Strand 1/Grammar: Lesson 19 – Preps or Particles? Learning about Phrasal Verbs

Particles look just look prepositions, but over time they have shifted to become a part of the verb. The bolded phrases are all verbs that contain particles.

Don’t run down the batteries.
We looked up the answers.
Turn on the light, please.
Don’t forget to turn in your homework.
I’m excited to pick out a present for my friend.

We know that these are particles instead of prepositions because of their meaning. The verb plus particle has a meaning that is distinct from the sum of the meanings of the parts. And also they have a neat trick, called Particle Shift; they can move from their position right next to the verb to a position following the noun phrase complement.

Don’t run the batteries down.
We looked the answers up.
Turn the light on, please.
Don’t forget to turn your homework in.
I’m excited to pick a present out for my friend.

Cool, huh? Prepositions can’t do that.

We ran down the street. ACK! We ran the street down.
We looked up the street toward the park. ACK! We looked the street up toward the park.
We turned onto the freeway. ACK! We turned the freeway onto.

Activity. Have your students figure out if the bolded words are prepositions or are part of the verb (particles). Have them describe how they know.

They climbed up the fence.
He shot off his toy rocket.
Bert looked for a banana.
The rabbit hopped through the grass.
Please turn up the radio.
They brought up the issue several times.
You should think through the problem carefully.
I already handed in my paper.

So what’s kind of weird and kind of cool about particles is that they are really part of the verb, so you’d expect them to fuse to the verb, but instead they can move away from it. This is a remnant of English’s Germanic roots; German (and Old English) have these “separable verbs,” as they’re called, too.

There are certain particles that seem to have a distinct meaning from the meanings of the parts, like the ones above, but that cannot undergo Particle Shift. Sometimes these are called “prepositional phrasal verbs” to distinguish them from phrasal verbs. Distinguishing the two types of phrasal verbs from each other is not important unless you are using the movement diagnostic to distinguish phrasal verb particles from prepositions. You may encounter some that really seem to make meaning in conjunction with the verb, but are unable to undergo Particle Shift, like the following.

She can pass for an American.
The smallest puppy often gets picked on.
I ran into a good friend at the café.
The grandparents are looking after the kids.
You should stand by your principles.

Also, there are multi-word phrasal verbs with more than one particle. For these too, the meaning suggests that the particles have glommed on to the verb. (There's one - glom on!)

You shouldn’t put up with that noise.
I am really looking forward to the party.
We loaded up on junk food for the game.
They have been sitting in for me while I’ve been sick.

So when discussing either verbs or prepositions, it’s important to know about these particles. Also, English Language Learners (ELLs) often learn long lists of these phrasal verbs since they are quite common in speech, more so in American English than British English, apparently, and are a marker, therefore, of real fluency. There are a gazillion books and websites like this one to help ESL students with phrasal verbs. It's important to note that phrasal verbs often have more formal synonyms – put off vs. postpone, get together vs. assemble – so are used somewhat less in the written language.

I'll leave you with one of my favorite strings of prepositions (and other stuff? Are there any particles here?). I grew up in Appalachia, and this was a phrase my third grade teacher, Genave Montgomery, had recalled hearing someone say. It's great.

I walked out up over in back of yonder.

Ponder on that.

Strand 1/Grammar: Lesson 18 – PPs and Subject-Verb Agreement (and a rant about Springboard)

A typical method for teaching about language is to integrate in to writing instruction, often in mini-lessons, or, in textbooks, in “Grammar and Usage” sidebars, such as this one in

from The College Board’s Springboard: English Textual Power (Level 2, p. 97), for grade 7. Too often, these approaches attempt shortcuts to real explanations about language, leading students to miss the intended lesson and doubt their intuitions; consequently, students, regardless of writing ability, do not gain command of grammar as a rhetorical tool, nor do they have any confidence in their ability to analyze language.

Let’s look at this “Grammar and Usage” box a bit more closely. Here's the whole text from the photo, which occurs alongside a text about persuasive writing.

“A preposition links the noun or pronoun following it (its object) to another word in a sentence. Prepositional phrases add specific or necessary detail in sentences. They function as adjectives or adverbs.

Adverb phrase modifying the verb has swerved:
“…Skateboarding has swerved from the fringe.”

Adjective phrase modifying the noun cost:
“…the cost of doing business.”

You can use prepositional phrases to add specific details when you write. Take care to use correct subject-verb agreement. When a prepositional phrase separates the subject and verb, the verb agrees with the subject, not with the object of the prepositional phrase.

(Springboard: English Textual Power, Level 2, p. 97)

It is at the end of this sidebar that a connection to a typical "error" of writing, subject-verb agreement, is made. However, no examples are given, and it would be very difficult for students (or teachers) to glean how prepositional phrases are related to subject-verb agreement, or even to understand what is meant by that phrase or others such as “object of the prepositional phrase.”

I offer what I think the intended lesson is here. Subject-verb agreement is often listed as one of the most common errors of writing; it shows up on lists from elementary to college-level writing. Most writers, however, do not have issues at all with subject verb agreement in general. Our unconscious intuitions serve us quite well in guiding this agreement. (English language learners may have specific issues with subject-verb agreement, and these learners deserved a distinct, targeted lesson. Also, some English dialects have different patterns of subject-verb agreement that might deserve a separate lesson. Such variations should not be called “errors” since they are patterned and logical for each dialect, but they may differ from the so-called academic writing expected in most classroom writing.) However, one place in which there is variation with respect to subject-verb agreement involves subjects which contain prepositional phrases, as in the following examples:

Each one of the birds are/is going to leave the nest soon.
Neither of my two suitcases is/are adequate for this trip.
Bellingham is one of those cities which is/are working hard to reclaim a waterfront.

The typical usage suggestion is to make the verb agree with the subject noun preceding the prepositional phrase. However, when there is a mismatch in the “number” – singular each compared to plural birds, for example, as in the first example above – then speakers and writers choose either a verb to match the noun preceding the prepositional phrase or the noun within the prepositional phrase. And the facts are, of course, more complicated. The type of noun preceding the prepositional phrase can affect the form of the verb. Consider these examples with a term of measurement, like gallon or quart.

Three gallons of milk is enough.

Here singular is seems better even though gallons is plural. In contrast, plural are is preferred in the following example:

Three cats with long fur are enough.

Or consider nouns that have two meanings, as either a mass or a count noun, like chicken.

All of the chicken is gone.
All of the chickens are gone.

The all, the noun preceding the prepositional phrase in both examples, is irrelevant in determining the agreement; instead, we do and should use the noun in the prepositional phrase to determine the appropriate agreement, just as we are advised not to by the general usage rule. Whether or not you decide to deal with the additional data that make this particular usage rule a bit more complicated (but really interesting!), it certainly illustrates that patterns of language can be complex and sometimes murky. And that we should take more time to discuss grammatical terminology (prepositional phrases), grammatical functions (subjects), and the reasons behind the variations. After that, students can make informed choices about, for example, subject-verb agreement in writing. However, I challenge any student to understand these lessons or adjust their own verb choices in writing from an oversimplified sidebar such as the one discussed here.

A second issue I have with this particular “grammar and usage” sidebar is the conflation of adjective phrase, adverb phrase, and prepositional phrase. There has long been a tendency to conflate “form” and “function”, or syntax and meaning, in pedagogical grammatical explanations. To do so, however, ignores the actual patterns of language. Such conflation of terms is not only not useful, but it leads students to doubt their intuitions about word categories, and it provides no tools of analysis to extend to other examples. Consider the italicized words below.

“A preposition links the noun or pronoun following it (its object) to another word in a sentence. Prepositional phrases add specific or necessary detail in sentences. They function as adjectives or adverbs”

And it offers the following example, where the italicized prepositional phrase is called an adverb phrase.

Adverb phrase modifying the verb has swerved:
“…Skateboarding has swerved from the fringe.”

And the next, where the italicized prepositional phrase is called an adjective phrase.

Adjective phrase modifying the noun cost:
“…the cost of doing business.”

Why this conflation of terms? Why call prepositional phrases adjectives and adverbs? I believe the point is to illustrate that prepositional phrases can modify verbs (like adverbs can) and nouns (as do adjectives). This is true, and discussion of modification is important and useful. It's also true that there is overlap in how the various parts of speech function, as modifiers and complements of other categories. However, the category distinctions are real distinctions – categories that we all have in our heads that function uniquely in terms of their morphology and their syntax. Terms like noun, adjective, preposition, or adverb are not labels arbitrarily imposed on a language, but are real (and complex) categories. Understanding this is another useful lesson for students, and using the terminology that matches their intuitive categorization will allow them to make use of labels in a productive way, extending the conversations beyond simply labeling to how to manipulate phrases in their writing. We can offer students straightforward tools of analysis that allow them to discover these category distinctions and see how they employ such tools unconsciously all the time. We all have unconscious knowledge about categories. By using accurate labels, we are simply connecting that unconscious knowledge to terminology to help make it conscious knowledge which we can then apply in all sorts of ways – to our writing, to our analysis of literature, to investigation of other linguistic patterns, and so on. Sidebars or mini-lessons such as the ones described here are attempts to cut to the chase, to deal with common writing errors in a fast and efficient manner. However, the assumed background knowledge, the misleading terminology, and the lack of discussion of reasons behind the variations ("errors") render such lessons essentially useless.

Hmm, I titled this "lesson" but I'm not sure that it is, except maybe it's a lesson to avoid using Springboard, which many of the teachers I know don't like anyway. And it does provide another justification for studying prepositions and prepositional phrases if you want to wrestle with subject-verb agreement as it arises in your students' writing. Of course, intervening prepositional phrases are just one of the reasons that agreement with the verb varies. Browse through this or this or this one from my alma mater to find some others - but I wouldn't suggest marching through all of the reasons that subject-verb agreement "problems" arise.

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.