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English has many idiomatic expressions that act as prepositions that can be analyzed as a preposition followed by a noun (sometimes preceded by the definite or, occasionally, indefinite article) followed by another preposition. [86] Common examples include:
[22]: 158 The list of English prepositions is categorized this way. Though the prototypical preposition is a single word that precedes a noun phrase complement and expresses spatial relations, the category of preposition includes more than this limited notion (see English prepositions § History of the concept in English). Prepositions can be ...
In English, objects and complements nearly always come after the verb; a direct object precedes other complements such as prepositional phrases, but if there is an indirect object as well, expressed without a preposition, then that precedes the direct object: give me the book, but give the book to me.
An English preposition can never follow its noun, so if we can change verb - P - noun to verb - noun - P, then P cannot be a preposition and must be particle. [ h ] But even with a particle verb, shifting the particle is not always possible, for example if it is followed by a pronoun instead of a noun, or if there is a fixed collocation.
Pages for logged out editors learn more. Contributions; Talk; English preposition
The English language allows for these to be expansive; allowing words to be used that would otherwise not be considered prepositions in English. Putting almost any word in front of "to," "of," "by," etc. makes the utterance a "multiple word preposition," making compiling an exhaustive list nearly impossible.
The 1979 edition of the dictionary, with Patrick Hanks as editor and Laurence Urdang as editorial director, was the first British English dictionary to be typeset from the output from a computer database in a specified format. This meant that every aspect of an entry was handled by a different editor using different forms or templates.
It is a sister site to The Free Dictionary and usage examples in the form of "references in classic literature" taken from the site's collection are used on The Free Dictionary 's definition pages. In addition, double-clicking on a word in the site's collection of reference materials brings up the word's definition on The Free Dictionary.