets) of that preposition. Those complements are typically noun phrases:

I sat [on [the roof]].
We walked [to [the store]].

But they can also be participial verb phrases:

She replied [without [reading the email]].

or another prepositional phrase:

They put the food [out [on the table]].

And they can be clauses:

The dog was tired [after [we took her for a walk]].

We seem less uncomfortable – more comfortable – with after (than with because) as a preposition because it can also occur with just noun phrases. Same for since.

I’ll call you [after [10 o’clock]].
I’ve been waiting [since [the dawn of time]].

After and since both occur with clauses too.

I’ll call you [after [I finish my coffee]].
I’ve been waiting [since [you walked out the door]].

And, like after, since, even though, until, and when, because can also be followed by a clause:

I like you [because [you are funny]].
I like you [even though [you are funny]].
I liked you [until [you weren’t funny anymore]].
I liked you [when [you were funny]].

So if our definition of preposition allows clausal complements like these, because fits right in.

I think that one reason that some are uncomfortable calling because a preposition is that many of our prepositions are directional/locational. And some may have learned a little ditty like a preposition is anything a bunny can do to a hill or anything an airplane can do to a cloud: in, out, on, around, above, inside, behind, and so on. Because doesn’t fit that mold. But the meanings of prepositions have been expanding for centuries, becoming much more metaphorical, for one thing: from two to four o’clock is no longer strictly directional, for example, and we're ok with it being called a preposition.

This notion of spatial or directional meaning is reinforced in some dictionaries. Remember how we have discussed how meaning-based definitions of other categories can be problematic. See posts here, here, and here. And here are a couple of dictionaries' definitions of preposition.

Merriam-Webster’s definition of preposition: a word or group of words that is used with a noun, pronoun, or noun phrase to show direction, location, or time, or to introduce an object.

And Dictionary.com: any member of a class of words found in many languages that are used before nouns, pronouns, or other substantives to form phrases functioning as modifiers of verbs, nouns, or adjectives, and that typically express a spatial, temporal, or other relationship, as in, on, by, to, since.

So when you’re working with these kinds of definitions, calling because a preposition may seem weird. And it’s important to note that for the most part, those definitions work, just as calling a noun a “person, place, or thing” usually works. Some huge majority of our prepositions are spatial and directional. There are good reasons to call because a preposition, but there are also reasons to not fault those who don’t like that label. I’ve had students who really want a different label for this group of words that introduce clauses that are not subordinate clauses. Some classes have settled on “subordinating prepositions.” Maybe your students have some other ideas. Let’s briefly look at how these prepositions that introduce clauses are different from another group of words that introduces clauses.

A group of words called complementizers or subordinating conjunctions introduces clauses, but these link a subordinate clause to a main clause, like the following:

I know [that [she is hungry]].
I wonder [if [it will rain]].
She asked [whether [she should dance]].

That, if, and whether introduce whole clauses too (like because), but behave very differently syntactically and semantically. They link one clause to another, introducing the subordinate clause, and the predicate in the main clause depends on that lower clause in order to complete the sentence. Our because doesn’t do that. More on all this in another post, because lunchtime.