The Syntax of Prepositional Phrase in English
الخلاصة
The paper discusses the syntactic structure of prepositional
phrases in English from a generative perspective. It attempts to
show that the traditional view that prepositional phrases consist of a
preposition followed a noun phrase complement cannot be
generalised. The paper argues that a head in a prepositional phrase
can be transitive or intransitive; if transitive it can take any XP, i.e.
NP, AP, PP or TP as a complement; if not, it requires no
complement. The paper also shows that a prepositional phrase can
be modified by prepositional modifiers and other phrasal categories
such as NP, PP, AdjP & AdvP. Finally, the paper provides
evidence that lexical items classified traditionally as adverbs and/or
particles can be analysed as (in)transitive prepositions