44. Troublesome Prepositional Verbs

.

Some prepositional verbs can also be used without any preposition before their object noun – but usually with a different meaning

THE NATURE OF PREPOSITIONAL VERBS

Prepositional verbs include both a verb and a preposition. The preposition is a true one, unlike in “phrasal” verbs where preposition-like words are actually adverbs (see 139. Phrasal Verbs). Sometimes there is a noun in the middle (see 123. Prepositional Verbs Containing a Noun), but verbs without one are the focus here. An example is DEPEND ON in sentences like this:

Here the verb is not depend but depend on. The preposition on is part of the verb, and sunlight is the object of this verb (for details of objects, see 8. Object-Dropping Errors).

Not all prepositions are part of the verb before them. Consider into in this example:

(b) The River Nile flows into the Mediterranean Sea.

Here the preposition into is combined with the words after it rather than the word before, creating an adverb-like phrase. As a result, the verb flows is intransitive, lacking an object (see 113. Verbs That Cannot Be Passive). Linguists have some ways of deciding which use a particular preposition has, but I will not go into those here.

Prepositional verbs like DEPEND ON have various interesting features. Some of these are considered elsewhere in this blog in the posts 31. Prepositions after Action Nouns 1,  35. Words Followed by “to -ing”,  42. Unnecessary Prepositions and 108. Formal and Informal Words.

.

THE PROBLEM OF VERBS USABLE BOTH WITH & WITHOUT A PREPOSITION

Some prepositional verbs can cause confusion through being able to drop the preposition before a following noun in order to express a different meaning. The verb APPROVE is of this kind; consider the change of meaning in the following sentence if of is removed: 

(c) The committee approved of the proposal.

The meaning of the prepositional approved of is “liked”, while that of non-prepositional approved is “allowed” or “passed”. 

Note how both sentences have the same object (the proposal). This is an important aspect of the verbs in question. Some verbs that can be used both with and without a closely-linked preposition have to drop their object without the preposition. For example, if we change LOOK AT into LOOK, an object is not possible – LOOK by itself is intransitive. This discussion is not about verbs like LOOK (I cannot say for sure that such verbs are less problematic, but my experience suggests they are).

A likely result of confusing the two uses of verbs like APPROVE is that the preposition will be either wrongly added (see 42. Unnecessary Prepositions) or wrongly left out.

.

TRANSITIVE VERBS USABLE BOTH WITH & WITHOUT A PREPOSITION

English has quite a lot of verbs like APPROVE. Below is a sample (the abbreviations “sb” and “sth” stand for “somebody” and “something” respectively). It may be useful to try and either guess the meaning differences or discover them from a dictionary. Some of the more problematic meanings are explained below.

.
More can be read within these pages about FACE in 21. Active Verbs with  Non-Active Meaning, LEAD TO in 32. Expressing Consequences, SUFFER in 142. Grammar Errors with Passive Verbs, AGREE in 152. Agreeing and Disagreeing in Formal Contexts and APPLY in 261. Words with Complicated Grammar 3, #1.

.

EXPLANATION OF SOME ESPECIALLY PROBLEMATIC PREPOSITIONAL MEANINGS

Rather than just list the meanings in question, I offer a matching exercise. The reader is invited to match each definition below with the right verb from the list before it (answers after the exercise).

.

1. (AGREE; AGREE WITH; AGREE TO; AGREE ON)

(a) To …………………….something is to decide with other people that something is the best of various options to adopt (e.g. The committee have _________ a course of future action). 

(b) To ……………………. something is to formally authorise something that has been proposed. It can be done by one or more people (e.g. The committee have _________ the budget). 

(c) To ……………………. something is to give permission for something that has been specially requested (e.g. The Principal has _________ the students’ holiday plans). 

(d) To ……………………. somebody is to hold the same opinion as theirs. To ……………………. something is to think that it a good thing.

.

2. (CONCEIVE; CONCEIVE OF)

(a) To ……………………. something is to think of it for the first time.

(b) To ……………………. something is to imagine it.

.

3. (CONTINUE; CONTINUE WITH)

(a) To ……………………. something is to keep doing it without interruption.

(b) To ……………………. something is to start it again after an interruption.

.

4. (DECIDE; DECIDE ON)

(a) To ……………………. something is to fix or settle it (e.g. The war has _________ who owns the land).

(b) To ……………………. something is to choose it from various options (e.g. The bride has _________ yellow flowers for the wedding).

.

5. (ENTER; ENTER INTO)

(a) To ……………………. something is to start it (e.g. The management and workers have _________ an agreement).

(b) To ……………………. something is to go inside it.

.

6. (IMPROVE; IMPROVE ON)

(a) To ……………………. something is to remove a problem with it.

(b) To ……………………. something is to make its success even greater.

. 

7. (REPORT; REPORT ON; REPORT TO)

(a) To ……………………. something is to tell other people that it has happened (e.g. The journal _________ a new finding in India).

(b) To ……………………. somebody is to be managed by them in a job.

(c) To ……………………. something is to give additional information about it (e.g. There is no more to _________ last week’s disaster).

.

8. (TOUCH; TOUCH ON)

(a) To ……………………. something is to make physical contact with it.

(b) To ……………………. something is to mention it briefly (e.g. I will describe the political system and _________ some issues that it raises).

.

9. (JOIN; JOIN IN)

(a) To …………………… something is to start participating in something already going on.

(b) To …………………..  something is to become a member of it.

.

10. (KNOW; KNOW ABOUT/OF)

(a) To …………………..  something is to be aware of its existence.

(b) To …………………..  something is to be familiar with it.

.

ANSWERS:  1(a) = agree on, 1(b) = agree, 1(c) = agree to, 1(d) = agree with;  2(a) = conceive, 2(b) = conceive of;  3(a) continue, 3(b) = continue with;  4(a) = decide, 4(b) = decide on;  5(a) = enter into, 5(b) = enter;  6(a) = improve;  6(b) = improve on;  7(a) = report, 7(b) = report to, 7(c) = report on;  8(a) touch, 8(b) = touch on;  9(a) = join in, 9(b) = join; 10(a) = know about/of, 10(b) = know.

Noteworthy in the above sentences is the similarity of on after AGREE and DECIDE (#1A and #4B). For more about DECIDE ON, see 276. Tricky Word Contrasts 11, #5.

.

VERBS WITH AN OPTIONAL PREPOSITION

Some verbs can be used either with or without a preposition yet keep the same meaning. They are not problematic in the same way as the verbs discussed above. Usually their non-preposition use is simply a more modern preference. Five common examples of verbs like this are PROTEST AGAINST, APPEAL AGAINST, DEPART FROM, DISEMBARK FROM and IMPACT ON: 

(d) Drivers are protesting (against) the new law.

(e) The company will appeal (against) the guilty verdict.

(f) The new law will impact (on) traffic volume.

.

VERBS THAT OCCUR BOTH WITH AND WITHOUT A FOLLOWING ADVERB

Some verbs look to be prepositional but are not. Examples are CUT OFF, PICK UP and FIND OUT. The second word in each of these is actually an adverb: it can be placed after the verb’s object just as adverbs can. For a full explanation, see 139. Phrasal Verbs. A typical phrasal verb use might be the following:

(g) One cannot write everything down in a lecture.

I mention phrasal verbs because they present a problem that is similar to the one with prepositional verbs: learners of English often confuse the meaning of the verb by itself with that of the verb and adverb combined. Here are some example pairs:

BREAK sth                            BREAK sth UP
CLOSE sth                            CLOSE sth UP (DOWN)
CUT sb/sth                           CUT sb/sth UP (DOWN/OFF/OUT)
DROP sth                              DROP sb/sth OFF
EAT sth                                  EAT sth UP
FILL sth                                 FILL sth IN
FIND sb/sth                          FIND sth OUT
MISS sb/sth                          MISS sb/sth OUT
OPEN sth                              OPEN sth UP
PICK sb/sth                           PICK sb/sth UP
SEEK sb/sth                           SEEK sb/sth OUT
SELL sth                                SELL things OFF
WRITE sth                             WRITE sth DOWN
RISE (intransitive)                 RISE UP (intransitive)

To give a flavour of the differences, FILL means “change from empty to full” whereas FILL IN means “add material to visible spaces until they no longer exist”. We particularly use FILL IN with forms and shapes.

FIND and FIND OUT can both mean “discover hidden information”, but out suggests the use of much effort, often because the information was deliberately hidden.

PICK means “choose” or “remove from the plant where it grew” (e.g. picking flowers or grapes); while PICK UP means “lift to take possession of” or “take into your vehicle for transport”. It is notable that PICK by itself is used in both East and West Africa with all of these meanings.

WRITING DOWN is done when we want something to be remembered; WRITING is done for any other purpose. 

Finally, RISE means “go up”, while RISE UP means “start a war of rebellion”.

43. Noun Countability Clues 4: Substance Locations

.

Some nouns express a substance when uncountable and an object associated with that substance when countable

THE IMPORTANCE OF NOUN COUNTABILITY

English nouns are commonly classified as either “proper”, “countable” or “uncountable”. The reason is that each of these groups follows slightly different grammar rules (see 47. Article Errors with Proper Nouns and 110. Nouns without “the” or “a”). Learners of English have to know which group each noun belongs to in order to avoid grammar mistakes.

Unfortunately, it is not always easy to decide whether a noun is countable or uncountable. English coursebooks usually suggest that a noun’s meaning is a clue – that “countable” nouns stand for things that can be counted or have a fixed shape. This is true to some extent, but does not help with a very large number of nouns representing ideas whose ability to be counted or seen as a shape is very subjective, appearing different to different people (see 14. Noun Countability Clues 1).

In this blog, I am suggesting an alternative kind of meaning that can indicate which grammar rules a particular noun has to follow. This is the meaning the noun has when you know it has two different uses, one countable and one uncountable. My aim is to provide some general countable meanings against which new double-use nouns can be compared. Here I wish to consider the fourth of four major countable noun meanings (for the others, see Noun Countability Clues 1, 2 and 3).

.

DEFINITION OF A SUBSTANCE LOCATION

A substance location is identifiable when the same noun can mean either a recognised visible object or something that the object is wholly or partly made of. Take, for example, the noun GLASS. Sometimes it means the recognised transparent vessel we drink water or wine from, sometimes the transparent brittle substance that such vessels are made of. It is the first of these meanings that we can call the “substance location”, the second the “substance”.

Note that “recognised” objects are normally more than just a sample of the substance – there is a world of difference between a glass drinking vessel and just some glass by itself. To talk about samples we usually need to combine the substance name with a sample-defining noun like piece or lump, e.g. a piece/lump of glass. For more on this kind of expression, see 180. Nouns that Count the Uncountable.

It is generally the case that nouns like GLASS refer to a substance location when they have a countable form (a glass) and to a substance when they are uncountable (glass). This allows us to formulate the following general rule: nouns able to express either a substance location or the substance itself do so respectively in their countable and uncountable forms.

Substance locations are not always easy to distinguish from other countable meanings possible with nouns of variable countability. They differ from subtypes of a substance, like a fuel (subtype of the substance fuel), in that they involve more than is covered or implied by the general substance idea – for example the shape and purpose of a glass is not covered or implied by the idea of glass. Nor are substance locations the same as activity locations, such as a carriage, where the corresponding uncountable form expresses an action of some kind rather than a component substance (carriage means “carrying”).

.

MORE EXAMPLES OF SUBSTANCE LOCATION NOUNS

Substance location nouns are the type of noun with variable countability that is especially likely to be encountered in elementary English courses. However, there are also many that are not so elementary. In the rest of this post I first offer a list of probably familiar substance nouns that can be used countably to mean a substance location, and then I present examples of a more challenging kind. The reader is invited to identify (with a dictionary if necessary) the exact meaning of each example when it is used countably, for instance after a(n).

Nouns Meaning either a Substance or a Substance Location

beer (and other alcoholic drinks), breakfast, brick, cake, carpet, chicken, cloth, cloud, coffee, copper, desert, distance, dress, drink, egg, fish, fruit, glass, iron, land, leather, light, marble, nylon, oak (and some other trees), orange (and most other fruits and vegetables), ocean, omelette, paper, pudding, rock, room, rubber, sea, sky, soda, sound, space, stone, string, sugar, tea, tissue, treasure, wood.

Note that the countable form of nylon in this list is normally in the plural: nylons (= women’s long stockings).

The above-mentioned difference between a substance location and a subtype is well illustrated by the countable noun a stone. As a substance location it is a pebble – a small, roundish object made out of any kind of stone – while as a subtype it refers to a particular one of many different chemical substances that people would recognise as stone, such as marble, malachite or limestone.

In the same way, a wood as a substance location is a small group of trees standing close together (or a golf club whose lower end is wooden); while as a subtype it is one of various kinds of wood in the world, such as oak, mahogany or willow. A coffee in the substance location sense is a cup or glass full of coffee, while in the subtype sense it is a category of coffee like arabica or robusta. And a sugar as a substance location is the small amount that sweetens a tea or a coffee, but as a subtype it is a kind of sugar, e.g. glucose. Double meanings like this seem to be quite common among substance location nouns. Others with one are underlined in the list above.

It may be thought from this that every uncountable substance noun has a corresponding countable form expressing a substance location. This is not the case, however. Examples of substance nouns that have no countable form, or only one that means a subtype, are aluminium, beef, brass, bread, butter, cotton, flooring, flour, grass, housing, liquid, margarine, meat, milk, oil, paint, rice, salt, soap, steel, water. These exceptions show again how unreliable meanings can be for mastering grammar, whether noun countability, verb transitivity (see 8. Object-Dropping Errors) or preposition choices (see 31. Prepositions after Action Nouns 1).

.

ABSTRACT SUBSTANCES AND OBJECTS

Abstract ideas can never be substances – by definition they are not material like substances. However, many abstract ideas are very like substances – they are expressed by an uncountable noun, they are not discrete entities, and they can be a vital part of things that are. Not all abstract nouns are like this: idea and extent are countable, and uncountable “action” nouns like movement do not usually represent what things are made of. An example of a substance-like abstract noun is value. 

The usefulness of recognising abstract nouns with a substance-like meaning is that, like concrete substance nouns, many can change their meaning into a location one through being used countably. The uncountable noun value, for example, has a countable partner a value that means “a belief about the value of something” – a meaning where the idea of “value” is still clearly located. The uncountable word fortune means “luck” or “chance”, but the countable a fortune is a huge amount of money that has (probably) been gained through good luck. Youth is the time when we are young, but a youth is a youngish person (see 175. Tricky Word Contrasts 6, #1).

Abstract Nouns Meaning either a Substance-like Idea or its Location

appeal, behaviour, content, crime, damage, disaster, disease, disgrace, disturbance, effort, error, experience, fortune, grammar, hate, height, history, hope, law, length, love, man, mass, pain, power, presence, promise, rage, shade, space, speed, strength, talk, time, truth, value, velocity, vice, weakness, weight, width, youth.

In addition, there are some -ing nouns like meaning, teaching and understanding (see 240. Nouns that End with “-ing”).

Some abstract substance nouns, just like some of the concrete nouns above, can when countable mean a subtype as well as a substance location. This is true, for example, of a crime. Saying that somebody committed numerous crimes could mean the types of crime were numerous or the individual ones were. Nouns like crime are underlined above.

Uncountable man means “humans”, but is becoming rare in some English-speaking cultures because it is considered sexist (see 211. General Words for People). Countable a man has two uses. In one, it is just a synonym of man: another way to refer to people in general (again less commonly than in the past). In the other use, of course, a man refers to one or all human males – a substance location use.

Content, damage and shade in the list are like nylon in that their countable forms are always plural. Content refers to the inside of something; contents are content in the form of multiple pieces – the chapters of a book, for example, or matches in a box (see 196. Saying What is inside Things). Damage means harm or spoilage; damages are money awarded by a judge for suffering damage. Shade means an area where the sun’s rays are blocked; shades are sunglasses (see 218. Tricky Word Contrasts 8, #4).

The number of nouns in English that express a substance location does not at first sight seem to be great. This feeling is, indeed, the reason why I have not written about substance locations earlier. Yet I have been surprised as I have developed the topic by how many examples I have actually succeeded in finding. Substance locations may after all be a rewarding aspect of English to study.