Re: USAGE: Verbs and verb compounds

Lars Henrik Mathiesen wrote:
>
> > Date:         Tue, 15 Jun 1999 16:44:25 -0700
> > From: Sally Caves <scaves@...>
>
> > In all fairness to Charles, I think what he meant is that the
> > preposition in these constructions are also functioning
> > adverbially... something that pleases me, because Teonaht is just as
> > casual about its preps and its adverbs. How are you talking?
> > "about." How are you looking? "at." The detachability comes about
> > because we also think of them as prepositions. Is it "look at," a
> > verb phrase, or "look" plus prepositional phrase?
>
> I've read that the prepositions now found in the Indo-European
> languages used to be adverbs. 'Extra' oblique arguments in a sentence
> just got a suitable case, like locative, and the adverb was only
> needed for precision. They were only grammaticalized as prepositions
> later.
Thanks Lars, and hirie, Nik!  <GGGGGG>  Teonaht thinks of
prepositions as adverbs, essentially.  And I think there is a ghost
of this old thinking still present in English, despite the fact that
it has been heavily grammaticized and parceled into its parts of speech.
This is all I was trying to say.  Not that prepositions at the end
of a sentence were adverbs and not prepositions.

> In that system, your two views of a detachable verb become the same.
>
> (Classical Latin still has a trace of the old system, where you don't
> use 'in' and 'to' with "names of cities and small islands," but just
> case forms (depending on the noun class, since the locative has merged
> with other cases in Latin). I think the point is that unlike houses,
> hills, rivers, whatever, there's only one common way to be located at
> or headed towards a city or small island, so the preposition is not
> needed).
> > This is the conundrum I think Churchill was addressing with his
> > famous (putative) remark. (Was it Churchill? or is this a myth?)
> > "The ending of a sentence with a preposition is a barbarism up with
> > which I will not put." Or something like that.
>
> The way I heard it: Someone corrected/criticized Churchill for using a
> preposition to end a sentence with. To which he replied, "Arrant
> nonsense, up with which I will not put."
I had a recollection of its being ironic; I just couldn't recall the
original context.  Thank you!

Sally