Prepositional Phrases
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The Preposition Phrase (PP)
The distribution of the preposition phrase
A PP can occur in the following diagnostic environments:
- as the second complement of the verb put: Chris put the book on the shelf.
- as the complement of verbs like run: The squirrel ran _.
- inside an NP, following the noun, i.e. in [NP ... N __]: The book about Canada
A PP can often be substituted with an adverbial pro-form there, then. In a constituent question test for a PP, the question starts with where, how, why, ...
The internal structure of the preposition phrase
A PP must contain
- a preposition (in, from, in spite of, by, ...)
- a major phrase following the preposition, usually an NP (from [NP Canada], to [NP Kim]), but other phrases are also possible (from [NP inside the building]).