42. Unnecessary Prepositions

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Preposition Temptation

Some verbs are often given an unnecessary following preposition. It may be helpful to know which they are and why this error occurs

THE ERROR OF THE UNNECESSARY PREPOSITION

Unnecessary prepositions appear quite often in the speech or writing of advanced learners of English. They tend to come between certain active verbs and any noun or pronoun placed after them as an “object” (objects are explained in the Guinlist post 8. Object-Dropping Errors). The verb LACK is a typical verb often given an unnecessary preposition:

(a) Poverty exists when people lack … the necessities for life.

The preposition that is often wrongly added here is of. In this post I wish to provide a list of verbs like LACK that often tempt learners to add an unnecessary preposition, and to suggest some reasons why the need to add an unnecessary preposition is so often felt.

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NECESSARY AND UNNECESSARY PREPOSITIONS

Before the discussion of problem verbs, it is important to appreciate that many verbs in English do actually need a preposition with them. These are what grammar books often call “prepositional” verbs. Here are some examples:

(b) Plants depend on water.

(c) Many elderly people have to cope with disability.

It is normal to say that here the prepositions on and with are parts of the verbs depend on and cope with, so that the following nouns water and disability are the verbs’ objects. Prepositions like this are different from ordinary prepositions that introduce an adverb-like phrase after a verb, like into in this example:

(d) The Nile flows into the Mediterranean Sea.

Here the verb is only flows: the preposition into “belongs” to the noun after it. Linguists have some ways of deciding which of these two different preposition uses exists at any particular time, but I will not go into those here. Other Guinlist posts that touch on the idea of prepositional verbs are 31. Prepositions after Action Nouns 1,  35. Words Followed by “to -ing”,  44. Troublesome Prepositional Verbs,  84. Seven Things to Know about Prepositions,  108. Formal and Informal Words,  123. Prepositional Verbs Containing a Noun and 139. Phrasal Verbs.

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VERBS THAT ARE COMMONLY GIVEN AN UNNECESSARY PREPOSITION

The existence of prepositional verbs in English is undoubtedly a major part of why some verbs are wrongly given a following preposition. Here is a list of non-prepositional verbs that are often taken to be prepositional, but mixed in with them are a small number that really are prepositional. The reader may wish to test his/her knowledge of preposition use by trying to identify the true prepositional verbs in the list:

(1) ACCESS, (2) AFFECT, (3) ATTACK, (4) AWAIT, (5) COMPRISE, (6) CONFRONT, (7) CONTACT, (8) CONTINUE, (9) CONTRADICT, (10) CORRESPOND, (11) DEMAND, (12) DISCUSS, (13) DISPOSE, (14) EMPHASISE, (15) ENTER, (16) EQUAL, (17) INFLUENCE, (18) INHABIT, (19) INVESTIGATE, (20) LACK, (21) OBEY, (22) OPPOSE, (23) REACH, (24) REGARD, (25) REQUEST, (26) RESEARCH, (27) RESEMBLE, (28) RESPECT, (29) SEEK, (30) SPAN.

All of the verbs in this list are non-prepositional except the tenth and the thirteenth (which take to and of). This means that with the other 28 any following preposition is likely to be wrong – the object of the verb must be used without one.

If the correct use of any verb in the list above surprises you, it is worth noting in order to avoid future error.

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POSSIBLE REASONS FOR UNNECESSARY PREPOSITIONS

There seem to be various possible reasons for the use of unnecessary prepositions like of after lack, about after discuss and on after emphasise.

1. Verbs that Look Like Nouns

The word lack can be both a verb and a noun. When it is a verb, it needs an ordinary object without a preposition. When it is a noun, the same object of the verb can still be mentioned but now it has to be placed after the preposition of (see 31. Prepositions after Action Nouns 1). Compare:

(e) VERB: The investigation has been dropped because the police LACK evidence.

(f) NOUN: The investigation has been dropped owing to A LACK OF evidence. 

Other verbs in the earlier list that can also be nouns without a change of spelling are ACCESS, ATTACK, CONTACT, DEMAND, INFLUENCE, REGARD, REQUEST, RESEARCH, RESPECT and SPAN. The prepositions used after the nouns are respectively to, on, with, for, on, to/for, for, into/on, for and from. Surprisingly, none of these is the regular object preposition of. Unsurprisingly, these are usually the prepositions that are used unnecessarily when the above words are verbs. For details of REGARD, see 48. Tricky Word Contrasts 1, #9.

In addition to the verbs listed above, it is possible that AFFECT and RESEMBLE acquire their unnecessary prepositions from their related nouns (an effect on, a resemblance to), and EQUAL does so (at least partly) from its related adjective (is equal to: see 231. Confusions of Similar Structures 3, #4).

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2. Verbs that Have a Preposition-Using Synonym

Many of the verbs in the main list above can be matched with a prepositional verb expressing more or less the same meaning:

AWAIT / WAIT FOR
COMPRISE / CONSIST OF
CONTINUE / CARRY ON
CONTRADICT / CONFLICT WITH
DISCUSS / TALK ABOUT
EMPHASISE / FOCUS ON
ENTER / GO INTO
EQUAL / CORRESPOND TO
INVESTIGATE / LOOK INTO
REACH / ARRIVE AT/IN
SEEK / LOOK FOR
SPAN / GO FROM…TO…

The prepositions needed by the prepositional synonyms are mostly the same ones that are often used unnecessarily with the non-prepositional verbs, suggesting that the synonyms may be causing the unnecessary prepositions (see the discussions of REACH /  ARRIVE in 250. Synonym Pairs with Contrasting Grammar, #1), and EQUAL / CORRESPOND in 292. Synonym Pairs with Contrasting Grammar 2, #1). 

A further possible cause of the error with COMPRISE is that its passive, which needs of before a following noun, means the same as the active.

Many other pairs of prepositional and non-prepositional synonyms can be identified in English. I present some below in a smaller version of a matching exercise whose original is in my book Grammar Practice for Professional Writing. Again, any of the non-prepositional verbs which tempt the use of a preposition should be noted for future reference.

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3. Verbs whose Derived Noun cannot Have “of”

A very striking feature of the problem verbs listed above is that the nouns derived from them rarely have of before an object-like noun, despite this preposition being the most typical after “action” nouns (cf. a lack of in [f]). I think this could help explain why these verbs are often given an unnecessary preposition.

To understand the explanation, it is first necessary to appreciate that many nouns that do not have of before an object-like noun are derived from a prepositional verb, and normally need the preposition of that verb instead of of (see 31. Prepositions after Action Nouns 1). Thus, dependence, derived from DEPEND ON, needs on, reference, from REFER TO, needs to, and application, from APPLY FOR, needs for.

The problem is that the reverse of this rule is not true: although many nouns requiring a preposition other than of correspond to a verb requiring their same preposition, quite a few – demand, discussion, emphasis, entry, influence, investigation, etc. – correspond to verbs needing no preposition. And you cannot predict which nouns are which, but simply have to memorise them. As a result, writers not sure about whether a particular noun’s non-standard preposition can be used with its corresponding verb may just guess sometimes that it can, on the basis of the number of nouns that actually are derived from prepositional verbs. Such assumptions will sometimes be right, but unfortunately they will also sometimes be wrong.

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4. Verbs that can be both Prepositional and Non-Prepositional

Some verbs vary in their need for a preposition, depending on their meaning. Examples are APPROVE, which may or may not have of, ENTER which does sometimes have into, and ATTEND, which sometimes needs to (see 44. Troublesome Prepositional Verbs). Such verbs can cause prepositions to be wrongly left out as well as wrongly put in.

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5. Mother Tongue Influence

Some languages other than English, such as French, use a preposition where English does not. Errors that might have this kind of cause include unnecessary in after ENTER (= go in) and to after ATTEND (= participate in).

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PRACTICE EXERCISE: PREPOSITIONS AFTER VERBS

The following exercise involves two lists, one of verbs that must or can have a preposition and one of verbs that cannot. Each verb means roughly the same as one of the verbs in the other list. Readers are invited to find the matching pairs. Answers are provided at the bottom.

PREPOSITIONAL VERBS:  ASK FOR,  CALL FOR,  LIVE IN,  AMOUNT TO,  RELATE TO,  COMPLY WITH,  APPROVE OF,  APPEAL TO,  OBJECT TO,  DEAL WITH

NON-PREPOSITIONAL VERBS:  LIKE,  CONCERN,  OPPOSE,  MANAGE,  REQUEST,  TOTAL,  DEMAND,  ATTRACT,  INHABIT,  OBEY

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ANSWERS:  ask for / request;   call for / demand;   live in / inhabit;   deal with / manage;   amount to / total;    relate to / concern;   comply with / obey;   approve of / like;   appeal to / attract;   object to / oppose

41. Unexpected Vowels in Derived Words

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Words of similar spelling but different grammatical class mostly have the same vowel sound(s) and letter(s), but there are numerous exceptions

THE OCCURRENCE OF UNEXPECTED VOWELS IN DERIVED ENGLISH WORDS

Some years ago, I was privileged to teach English in South Sudan. It was common to hear the students from the area refer to themselves as “Southerners” (North and South Sudan at the time being a single huge country). However, the way they pronounced this word differed from what I as an Englishman expected it to be.

In my way of speaking, words derived from south (southern, southerner, southerly – see 151. Ways of Using Compass Words) are pronounced with a different first vowel sound: not like that of mouth, but rather /ʌ/, as at the start of suffer (this illogical pronunciation is one of those listed in my earlier pronunciation post, 29. Illogical Vowel Spellings). The people of South Sudan, however, generally kept the vowel unchanged.

Like many departures from Standard English, the South Sudanese pronunciation seems more logical, since it follows the more normal English practice of not changing vowels in derived words. Any number of examples of unchanged vowel use can be found, such as the following (the syllables in question being underlined):

remove/removal

lead/leader

hate/hateful

rough/roughen

suicide/suicidal

north/northern

reverse/reversal

Ever since that time in the Sudan, I have wondered how often it happens that a vowel in an English word is pronounced and/or spelt differently from the corresponding vowel in another word in the same word family. Here I present the differences of spelling and/or pronunciation that I have so far managed to observe. Where the difference is a noun-verb one, there is sometimes more about it in this blog in 249. Action Noun Endings.

Note that I am talking about changes of both pronunciation and spelling. Sometimes a vowel is spelt the same in two related words but pronounced differently, as in south and southerner. On other occasions, the two spellings are different too, for example in destroy and destruction. In yet more cases, there are different spellings but no pronunciation change, as in proceed and procedure. Spelling mistakes can result from such inconsistencies just as pronunciation ones can (see 188. Causes of Common Spelling Mistakes).

Before the word lists are presented, it is necessary to exclude a type of vowel pronunciation change that most observers would consider to be regular in English.

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PREDICTABLE VOWEL CHANGES IN ENGLISH WORD DERIVATION

It is quite common for a vowel in a root word to be pronounced either /ə/ or /ɪ/ in a word derived from that root. Take the first and last vowels of photograph: /əʊ/ and /ɑ:/. These both change their pronunciation to /ə/ in photography. The reason is the influence of word stress, which is the special strength that one syllable in nearly every English word is pronounced with (see 91. Pronunciation in Reading Aloud and 125. Stress and Emphasis). It is normally the case that a stressed syllable is pronounced with the expected vowel pronunciation, while an unstressed syllable must be said with the vowel changed to /ə/ or /ɪ/. The pho- of PHOtograph is stressed and so the vowel pronunciation matches the letter, but that of phoTOgraphy is unstressed, and so its vowel becomes /ə/. 

It can also happen that /ə/ in a root word will change into the more expected pronunciation of its letter in a word derived from that root. Take the middle vowel in INdustry, which should be pronounced /ə/ because the stress is on in-. In the derived adjective inDUStrial, the stress moves onto -dus-, and the vowel becomes /ʌ/. To take one more example, consider the verb and noun uses of reject. The verb stresses -ject, so that unstressed re- is pronounced /rɪ-/, while the noun stresses re-, changing its pronunciation into /ri:-/ (see 86. The Pronunciation of “e” and “i”).

Most of these normal stress-related vowel changes are not the focus of this post. The exception is where the spelling is changed in the derived word as well as the pronunciation. In the examples just presented, the vowels in question did not change their spelling. An example of changed spelling when a vowel becomes /ə/ is repetition derived from repeat. 

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UNPREDICTABLE VOWEL CHANGES IN ENGLISH WORD DERIVATION

The aim of this section is just to present a list of unpredictable vowel changes in order to assist those learners of English who might benefit from having such lists. The changes are classified according to the vowels involved.

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1. Spelling Changes with a Pronunciation Change to /ə/ or /ɪ/

repeat – repetition

maintain – maintenance

abstain – abstinence  (also sustain)

explain – explanation

proclaim – proclamation (also exclaim, reclaim, acclaim, declaim)

reveal – revelation

expound – exposition

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2. Spelling Changes with no Pronunciation Change

proceed – procedure

float – flotation

fire – fiery

deny – denial

rely – reliant (also defy)

happy – happiness (also ready, heavy, hearty, dizzy, sturdy)

vigour – vigorous (also rigour, rancour, humour, vapour)

honour – honorable (also favour)

speak – speech

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3. Pronunciation Change from /aɪ/ to /ɪ/

This change is not always exceptional (a change to /ɪ/ is quite common when a vowel becomes unstressed), but “regular” changes are worth including because so many are problematic for learners of English:

WITH NO SPELLING CHANGE

crisis –critical

wise – wisdom

crime – criminal

wild – wilderness

title – titular

bible – biblical

emphasise – emphasis (also hypothesise)

incline – inclination (also combine)

revise – revision (also excise, precise)

decide – decision (also deride, elide)

recognise – recognition

ignite – ignition

unite – unit/unity/unify

futile − futility

cycle – cyclic

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WITH A SPELLING CHANGE

describe – description

prophesise – prophecy

summarise – summary (also harmonise)

imply – implication (also multiply)

unify – unification (also magnify, clarify, purify and most other –fy verbs)

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4. Pronunciation Change to /ʌ/

WITH NO SPELLING CHANGE

south – southern(er)/southerly

occur – occurrence (also recur, concur)

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WITH A SPELLING CHANGE

abound – abundance

compel – compulsion (also expel, propel, repel)

impel – impulse

pronounce – pronunciation (also announce, denounce, enounce)

destroy – destruction

introduce – introduction (also deduce, reduce, induce, seduce, produce)

assume – assumption (also presume, resume, consume)

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5. Pronunciation Change to /e/

WITH NO SPELLING CHANGE

heal – health (also steal)

breathe – breath

clean – cleanliness

diabetes – diabetic

mean – meant

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WITH A SPELLING CHANGE

retain – retention (also detain, abstain)

example – exemplify

sale – sell

long – length (also strong)

broad – breadth

cease – cessation

feast – festive

intercede – intercession (also recede, concede, accede)

proceed – procession

exceed – excess(ive) (also succeed)

receive – reception (also deceive, conceive, perceive)

redeem – redemption

seem – semblance

feel – felt

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6. Other Changes

doctrine – doctrinal (/ɪ/ to /aɪ/– also urine, intestine)

adjective – adjectival (/ɪ/ to /aɪ/)

satisfy – satisfaction (/aɪ/ to /æ/ – also putrefy)

clear – clarify (/ɪə/ to /æ/)

compare – comparison (/eə/ to /æ/)

mania − manic (/eɪ/ to /æ/)

nation − national (/eɪ/ to /æ/)

feed – food (/i:/ to /u:/ (also teethe)

diminish – diminution (/ɪ/ to /ju:/)

suspect – suspicion (/e/ to /ɪ/)

appropriate (adj) – appropriate (verb) (/ə/ to /eɪ/, both unstressed – also approximate)

estimate (noun) – estimate (verb) (/ə/ to /eɪ/, both unstressed)

picture (noun) – pictorial (adj) (/ə/ to /ɔ/)

sell – sale (/e/ to /eɪ/)

choose – choice (/u:/ to /ɔɪ/)

lose – loss (/u:/ to /ɒ/)

heat – hot (/i:/ to /ɒ/)

diagnose – diagnostic (/əʊ/ to /ɒ/)

microscope – microscopic (/əʊ/ to /ɒ/)

episode – episodic (/əʊ/ to /ɒ/)

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I am certain that these lists are incomplete, and I will add to them as and when I can. Meanwhile, readers are also invited to offer suggestions via the comment facility below.