Re: (Separable) suffixes?

On Thu, 22 Feb 2007 12:11:42 +0100, Jean-François Colson
><fa597525@...> wrote:
>Philip Newton wrote:
>>[snip]
>
>"A red bolt flashed from his palm toward the elven lady, illuminating the
>trees with a bloody light." (from Eragon)
>
>In the sentence above, "from" could be considered a verb suffixes. But what
>about "toward" and "with"?
>
>JF
The usual way to distinguish between a two-part verb and an oblique
argument in English is this;

If its V PP, the preposition can only precede the NP which is the object of the
preposition.
But if it's (V+prep) NP, the "preposition", or "second part of the verb", _may_
follow a NP, and _must_ follow a pronoun.

So, e.g., "believe in" is _not_ a "two-part verb" in English;
You can say "I believe in God".
You cannot say *"I believe God in".
You cannot say *"I believe Him in".

Another difference is between "Jack ran up the hill" and "Jack ran up the bill".
The first one must be "ran" and "up the hill".
You cannot say "Jack ran the hill up"; and you cannot say "Jack ran it up"
if "it" refers to "the hill", instead you must say "Jack ran up it".
But the second must be "ran up" and "the bill".
You can say "Jack ran the bill up".  Also you cannot say "Jack ran up it" if "it"
mean "the bill", instead you must say "Jack ran it up."

Clearly the two parts of an English "two-part verb" are separable.

I will not in this post, and may not ever, get around to addressing the question
of whether or not the second part is a suffix.  But I'll lurk on this thread and
see what others say.

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