Grammar, Rhetoric and Usage in English
Preposition Placement 1500–1900

This detailed, corpus-based study shows how the placement and usage of the English preposition has changed since the sixteenth century.

Nuria Yáñez-Bouza (Author)

9781108713177, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 21 March 2019

391 pages, 22 b/w illus. 22 tables
23 x 15 x 2 cm, 0.55 kg

'All in all, Yáñez-Bouza's Grammar, Rhetoric and Usage in English fits in nicely with other research in the field and adds an important piece to the socio-historical study of effects of prescriptivism on actual language use. It is a well-structured study which benefits greatly from a combination of qualitative and quantitative approaches. This book is suitable for researchers as well as students with a background in syntax.' Carmen Ebner, The Linguist List (linguistlist.org)

The preposition is of particular interest to syntacticians, historians and sociolinguists of English, as its placement within a sentence is influenced by syntactic and sociolinguistic constraints, and by how the 'rules' regarding prepositions have changed over time, as a result of language change, of change in attitudes towards language, and of processes such as standardization. This book investigates preposition placement in the early and late Modern English periods (1500–1900), with a special focus on preposition stranding (The house which I live in) in opposition to pied piping (The house in which I live). Based on a large-scale analysis of precept and usage data, this study reassesses the alleged influence of late eighteenth-century normative works on language usage. It also sheds new light on the origins of the stigmatisation of preposition stranding. This study will be of interest to scholars working on syntax and grammar, corpus linguistics, historical linguistics and sociolinguistics.

1. Introduction
2. Methodology
3. Eighteenth-century precept
4. Usage in early and late Modern English
5. Grammar, rhetoric and style
6. Latent awareness
7. Conclusion.

Subject Areas: Historical & comparative linguistics [CFF]