Prepositions at the end of a sentence

My opponent has unfortunately misunderstood his position, viz. to support the prohibition of sentence-final prepositions. As such, we have agreed that the previous round will be annulled. Instead, we shall follow a new structure: R2 for contentions, R3 for rebuttals, R4 for defence and conclusion. My case will be split into two portions. Firstly, I will outline the basis that underlies my entire argument: scientific prescriptivism. Next, I will offer a defence of preposition stranding in wh-constructions, and finally provide a defence of preposition stranding in passive sentences where an oblique object is raised as the subject. Framework: Scientific prescriptivism This is the attitude taken by 'scientific prescriptivism', advocated by grammarians like Bryan A Garner and linguists like Geoff Pullum (4). It is a kind of middle ground between extreme descriptivism/language relativism, in which 'anything goes', and extreme prescriptivsm, in which correctness conditions do not at all depend on what people actually produce in their speech, but is derived from some higher authority who can haphazardly impose rules like 'no split infinitives' on language users. (5) Instead, the rules are based on rational discussion of the facts associated with language. To give an example of scientific prescriptivism, take the singular 'they'. Whether this should be prohibited is the subject of much debate. Under scientific prescriptivism, whether we should permit 'they' depends on whether its use will impose an additional cognitive load on the listener. If it will, then we should prohibit 'they'; conversely, if it produces no additional load, we should allow it. So, why scientific prescriptivism? Well, when we standardise our language, our goals should be to facilitate communication. Language has other uses, like phatic communion and facilitating thought, but we do not intend to police such uses through standardisation, so our main focus should be facilitating communication. Imposing an additional mental load on the listener or reader will slow down the transmission of information, so the rules for standard English should prevent this from happening. Scientific prescriptivism is the foundation on which my ensuing discussion will all be based. C1) Preposition stranding in wh-constructions By wh-constructions in this debate, I refer to two distinct but related syntactic phenomena in English: relative clauses and wh-questions. Both often exhibit an effect known as long-distance dependency. For the purpose of this debate, I will only consider relative and interrogative clauses in which a fronting effect occurs on an oblique object or prepositional phrase adjunct, which always contains long-distance dependencies. To illustrate the meaning of the term, I'll give the following examples: (1a) I've heard of this.(1b) This is something which I've heard of ∅.(1c) This is something of which I've heard ∅. (The ∅ symbol simply indicates that there is no object there; I do not imply the existence of a 'null object'.) (1b) contains a preposition at the end of a sentence, while (1c) does not. This is because in (1b), only the complement of of - that is, the relative pronoun which - was fronted, that is, put at the beginning of the phrase. In (1c), the entire prepositional phrase, of which, was fronted (a phenomenon known as pied piping), so there is no preposition at the end of the sentence. I will argue in this section that sentences with structures isomorphic to (1b) should not be prohibited in English and indeed, (1b) should be preferred over (1c) in certain cases. SC1) 'Nobody speaks like that' One compelling reason for choosing (1b) over (1c) in many cases is that people simply do not talk that way. Here is one example (2): (2a) ?On what did you step?(2b) What did you step on? While (2a) may sound like an acceptable sentence, it remains strange and no native speaker would talk like that. When people hear such sentences, it will also be likely that they need a moment of reflection to understand the sentence, since it does not conform to our usual methods of sentence formation. This will impede communication, and therefore should not be allowed in Standard English. Moreover, to use sentences like (2a) will come across as pretentious and pedantic in any register (even formal speech) (2). Whenever we communicate with other using language, it is helpful to use the technique of speech accommodation (3), that is, imitating the speech style of the other interlocutor. This will improve solidarity among the speakers and ensure a healthy and relaxed atmosphere. Therefore, we ought to abandon constructions that can potentially be perceived as pretentious, such as (2a), which will cast a bad impression among the other interlocutor and increase the distance between the two. Therefore, it is far healthier for standard English to rule (2b) acceptable than to force speakers to use (2a). SC2) 'Everyone speaks like that' My last argument was a negative one, arguing that the alternative is bad. I can flip the argument around and assert that preposition stranding is used by everyone. A quick search in the British National Corpus turns up 294 instances of 'about.' in newspapers and 228 in academia. This is only the tip of the iceberg - we did not count cases where 'about' precedes a question mark, or where the matrix clause is connected to another clause, leaving a comma after 'about' (e.g. 'There is nothing I know about, since I'm stupid.'). This is not an idiosyncratic feature of 'about'. We find 324 instances of 'of.' in newspapers and 230 in academia. (8) While this does not immediately imply the preposition should be stranded - that would be an ad populum - it does show that most people do speak and write like that, even in formal situations, and by speech accommodation it would be a good idea to communicate with others in this style. SC3) Prepositions sometimes transmit important information Prepositions are often thought to be functional categories which carry little information or weight. This is untrue. As anyone who has taken an introductory course to linguistics knows, the preposition is one of the four main parts of speech (or five if one counts adverbs) (1, 6), and it can carry important information in the sentence. This is especially true when the verb and preposition form part of a lexicalised 'phrasal verb' like 'give up' or 'look after'. In this case, it would be helpful to put the preposition at the very end. Pinker (2014) (7) gives the example of 'something to guard against' and 'he doesn't know what he's talking about'. Rewriting these into 'something against which to guard' and 'he doesn't know about what he's talking' is not only odd, but also packs too much of the information in the middle when they could have been better placed at the end. C2) Preposition stranding in the passive voice Next, I will consider preposition stranding in the passive voice where an oblique object is raised as the subject. This involves a change in subcategorisation. Usually, this means the agent of the predicate is either turned into an adjunct at the end or absent, whereas the object - in this case an oblique object - turns into the subject. Refer to the following examples for illustration (1, 6): (3a) One can rely on him. (rely <agent, theme>)(3b) He can be relied on. (relied <theme>)(3c) *On he can be relied. In (3a), 'rely' subcategorises for the agent and theme, which become the subject and oblique object; in (3b), 'relied' subcategorises for the theme only. (This is a crude lexicalist account, but the transformationist view does not make different with regards to my argument.) (3c) is simply wrong; 'on he' itself is not a grammatical phrase, and a prepositional phrase cannot be used as a subject anyway. The three sentences mean the same thing. (3c) is ungrammatical, so it's usually a choice between (3a) and (3b). One could argue that we can simply use (3a) in all situations - then a prohibition on (3b) in Standard English will be okay. But this is not the case: there are situations in which only the passive should be used, and there are situations in which only the active should be used. In the case of our example sentences, the passive wins. Readers usually focus their attention on the subject. (7) (3a) forces the reader to give undue attention to 'one', which is a nameless dummy pronoun that can mean anyone. Clearly, this isn't a good subject to focus on.* (3b) instead puts the emphasis back on 'he', the person we can rely on. This is a much better strategy than using a dummy pronoun. Therefore, (3b) will better facilitate communication than (3a), and hence, prepositions at the end of a sentence should not be prohibited in Standard English.On a final note, the 'everyone talks like that' argument still applies - the BNC has 105 instances of 'be relied on', for example. (8) (1) Dalrymple, M. (2001). LexicalR08;Functional Grammar. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.(2) http://www.quickanddirtytips.com...(3) Yule, G. (2014). The study of language. Cambridge University Press.(4) http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu...(5) http://itre.cis.upenn.edu...(6) Cook, V., & Newson, M. (2014). Chomsky's universal grammar. John Wiley & Sons.(7) Pinker, S. (2014). The sense of style: The thinking person's guide to writing in the 21st century. Penguin.(8) http://corpus.byu.edu... *No, I'm not changing that to 'on which to focus'!