Re: Dangling prepositions and phrasal verbs.

Andreas Johansson wrote:
> I've heard a disturbing number of Englishers claim that sentences like
> "I'm
> going out" are not kosher, on account of violating the ban on
> free-floating
> prepositions.
I think you are hearing from a disturbing number of total mossbacks!!
Happily, I think since the days of Chomsky, teachers of teachers of English
grammar have recognized that there are Compound (~Prepositional) Verbs as
well as Prep.Phrases.  They may even have imparted the radical idea that
sometimes a word of one class can jump over into another class. Thus some
prepositions can become adverbs, as in "I'm going out" ([Verb + Adverb],
elliptical for "I'm going outside"; it answers the question "Where are you
going")-- as opposed to "He's going out the door" [Verb + Prep.Phr.].

OTOH "He's going out with Henrietta" is more difficult since it's 2-ways
ambiguous:
1. he's going outside and and Henrietta is accompanying him [Verb + Adverb +
(adverbial) Prep.Phr]

vs. 2. he's dating her [Phrasal Verb |go-out-with| +DO] at least IMO.

That's the greater problem with Compound Verbs-- what _is_ the status of the
prepositional particle?--

He brought up (a good idea) ~ he brought a good idea up
This is certainly not the same structure as "He went up the stairs"

Back in the Jurassic, when I was in grade school learning to diagram
sentences ( which I loved to do, BTW), many students were thoroughly
confused by things like that, even though when diagrammed, the two sentences
were seen _not_ to have the same structure.  But some of us even ventured to
argue the matter with the teacher, and tried to say that in such cases,
"bring up" "look at" "look for" et al. should be diagrammed in such a way
that e.g. "look at" was the _verb_, not a verb with modifying adverb.  In
those days the argument didn't get very far........

It's my impression that the modern method of diagramming sentences-- if it
is taught at all anymore-- is different from what I learned.

OTOH there have always been puristic strictures against things like "What
did you do that for?", "Where is he at?" etc.

It is wise to remember Winston Churchill's (IIRC) famous dictum, "That is
something up with which I will not put."

Am I to understand that schools in the anglophone world do take
> the trouble to teach student not to end sentences with prepositions, but
> not to
> actually tell prepositions apart from the particles of phrasal verbs?!?
As I said, I think it _is_ being taught nowadays.  In my day (and perhaps
still in very traditionalist school-rooms) it was not, or at least not
clearly, taught.

Or are
> people just being selectively resistant to education?
>
Not so much resistant, as simply confused, in the on-going battle between
actual usage and what ought to be (or spose to be).

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