29. There was lack of woman's nursing,

There was dearth of woman's tears.-NORTON. 30. There is a pleasure in the pathless woods.

-BYRON, Childe Harold iv. 178. 31. One of these tunes, just as it had sounded from her spiritual touch, had been written down by a musician.-HAWTHORNE.

32. The spirit of local self-government, always the life-blood of liberty, was often excessive in its manifestations.-MOTLEY.

33. "Where did you come from, baby dear?"

"Out of the everywhere into here."-MACDONALD, Baby.

34. Who is there that we can trust?

35. They did this partly from anger, partly from fear. 36. There's nothing either good or bad

But thinking makes it so.

CHAPTER VIII

PREPOSITIONS AND PHRASES

PREPOSITIONS

165. A PREPOSITION is a word used to show the relation between two other words.

The preposition has come to be an important element in English. In an inflected language, the relation of a substantive to other words is often expressed by the case ending only. We have lost in a great measure our case endings, and the preposition does their work.

The preposition is a PARTICLE: that is, a word without inflectional changes. It is to be studied, therefore, in its syntax, i. e., its relation to other parts of the sentence.

THE COMPOSITION OF PHRASES

166. The preposition introduces a prepositional phrase, and takes for its object the word whose relation it expresses to the word which the phrase modifies.

a. The word governed by the preposition is usually a substantive.

1. She went into the house.

2. He threw the ball to me.

NOTE. It after a preposition is sometimes impersonal.

1. I lead a sad life of it.

2. There was nothing for it but to turn back.

3. They were hard put to it.

b. In certain set phrases, the word following the preposition is an adjective.

On high; in vain; for long; of old; for good; at best; at worst.

There may originally have been some substantive notion after the adjective; e. g., "in a vain effort," "for a long time.”

c. The principal word of the phrase is occasionally an adverb (Section 163b).

At once; from there; to here; till then.

d. The object of a preposition may be a phrase.

1. From above the trees; to below the hill; from beyond the sea.

Or it may be an infinitive or a gerund (Sections 245e and 253).

2. There was no choice but to go on.

3. I was delighted at finding you there.

Or it may

be some other group of words.

4. God never made this world for man to mend.

5. She stood with her hands full of roses.

e. The object of a preposition may be a clause.

1. He had no notion of what you meant.

2. Have you told about what you saw?

NOTE. The composition of a phrase is not always perfectly clear.

It [the panther] paused there an instant, with its fore quarters in the doorway, one forefoot raised, the end of its long tail waving.

Does with govern the three groups that follow it? Or do we cease to feel its force after the first group, and should we, then, call the second and third groups absolute (Section 88a)? In either case, the three groups describe it (the panther).

THE FUNCTIONS OF PHRASES

167. Prepositional phrases perform various functions in sentences.

a. The phrase may be an adjective. I. Directly connected with its noun.

1. A hand of iron; a house of straw.

NOTE 1.—A phrase, adjective in construction, may not in meaning be a modifier.

I got two cables and a hawser on shore, with all the iron-work I could get. -DEFOE.

With, expressing accompaniment, is equivalent to and: I got three things ashore, cables, hawser, and iron-work. The first two objects are joined by the conjunction and; the third (in sense the object of the verb, in construction the object of the preposition) is joined to the other two by the preposition with. See also Section 123a.

NOTE 2.-In the sentence

1. They made no sign but this,

but this modifies sign as already modified by no: none but this. In 2. All the men but four were lost,

but four limits the too inclusive all the men.

II. The phrase may be used as a subjective complement.

2. The man was out of humor [compare: The man was cross]. 3. The blossoms were almost without number [compare: were numberless].

4. My secretary is of the best.

5. She was his age [here the preposition is omitted; compare: She was of my age].

6. Her hair lay in a braided coil.

NOTE. In sentence 5 the phrase seems to have the force of an adverbial predicate. A similar sentence is:

The wolf lay with her nose dropped across her four cubs.

III. The phrase may be used as an objective complement.

7. The child cried himself to sleep [i. e., put himself to sleep by crying].

With this compare

8. He cried himself sick [i. e., made himself sick by crying], and see Section 118.

9. Food keeps the body in health [i. e., healthy].

10. Rust makes the sword of no use [i. e., useless].

II. We put them to shame [i. e., made them ashamed].

b. The phrase may be adverbial:

1. Expressing time.

1. They returned in the spring.

II. Expressing place.

2. They staid in Venice a week, then went to Rome.

III. Expressing manner.

3. He ran with great speed.

IV. Modifying an adjective.

4. Saint Elizabeth was rich in faith.

v. Modifying an adverb.

5. He threw the ball farther by several rods.

VI. In the sentences

6. He walked from New York to Yonkers, 7. From morning till night he toiled,

the phrases all modify the verbs, expressing time and place. But there is a certain interrelation of phrases, one of each pair giving the first limit of place or time, the other giving the final limit.

c. The phrase may be used as a substantive, generally the object of another preposition. Compare Section 166d.

1. The world is from of old.

The substantive phrase may be a subject or a subjective complement.

2. Out of sight is out of mind.

A subject phrase may be transferred to or toward the end of the sentence by the expletive it.

3. It is hard for an empty sack to stand upright.

A partitive phrase may be used as the object of the verb.

4. Give me of your boughs, O Cedar.-LONGFELLOW, Hiawatha. That is, "some of your boughs." See Section 65.

In the following sentence the noun ways has three phrases in apposition to it:

5. There are but three ways of living: by working, by stealing, and by begging.

A phrase may stand in apposition to another phrase.

6. We turn to what is best in human art, to the literature of Greece.

A phrase used as the object of said is usually an ellipsis for an entire clause.

7. "Come again soon," I urged.

"[I shall] Not [come] before to-morrow," said my friend.