Supporting artists

Abstract

This chapter completes the discussion of prepositions whose basic meanings are relational. It highlights the preposition with that is fully relational and other more minor prepositions, such as together-with, except (-for), but (-for), despite, and in spite-of. With and by are the sixth and seventh most frequent prepositions and occur in superficially similar contexts but with quite different effect (i.e Tom was hit with a stone vs Tom was hit by a stone). The chapter talks about a transitive verb hit that can have a human agent in subject slot and a peripheral noun phrase (pNP) marked by preposition with, indicating the instrument used by the agent to inflict the blow. Under a passive derivation, the underlying object argument becomes passive subject, and the underlying subject may be included, marked by preposition by.