Wiktionary talk:Votes/2021-08/Scope of English prepositions

Rationale

I don't have a strongly held position on this myself, but I think it would be useful to get an idea of what the community as a whole thinks, since these issues do crop up with quite a number of words. Mihia (talk) 16:22, 27 August 2021 (UTC)

One comment I would make about option 2, as presently constituted, is that it might give rise to hair-splitting decisions about whether an object is or isn't implied or can or can't be reasonably supplied, resulting in potentially hair-splittingly different prepositional and (typically) adverbial definitions, potentially creating a worse situation than the at least clear-cut distinction of Option 1. Mihia (talk) 17:46, 27 August 2021 (UTC)

I question whether we should be deciding grammatical questions by vote rather than by discussion/analysis and reference to sources. If editors were intractably split after discussions, a vote might settle things, but just "to get an idea of what the community as a whole thinks" a straw poll in one of the usual discussion fora might be better; on an issue relatively few users seem interested in commenting on, and fewer seem to grasp academically, I'd be wary a linguistically unsound take might get bindingly implemented. - -sche (discuss) 05:56, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

That's fine, I don't mind making it an indicative vote, just so long as there is enough participation to make it worthwhile. Can I just mark this one as "indicative", or is there a separate procedure to follow? TBH, my feeling, even assumption, is that options 2 and 3 will be defeated, and then we/I don't need to keep worrying about it and/or mentioning it. Is your concern that 2 and/or 3 might "unsoundly pass"? Mihia (talk) 11:29, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

I'm with -sche on this. This seems to be a matter that needs the attention of people with knowledge about linguistics rather than a policy issue that can be decided by consensus. I doubt that I can vote in any meaningful way, and will probably have to abstain. — SGconlaw (talk) 21:23, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

Indeed it is a policy issue. It is up to us to decide whether we want to recognise the concept of "intransitive prepositions" in our definitions or not. There is no "correct answer" that can be handed down to us by people with "knowledge about linguistics". People who do not have a basis on which to vote one way or another -- I would even say an informed basis -- (possibly including myself) should of course abstain, but this is the case with any vote that we hold, or at least any vote on a technical issue. Mihia (talk) 21:58, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

I’ll have to take your word for that. It is rather surprising to me that linguists have no particular view on this, and that it’s just a matter for voting on! — SGconlaw (talk) 05:29, 29 August 2021 (UTC)

Traditionally, prepositions were understood to always require objects. More recently, some people have extended the class to include words or word uses that do not have objects and would traditionally typically have been called adverbs. Most mainstream dictionaries, AFAIK, still largely follow the traditional approach, and so, very largely, does Wiktionary. Whether we want to change this depends on how traditional or how modern we want to be. Personally I think that fully adopting option 2/3 would be quite an upheaval, and, as I mentioned above, I am kind of assuming these will fail, and this vote will just be a confirmation that we do not want to change the status quo, so we can forget about the whole issue. However, if we make the vote indicative only, which I am happy to do, then even if option 2/3 passes we will not be forced to implement it, though it will quite strongly point the way that the matter does need further attention. Mihia (talk) 08:50, 29 August 2021 (UTC)

• I should probably also say, by way of further explanation for my proposal of this vote, that I have in the past worked on a number of function-word articles, such as "back", "behind", "under", etc., and within these articles there are not uncommonly cases of awkward or debatable PoS assignments. I have raised a number of these, over probably a couple of years now, and it has been mentioned at various times that some (maybe many) of these awkward cases are considered prepositions by some modern linguists. Mihia (talk) 17:07, 30 August 2021 (UTC)

Relative clause with omitted prepositional object

The vote doesn't bring up the issue of prepositions in relative clauses where the object has been omitted. For instance, against in this is the proposal that she voted against. That should be categorized as a preposition because it has an object that is omitted because of the use of the relative pronoun or conjunction that. But I agree with option 1 that against in just plain she voted against is an adverb because there is no grammatical reason for a prepositional object to be omitted there. — Eru·tuon 20:08, 27 August 2021 (UTC)

Yes, you're right, it ought to be a "given" that against in e.g. this is the proposal that she voted against is a preposition, not dependent on Option 2. I will try to make this clear in the wording. Mihia (talk) 20:58, 27 August 2021 (UTC)

In this sentence, the object is the relative pronoun 'that', so there should be no problem. However, in This is the proposal she voted against the object is deleted, but again 'against' is a preposition regardless of Option 2. Now, I believe non-standard This is the proposal as she voted against is 'grammatical' within some registers, but again, 'against' is a preposition regardless of Option 2.--RichardW57 (talk) 15:19, 29 August 2021 (UTC)

"This is the proposal she voted against" is an example of a reduced relative clause, i.e. it is a reduced form of "This is the proposal that she voted against". In your second example, assuming that "as" is meant as as a non-standard or dialect relative pronoun, again, it would be a type of relative clause. I think that the note I have now added to Option 1 about relative clauses should cover both of these. Mihia (talk) 19:40, 29 August 2021 (UTC)

In fact I have put the word "that" in brackets in the example, just to highlight the possibility that it could be omitted. Mihia (talk) 20:57, 29 August 2021 (UTC)

How do you feel about, Cutlery is not eaten: it is eaten with? Here again, I feel that 'with' has an object, it is just that it has been transformed to the subject 'it'. --RichardW57 (talk) 15:19, 29 August 2021 (UTC)

Ooh, good one. Passivization where the object of a preposition rather than the direct object becomes the subject. I would agree with your analysis that this counts as prepositional because dialects that generally don't use with as an adverb as in "Do you want to go with?" would still be okay using "it is eaten with". — Eru·tuon 04:11, 30 August 2021 (UTC)

Ouch, yes. I agree that this should be a preposition under Option 1. Thanks to RichardW57 for spotting these. "Cutlery is for eating with" is another variant. Perhaps I ought to mention these somehow. Mihia (talk) 17:13, 30 August 2021 (UTC)

Ellipsis of Objects

Consider, Having a degree made a difference to one's grade. Those with were classified as 'professional engineers': those without were classified as 'engineers'.

Where Do you want to come along with? is ungrammatical, I regard 'with' in the paragraph for consideration as a preposition, not an adverb. (It seems to be relevant to my consideration that 'with' is part of a noun phrase and not of any constituent verb phrase.) But I oppose options 1, 2 and 3, so what part of speech have I said that the 'with' above is?

I think part of the problem is that Option 2 splits depending on whether the word in question is more immediately part of a noun phrase or part of a verb phrase. However, in a noun phrase, a word may be ambiguous between being a preposition with an elided noun phrase and an adverb. If other sentences indicate that a word may be an adverb, I think we should make the arbitrary decision that it is an adverb. --RichardW57 (talk) 15:19, 29 August 2021 (UTC)

@RichardW57: Could you give a specific example of what you would consider to be an ambiguous case? Mihia (talk) 17:49, 30 August 2021 (UTC)

@Mihia: You already have, in the noun phrase 'the car behind'. --RichardW57 (talk) 18:44, 30 August 2021 (UTC)

@RichardW57: Can I just check, then, whether I have correctly understood. In the cases of "those (that/who are) with" and "the car (that is) behind", you consider "with" to be a preposition because it is never an adverb in other contexts (not standardly), but "behind" to be an adverb because it can standardly be an adverb in other contexts. Is that correct? Mihia (talk) 19:21, 30 August 2021 (UTC)

Correct. (I am watching this page, so you don't need to ping me.) --RichardW57 (talk) 20:19, 30 August 2021 (UTC)

In response to this, I have added the following text:

It is not practicable at this level to provide options to cater for all possible combinations of opinion about what is and is not a preposition in every context. Please vote broadly on the general principles, rather than on fine detail or individual special cases or exceptions that may not be specifically mentioned.

Mihia (talk) 17:57, 31 August 2021 (UTC)

I think wherever Do you want to come along with? is grammatical (such as in the speech of many people in the Upper Midwestern United States; though maybe without along?), with would be an adverb. Where it's ungrammatical, you wouldn't assign that with a part of speech at all because the sentence effectively doesn't exist! — Eru·tuon 18:18, 31 August 2021 (UTC)

I'm confused

Discussion moved from Wiktionary:Tea room/2021/August#behind (2).

I'm confused. With regard to the vote, where do I suggest that given the choice between parsing as an adverb and as a preposition with an implied object, we should parse as an adverb? (The example I have in mind is 'with', which I would be reluctant to parse as an adverb.) --RichardW57 (talk) 20:50, 27 August 2021 (UTC)

The answer to your first question is that you should support option 1 and oppose option 2 (as the draft vote is presently constituted). I cannot quite see what you are getting at with the comment about "with", or how it relates to or is consistent with the first question. Perhaps you could provide more explanation and examples. BTW, are you OK for me to move this sub-thread to the vote discussion page? Mihia (talk) 21:33, 27 August 2021 (UTC)

This movement is fine. so long as you uncryptically say where you have moved my remark to. That would then answer my question, which had the word 'where', not the word 'how'. I can then make my suggestion. --RichardW57 (talk) 06:00, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

I'm confused too now. The way that you will express your view that "given the choice between parsing as an adverb and as a preposition with an implied object, we should parse as an adverb" is by voting, once the vote starts. On this talk page you can express views and suggestions about the design of the vote -- wording of options, etc. Mihia (talk) 16:29, 28 August 2021 (UTC)