Preposition stranding
[citation needed] P-stranding occurs in various syntactic contexts, including passive voice,[9] wh-movement,[10][11] and sluicing.
The more common alternative is called pied piping, a rule that prohibits separating a preposition from its object, for instances in Serbo-Croatian and Arabic languages.
'A number of common Dutch adpositions can be used either prepositionally or postpositionally, with a slight change in possible meanings.
When postpositions, such adpositions can be stranded: [...][...]datthathijhezo'nsuch-adonkerdarkbosforestnietnotinintodurftdarestetolopenwalk[...][...][...] dat hij zo'n donker bos niet in durft te lopen [...][...] that he such-a dark forest not into dares to walk [...]'[...] that he doesn't dare walk into such a dark forest [...]'Pseudopassives (prepositional passives or passive constructions) are the result of the movement of the object of a preposition to fill an empty subject position for a passive verb.
The phenomenon is comparable to regular passives, which are formed through the movement of the object of the verb to subject position.
A superficially-similar construction is possible in standard French in cases where the object is not moved but implied, such as Je suis pour 'I'm all for (it)' or Il faudra agir selon 'We'll have to act according to (the situation)'.
Dutch prepositions generally do not take the ordinary neuter pronouns (het, dat, wat, etc.)
'Some regional varieties of German show a similar phenomenon to some Dutch constructions with da(r)- and wo(r)- forms.
'Again, although the stranded postposition has nearly the same surface distribution as a separable verbal prefix (herbekommen is a valid composite verb), it would not be possible to analyze these Dutch and German examples in terms of the reanalyzed verbs *overpraten and *vonkaufen, for the following reasons: Although preposition stranding has been found in English since the earliest times,[21] it has often been the subject of controversy, and some usage advisors have attempted to form a prescriptive rule against it.
In 1926, H. W. Fowler noted: "It is a cherished superstition that prepositions must, in spite of the incurable English instinct for putting them late [...] be kept true to their name & placed before the word they govern.
"[22] The earliest attested disparagement of preposition stranding in English is datable to the 17th-century grammarian Joshua Poole,[3] but it became popular after 1672, when the poet John Dryden objected to Ben Jonson's 1611 phrase "the bodies that those souls were frighted from".
[23][24] In his earlier writing, Dryden himself had employed terminal prepositions but he systematically removed them in later editions of his work, explaining that when in doubt he would translate his English into Latin to test its elegance.
Usage writer Robert Lowth wrote in his 1762 textbook A Short Introduction to English Grammar that the construction was more suitable for informal than for formal English: "This is an Idiom which our language is strongly inclined to; it prevails in common conversation, and suits very well with the familiar style in writing; but the placing of the Preposition before the Relative is more graceful, as well as more perspicuous; and agrees much better with the solemn and elevated Style.
"[25] However Lowth used the construction himself, including a humorously self-referential example in this passage ("is strongly inclined to"), and his comments do not amount to a proscription.
Fowler dedicated four columns of his Dictionary of Modern English Usage to a rebuttal of the prescription: The fact is that the remarkable freedom enjoyed by English in putting its prepositions late & omitting its relatives is an important element in the flexibility of the language.
That's perverse - English isn't Latin and isn't even descended from Latin...Overzealous avoidance of stranded prepositions was sometimes ridiculed for leading to unnatural-sounding sentences, including the quip apocryphally attributed to Winston Churchill: This is the sort of tedious nonsense up with which I will not put.
[26][29][30] As O'Conner and Kellerman point out: "Great literature from Chaucer to Milton to Shakespeare to the King James version of the Bible was full of so called terminal prepositions.
"[29] Mignon Fogarty ("Grammar Girl") says, "nearly all grammarians agree that it's fine to end sentences with prepositions, at least in some cases.
