Re: prepositions

lsulky@xxxxxxxx wrote:
> "I put the cat in the box in the closet."
>
> Was the cat in the box, which I put in the closet, or was the box in
> the closet, and I put the cat in the box? Putting aside the ambiguity,
> would we say that the two occurrences of "in" are playing fundamentally
> different roles (which being which being a matter of interpretation),
> and if so, are there terms for those roles? One of them seems to be
> _adjectivial_, the other _adverbial_,

I think you're looing at positions in the head-attribute hierarchy.

(1) The tall man saw a little dog.

In (1) the clause is headed by a verb _saw_. This head has two
attributes: its Subject is a NP _the tall man_ and its Object is a NP
_a little dog_.

Each of these NPs contains a head which is a substantive (_man_ and
_dog_) each with two attributes, an article and an adjective.

A PrepP may be an attribute of such a substantive in a NP, much as an
adjective is.

(2) The man on the beach saw a dog in the sea.

In (2) the Subject is _the man on the beach_, an NP with the
substantive _man_ as its head and the PrepP _on the beach_ as an
attribute to that head. Thus, the PrepPs in (2) fall in a similar
position in the head-attribute hierarchy to the adjectives in (1). This
may be what you call 'adjectivial'.

(3) John had a car before.

Here the adverb _before_ seems to qualify the whole clause. John, the
car, and his possession of it were all in the time encoded by _before_.
(Of course, there are many instances where the adverb does not qualify
the whole clause.) We can substitute a PrepP for the adverb:

(4) John had a car in England.

In (4) the PrepP seems to qualify the whole clause just as the adverb
did in (3). This may be what you call 'adverbial'.

The verb _put_ has three grammatic roles to code, which we might call
Agent (the entity causing movement), Patient (the entity moved) and
Goal (the destination of movement).

(5) I put the pen in the bag.

In (5) the Agent is coded as Subject _I_, the Patient as Direct Object
_the pen_ and the Goal as a PrepP _in the bag_. We might equally use
_into the bag_, which specifies movement to the inside from outside,
whereas _in_ may also be used for stationary location inside.

This verb needs three roles but has only two core relations, so it has
to call on a peripheral relation to do duty for the third. Now the
choice of _in_ or _into_ may seem odd, because with verbs requiring
three roles to be filled, English normally uses the Dative, which can
be coded with _to_ or transformed into an Applicative and coded as an
Object lying before the Direct Object. This would give us:

(6) **I put the pen to the bag.
(7) **I put the bag the pen.

Why does this not happen? I suspect that the answer lies in the
volition and cooperation of the Goal. The bag is just an inanimate
object incapable of volition so we don't use _to_. (Of course, there
are plenty of situations in which English uses _to_ and _for_ with
inanimate objets that have no will.)

PrepPs in _to_ (Datives) and in _for_ (Beneficiaries) can take the
Applicative: no other prepositions can. I suspect that at some deep
level, we think of these prepositions as expressing entities which
receive things deliberately and willingly. (Once agin, we can come up
with many real examples where this is not so.) Note the following
examples:

(8) I threw the ball to Peter.
(9) I threw Peter the ball.
(10) I threw the ball at Peter.

(8) implies that I intend Peter to catch the ball, and may be
transformed into an Applicative as in (9). But (10) implies that I
intend the ball to hit Peter, and it may not be transformed into an
Applicative.

Another probable reason for choosing _in_ not _to_ is that _in_
specifically denotes position inside something else. Similarly we could
say

(11) I put the pen on the table.

In (11) _on_ denotes physical contact with the surface of an object.

Samuel

.

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