Separation

Abstract

This chapter talks about away /ə’wei/ that continues the Old English on-weg or a-wag, the noun side goes back to OE sīde with a- being added to create adverb aside /ə’said/ in the fourteenth century, and and apart /ə’pa:t/ was taken over from French. It explores how away, aside, and apart each feature in some phrasal verbs and can each be extended to a phrasal preposition by adding from. By virtue of the final from, each of the prepositions is a proclitic to a following noun phrase (NP). The chapter clarifies how the adverb apart requires an NP with plural reference, which can be in intransitive subject function or in transitive object function. The referents of the plural NP may be separated when the preposition apart-from is employed in place of the adverb.