Re: USAGE: Verbs and verb compounds

Fabian wrote:
>
> > Nik Taylor wrote:
> > >
> > > Charles wrote:
> > > > We never end sentences with prepositions, but with adverbs.
> > >
> > > Sure we do, our English teachers may berate us for it, but we do it
> > > anyways.  "What are you looking at?", for instance, "that's what I'm
> > > talking about" (how the heck are you supposed to adjust that,
> praytell?
> > > "that's the thing about which I'm talking"???)
That'll work.  It seems you can apply Teonaht's "Law of Detachability"
here in the English sentence if the verb phrase with the preposition
falls at the end.

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?  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.

Teonaht can turn these preps into adjectives, as we do in English,
and say "the in box," "the out put," and so forth.  The in room, the
out garden; the above cloud, the under dog.  What you can't do in
English is say something like:  "I went the house in."  "Went in" is a
verb phrase that has a preposition that's functioning sort of like an
adverb.
But you can uncouple it only if you turn it into an interrogative, as
whoever
it was (I've lost track of who is what number of brackets) says below:

> > Any sentence with a "wh"-word in it can/does break all the rules.
> > Find a declarative example ... that doesn't rely on ellipsis.
>
> This is the kind of nonsense up with which I will not put.
Exactly!  You beat me to it!


Sally